This month is a milestone in the lifetime of Unity of Divine Creation Ministry with the public release of the Declaration of Understanding and Intent (our Declaration), along with its supplementary writing describing its purpose as well as its first commentary. As such, we are providing an update about our current state of affairs and mission.
Our ministry acknowledges that our current western society and culture is littered with common challenges occupying people’s time and energy; preventing them from seeking out their purpose and fulfilling their divine expression. We recognize that a matter of primary importance is to help people understand how to manage these mundane matters and fulfill their duties and obligations so they can free themselves of the things blocking them from exploring their spiritual nature and finding their own divine gifts they can offer in service to all of creation.
In alignment with the principles in our Declaration that acknowledge each individual’s unique expression as divine, we acknowledge the fact that membership in a church or ministry is by no means a requirement for anyone finding their divine purpose. People can recognize and do that at any time and through a myriad of ways and they will be guided to do so if they are in alignment with The Will of The Divine.
That being said, we believe that proper structuring and organization can provide a strong foundation to help us do what is required of us without it impinging on our personal spiritual growth. Our ministry, other churches, general community and organizations can be this foundation and serve as examples for others seeking to establish something similar that is more suited for their tastes. For this reason, our integrated auxiliary, The House of Markus Fellowship (HoMF), receives our primary focus.
Between our ministry and HoMF we strive to help educate people on how to handle their personal, private affairs peacefully and in a loving, friendly manner with our brothers and sisters and neighboring communities. Our organizational structure also serves as an experimental blueprint from which we hope to learn and educate people with so they can organize for the benefit of their communities as well.
Raising the Bar for Societal and Cultural Standards
Society and culture in today’s western world treats humans as mostly physical, mechanical and biochemical objects and bases its definition of “needs” off of this baseline. Our ministry takes the stance that this is deficient. We take each individual as spiritual expressions of God and as such recognize basic needs to include what is needed for spiritual growth.
In conformance with our Declaration’s principles regarding individual expression as divine, that means that “basic needs” differ for each as well. A simple example of this being that some men and women benefit and find they are closest to God when they are in solitude, while others may feel their expression is more actualized when they are with others.
With this position, it is part of our mission to understand “basic needs” as they are required by each individual and to establish baselines for each to fulfill their potential. This is encouraged to be practiced through one-on-one correspondence as well as holding this understanding in our hearts and minds and integrating it into our organizational structures for support. In this way we can help raise the bar for societal and cultural standards to be recognized as such, and evolve our organizations and institutions for future generations.
Future Goals and Missions
Due to our current limited capacity to fulfill our vision, we consider these “future goals and missions” although we would still consider them integral to what we intend to do as a ministry.
At the top of our list, and something our ministers feel they have been divinely charged with establishing, are means of support for health and healing. This is not only for physical well-being but for mental and emotional healing (especially from trauma) as a primary goal. Current society and culture has a well-established medical practice and we do not seek to replace that. We seek to supplement it through things like, but no limited to, holistic health practices, food as medicine, herbal medicine, alternative healing technologies, alternative therapies and meditative practices. Setting up healing centers and supporting individuals and organizations with goals in alignment with ours are potential ways for accomplishing this.
Supplementary education is another avenue we think that our civilization can benefit from. We would like to establish systems to be able to have members of our ministry offer courses and lessons in their areas of expertise to our community. Choice in education is a way to seek our spiritual growth and cultivate ourselves so we can fulfill our potential as individuated expressions of God.
As of this update, we don’t have clear plans set for how to fulfill these missions yet. This may come in the form of a slow build out, through the creation of more integrated auxiliaries, or through the divine grace of people hearing our vision and choosing to be a part of manifesting it. But we do believe that if we put it out there and our will is in alignment with The Will of The Divine, then it will come to pass.