Shifting From Comfort to Growth
Course Description
If you seek liberation from limiting belief systems and old habits of feeling, thinking, and acting that no longer serve your path of progressive enlightenment, then you may benefit greatly from participating in Shifting from Comfort to Growth.
This 7-week experiential course uses time-tested principles of spiritual thinking and practice, which facilitate the soul's orientation towards God-consciousness, loving service to others, and even to cosmic consciousness.
Wholehearted participants will be guided beyond their comfort zone, through a process of transcending fear and learning new practical skills, towards higher and wider levels of intellectual, emotional, and spiritual intelligence.
Relying on the unsurpassed teachings of The Urantia Book, faith-trust in God, and earnest personal spiritual inquiry and insights, participants will be supported by experienced spiritual guides in realizing and actualizing the 7 Steps to Spiritual Freedom.
These steps help us to move out of our comfort zone, transcend fear, learn new practical skills, and be wholeheartedly involved in our own religious and spiritual growth to become more and more useful to others in loving and unselfish service.
The smaller class size will afford participants a greater measure of personal support from the course guides and interaction with their peers.
Instructor:
Guy Perron, Agnes Lazar
Start Date:
9/6/2025
End Date:
10/18/2025
Times:
8:00-10:00 am Pacific; 9:00 MT; 10:00 CT; 11:00 ET; 5:00-7:00 pm Belgium (UTC+01.00)
Format: This experiential course focuses on earnest inquiry, personal insight, sharing one's religious experiences with others in a circle of trust, and the practice of prayer, meditation, and worship. It does not require extensive reading or any written homework - only sincere personal spiritual practice throughout the days and weeks of the course.
The course will feature a total of 7 live class discussions in a Zoom meeting room during which the students and Instructors will meet to discuss the week's growth concepts, learning activities, and reflective questions within the privacy of what Rodin calls "a union of souls." (160:2.7)
Participants will be guided by relevant passages in The Urantia Book, the practices of prayer and worship, and meditative contemplation of two or three probing questions that stir the truth-seeking mind and provoke insight.
Level: For everyone
Group Size: Maximum of 12 people
Effort: A 2-hour weekly Zoom class discussion + 2 hours a week outside class (reading and videos posted on WhatsApp)
Language: English
Weekly Outline
Week 1: Preparation and commitment
Week 2: Moving out of our comfort zone – facing acedia & spiritual bypassing
Week 3: Transcending fear – acquiring courage and spiritual strength
Week 4: Learning new practical inner skills
Week 5: Religious growth – connecting – making inner changes
Week 6: Spiritual growth – asking to be transformed – becoming more
Week 7: Morontial living and socializing – becoming more and more helpful to others
Please note: This experiential class is designed to stimulate spiritual education and growth through peer sharing. It is not intended to be group therapy.
Learning Outcomes
1. Making the moral decision to move out of stagnation and maintaining my wholehearted commitment to grow morontially.
2. Acceptance of who I am according to God’s plan: no more comforting illusions, avoiding acedia, and spiritual bypassing.
3. Facing fear, limitations, and coping mechanisms – healing through the sevenfold path of salvation by living faith.
4. Higher learning – acquiring transformative knowledge and developing new skills.
5. Experiential religious growth – connecting. Breakthrough – transcending obstacles to our communion, communication, and collaboration with God, our Thought Adjuster.
6. Divine spiritual growth – accepting God’s ideal for me personally – asking, accepting, and welcoming the tremendous transformation God has for me.
7. Living the morontia life: serving lovingly and unselfishly and spreading the good news that God is our Divine Parent, we are all spiritual brothers and sisters, and the "Kingdom of God" is within each of us.
Guy Perron and Agnes Lazar have been dedicated students of The Urantia Book since 2000. They apply themselves wholeheartedly to diligently living and sharing its incomparable teachings in their daily lives. They are well-qualified to serve as spiritual friends and guides to those seeking God-consciousness. Their goal is to serve selflessly in all spheres and places of activity: education, individual, family, and community.
Guy and Agnes have given workshops and led numerous classes in English and French, including “Is God’s Love Unconditional,” “Discourse of the Master on the Soul,” “Teaching and Leadership According to The Urantia Book,” and “Are We in the Way of God,” among many others. They live and work in Belgium and Canada.