Showing posts with label online ordination. Show all posts

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Universal Life Church

UNIVERSAL LIFE CHURCH MAILINGS ARCHIVE - SEPTEMBER 2007

Hello!

Well, I have some good news and I have some bad news. It's actually the same news, so it's really a matter of perspective. I'm going to be extending the deadline for the Who's Who book at least through the end of September.

The good news part of this is that I'm finding a whole bunch of new ULC ministers to share this information with. I underestimated the amount of time it would take to spread the word. Please put the link information or book information on your websites or in your yahoo groups or other forums. I would love to see this be a huge success, and I really need your help.

The bad news (for me) is that my book printer seems to have gone belly-up, so I need to find a new printer. That's another reason for the change in deadline. If any of you know of any good book printers, I'd love to have the company's contact info.

I also want to have as many people as possible in this book and I've had quite a few people ask me to extend the deadline for financial reasons or time constraints. I want the book to have as many people in it who wish to be a part of it, so I want to do whatever I can to accommodate that. If financial concerns are an issue, I'm happy to spread the payments out for you, so please feel free to ask. You can send several post-dated checks or we can make another arrangement. I would hate to have money stand in the way of your being in the book. As a reminder, the cost for the one page is $50, which includes one page of text, a picture (high resolution) and two copies of the finished book. Extra copies of the finished book are $15.

I have already received quite a few wonderful stories. What I'm finding interesting is that most (if not all -- I haven't read all of them yet) are talking more about their experience with ULC and how it changed their lives, as opposed to the 'horn-tooting' that so many are concerned about.

Please, when you do send your picture, send one with as high a resolution as possible. They will look much better in the book if they are higher resolution. If you sent one that is low resolution, please send me a new one.

So, for now, I'm extending the deadline for another month. I'll extend it again if I have to, but I'd like to get this show on the road. Once I have a substantial number of participants, we'll go to press. Be sure to get your submission in as soon as possible, so you can be sure to be included. And please let me know of anyone else you think qualifies for inclusion in the book. You can add them yourself at _____ or just send me their email and I can add them myself.

As for other news, of course we have some. We are launching a new seminary course. The Dr. of Shamanism Course is back! It's a brand new course, written by a new author. Bishop Pat has written many things for us before and is an excellent author. He is very generously donating this course to the Seminary, which will allow us more money to have more clerical help for the Seminary. Right now, the website upkeep and adding of new programs and materials falls entirely on me. Josh Copeland maintains our forum (and does a great job!) and we have Monica doing the bulk of the orders, with Jon, our cardmaker, taking care of those. Headquarters sends the credentials. But still, I could use some help with the course, the blogs and the RSS feed, and the extra money from the donated course will let me hire Monica to help add new sermons to our weekly sermon page and weekly Sunday School lessons to the new Sunday School Lesson feature as well.

Oh, did I mention that we now have a new weekly Sunday School feature? You can go to http://www.ulcseminary.org/sundayschool.php and sign up for this free service. Once a week, we will send you a Sunday School lesson that you can share with your children or your congregation. This is similar to the Religious Sermon feature that I talked about a few weeks ago.

To see all of the courses we have to offer, go to Seminary Courses, which lists all of the courses. We have a lot of amazing courses, so take a look in case you've missed any of the recent mailings. This is also your last chance to take the Islamic Studies course, as it ends on the first of September. Please sign up and reserve your spot.

Lastly, we have a new product -- Photo ID cards. You can get a ULC ID card with your picture on it, but please, if you do, send a very high resolution picture. Keep it big. People are sending in tiny, little, shrunk for the web, pictures which look terrible on the card. So please send large pictures.

I know this one was pretty long, so thanks for hanging in with me!

As always, I appreciate having you as a member of the ULC Seminary. I do my best to keep things fresh for you all and appreciate all your suggestions, assistance and input.

If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know by writing to amy@ulcseminary.org.

Amy Long

ULC Seminary Director

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The Universal Life Church is a comprehensive and affordable online seminary where we have classes in Christianity, a beginning course on Wicca, as well as a beginning course on Paganism, two courses in Metaphysics and much more.

Ordination with the Universal Life Church, is a free and lifetime ordination, so use the Free Online Ordination, button. We also make available many free wedding ceremonies for your use, as well as funeral ceremonies and other types of ceremonies.

The ULC, run by Rev. Long, has created a chaplaincy program where you can earn the coveted title of Chaplain. We also have a huge selection of Universal Life Church materials to help you with your professionalism and confidence. I've been ordained with the Universal Life Church for many years and it's Seminary since the beginning and an amazed by the frequent upgrades and new functions of the seminary.

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Universal Life Church

UNIVERSAL LIFE CHURCH MAILINGS ARCHIVE - AUGUST 2007

Hello,

As always, we have lots of changes and exciting things going on with the Seminary. The Shamanism program will be back up within the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out on the Seminary Program page. I will likely send another announcement about it when it goes up.

I have some bad news too. The author of the Islamic Studies program has decided to get the course published and is therefore pulling the program from us. We can, however, offer the program through the end of August. So if you are interested in this course and degree, you have 3 weeks to sign up for it and then it will be permanently gone. The link is here:

For the Who's Who book, we are still looking at an August 31st deadline, but that may be extended depending on interest. Please get your entries in as soon as possible. For information on how to proceed, go to www.ulcseminary.org/whoswho.php.

Since I have been asked these a couple of times, I'll answer the questions here as well:

The cost is $50.
You can order through the church store.
Send a high res. picture in an email
Please send your bio in an email as well.
Please send a 1 page bio.
If you want more than one page, you can pay for two if you like.
You will receive two copies of the finished book.
Extra copies are available
I have gotten some great response about the video sermons idea. To reiterate, if you want to videotape yourself doing a sermon, upload it to youtube and send me the youtube link. Then I'll embed it on the website.
Also, as I mentioned before, we now have the option for sermons to be emailed to you once a week. Right now, we only have the Christian ones done, but the S and Pagan ones will be done soon too. I'm going to merge the latter because I don't have enough Pagan ones for its own mailer. If you have a sermon of any kind you'd like to share, send it to guestsermon@ulcseminary.org
The Sunday School mailer will be ready soon as well. One lesson sent once a week. Mostly it has come down to me having enough time to upload them.
We have had the new Shamanism program donated to the Seminary and we're going to use the revenue from that class (and from another upcoming class which has also been donated) to pay for more admin. support. The site requires so much upkeep these days that I just can't keep up!

I'd like to talk again about our new course on Mystical Christianity. It's really fascinating and I think you will enjoy it. You can read a sample of the course at www.ulcseminary.org/mysticalchristianity.php. The details for ordering it can be found here: http://www.ulcseminary.org/oscommere/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=29&products_id=174
We have also launched a new course called The Miracle of Prayer. This course, designated as the Dr. of Spirituality, is written by Loretta Siani, the author of the Dr. of Metaphysics program. As many of you know, she is an excellent instructor and she has created another wonderful course. Check it out at http://www.ulcseminary.org/oscommere/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=29&products_id=175
For those who are concerned that we seem to have a plethora of Christian programs, rest-assured that our goals have not changed -- we want to teach our ministers as much as possible about all types of religions. We will soon have a course on both Shamanism and counseling. We have hopes of creating a chaplaincy program that can be another option for our seminary students.

Obviously, I'm back from vacation and back to work. For those of you who have had a delay in receiving any of your materials due to my absence, I do appreciate your patience.

There are many of you who are on the newsletter list, but haven't considered signing up for the Seminary Program. Just to let you know, it's free to sign up and you're under no obligation. As a seminary student, you'll get free samples of all the programs, as well as free mini programs and other readings of interest and you're under no obligation to take courses. Being a student of the Seminary gives you additional credibility as a minister, as well as access to a lot of material that is not available to the casual passerby.

I'd also like to ask that if you haven't put a link to the Seminary on your website, that you please do so. Even though we are the largest of all the ULC sites, with the most pages and most information, we still don't have the top rankings in the search engines. Crazy, but true. We would really really appreciate it.

And if you're not in our directory, please add yourself. If you want to update your information, the default password is 'password'. You can change it once you have an entry.

Keep up the good work!!!

--Amy

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Universal Life Church

UNIVERSAL LIFE CHURCH MAILINGS ARCHIVE - JULY 2007

Hello!

We have been having so many exciting and new things happening lately through the Seminary, that I haven't even had a chance to write a new regular newsletter, so I hope you will excuse this simple note.

As you know, we are well on our way with the Who's Who book for the ULC. We have decided to extend the deadline to get your submission in, to August 14th, 2007. As it turns out, I'll be on vacation during the last week of July and first week of August, so I won't be able to process all of the submissions right away anyway. I figured that I might as well extend the deadline. :)

Information is available for how to be included at ___. If you haven't already, please take the time to submit your registration fee and get me your story and picture as soon as possible so I can get a clear idea how many people are interested. I hope to have between 200 and 300 people in it. A hardback book has been requested, but this costs a lot more, so I need more participants to make it a reality.

I'd like to talk again about our new course on Mystical Christianity. It's really fascinating and I think you will enjoy it. You can read a sample of the course at www.ulcseminary.org/mysticalchristianity.php. The details for ordering it can be found here: http://www.ulcseminary.org/oscommere/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=29&products_id=174

We have also launched a new course called The Miracle of Prayer. This course, designated as the Dr. of Spirituality, is written by Loretta Siani, the author of the Dr. of Metaphysics program. As many of you know, she is an excellent instructor and she has created another wonderful course. Check it out at http://www.ulcseminary.org/oscommere/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=29&products_id=175

Another new feature we have is in the Religious Sermon section. (http://www.ulcseminary.org/sermonReligious.php) If you'd like to receive a new sermon every week by email, sign up for this free service. We have a lot of sermons posted on the site, but not everyone has time to sit online, so we have offered an email alternative. We will soon have that available for the other sermon sections as well.

Soon, I'll also have that option for the Sunday School lessons. I have a lot of lessons waiting to be posted, but I don't always have the time, so I thought I'd upload them as a weekly email to those who are interested in instructing the young in religious and spiritual matters.

As always, I appreciate having you as a member of the ULC Seminary. I do my best to keep things fresh for you all and appreciate all your suggestions, assistance and input.

If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know by writing to amy@ulcseminary.org.

Amy Long

ULC Seminary Director

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