Chicago’s Tuesday Evening Study Group

By Ken Keyser and Bob Solone, Urantia Foundation, Illinois, United States

Editor’s Note: Study groups have long been one of the most meaningful ways readers engage with the teachings of The Urantia Book. As part of a renewed emphasis on growing study groups worldwide, News Online will begin featuring stories from study group hosts. We start with Chicago’s Tuesday evening study group at 533 W Diversey Parkway.

Urantia Foundation, the original publisher, has long supported education and the study of The Urantia Book. For decades, since the 1920s, the Forum Room on the second floor at 533 Diversey Parkway has served as a welcoming place where readers gather to explore the teachings together.

The Tuesday Evening Study Group has continued steadily in the Forum Room—week after week, year after year—forming friendships and connections that have become a kind of extended family.

Our group studies The Urantia Book sequentially, reading and discussing the text at a thoughtful pace. Typically, meeting once a week, it takes four to five years to complete the full journey from cover to cover. Then we start again from page one, and, as many readers will attest, we continue to learn new insights each read-through.

In 2018, Zoom technology was introduced so those who could not attend physically could still participate. When the pandemic arrived in 2020, the group moved fully online, and readers from around the country—and eventually around the world—began joining the Tuesday evening conversations.

Today the group has become a hybrid gathering. A few participants attend in person at the Foundation, while others join from their homes across the United States and beyond. Those who gather in person often enjoy dinner together beforehand at one of the nearby restaurants. These informal meals help strengthen the friendships that grow naturally when people spend time studying, reflecting, and getting to know one another.

Like any long-running study group, consistency has been one of the keys to its longevity. With only the occasional holiday break, participants know that Tuesday evening will almost always find this small community gathering again—opening the book, reading together, and sharing insights.

For many of us, the Tuesday Evening Study Group has become a small but steady light in the week—a warm, friendly, and comfortable environment—and a welcomed break from our busy lives.

We remain grateful to Urantia Foundation for providing a welcoming and historically meaningful place where readers can gather to study and reflect on these supernal teachings.

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