TRUSTEE & SENIOR FACULTY

Marvin Gawryn considers himself incredibly lucky. 50 years ago, when he was 17 and barely sentient, at his high school job at one of the first metaphysical book shops in Los Angeles, he stumbled upon The Urantia Book. It has shaped his entire adult life from that day forward.

He has participated in and led study groups weekly for 40 years, and served in numerous leadership roles with the Urantia Book Fellowship and other service organizations. His dearest friends are fellow readers. He is the author of Reaching High: The Psychology of Spiritual Living, and has presented workshops at many movement conferences. He was especially fortunate to serve as Chair of the Fellowship’s Liaison Committee during efforts to restore cooperative relations with Urantia Foundation and Urantia Association after the turbulence of the 1990’s. He is currently a member of UUI's Board of Directors and Curriculum Committee, and of the Standard Reference Text Committee, which works with the publishers of The Urantia Book to ensure the integrity of the original 1955 text.

Marvin is semi-retired after 30 years in practice as a family therapist, and currently works as the executive director of the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada. He has, over the past 30 years, researched and offered workshops on the socialization of religion material in The Urantia Book, and in 1988 completed a two year Certificate of Theological Studies from the Graduate Theological Union in the history and sociology of religion.

He is president of the Family of God Fellowship (familyofgodfellowship.org), which is dedicated to helping people live their lives more fully in spiritual family relationship, and to spreading Jesus’s gospel as expressed in The Urantia Book—a thrilling and dynamic Way of Life in the Family of God.

Most importantly, Marvin and his lovely, wise wife Francyl, continue to enjoy the remarkable experience of serving as parents to two amazing young women, their husbands, and two beloved grandchildren. “Such a life on such a planet!” (111:7:5 (1223.7))