Questing for years to know God intimately, I had no idea of how much God wanted to be known by all peoples. The idea that God wants to teach every individual directly, interactively, in a system of education that requires intense dedication and scholastic rigor was beyond my thinking until I began to experience it in early 2003. I wrote on yellow tablet each day what I was being given as the first person words of God would come. As I would write they would come. If I quit writing they would stop coming. Wow what a system of education that is. And it has continued to this very day. I don’t write on yellow tablet now, I make videos of my speaking and then make notes of my recording to learn from what I spoke. This is life by surrender, by the word of I am, dynamic.
I pray my life will help you become the authentic you, the real me, that we are, God one in flesh, now healing each other, healing the earths, and walking in the power of humility that love creates and sustains by being it.
Here’s a few items about my path:
1969 – became the owner of my first car, one fast red ’64 GTO
1972 – owned my first motorcycle, a 1972 Honda CB350
1972 – bought my first Corvette, a 1968 yellow 4-speed 327 T-top
1974 – graduated from the University of South Carolina with a BS degree in Finance
1977 – graduated from Oral Roberts University with an MBA degree
1977 – 1980 worked for Oral Roberts University and related companies
1980 – 1983 worked as Internal Auditor for The Williams Companies in Tulsa
1983 – began my own business doing accounting, tax work, and consulting
1988 – started going to a nearby chapel to pray an hour each morning became part of my life
1990 – began teaching a church Sunday school class and started a small share group
1995 – my quest intensified to know God intimately. I began to write more notes about God in business and how God can give daily instructions.
1998 – taped a weekly television program called God in Business where I interviewed business people about how God led them in their everyday operations. Aired the program weekly for 3 months.
2000 – wrote a book entitled God in Business, A Common Man’s Guide that I self-published in 2001.
2001 – began having God in Business Leadership Network weekly luncheons. Developed a brief manual for Chapters of the GodinBusiness Leadership Network.
2002 – began God in Business School with one course, taught one night a week called God in Business 101. Taught God in Business 201 during the fall.
2002 – entered Regent University In Virginia Beach, Virginia leading to a Doctorate in Strategic Leadership degree.
2003 – while at early morning prayer one day, God asked me, “will you give me your mornings?” I began to spend my entire mornings at Trinity Episcopal in downtown Tulsa. I learned to be still and be taught directly by God from within, writing what I was being taught on yellow tablets. These teachings that taught me are to teach everyone who will learn to learn from them. These teachings are called lessons now and the first 2,400 of them form Database One of my covenant with you, and forms the foundation of our curriculum.
2004 – incorporated the University of The New Covenant as a school of prayer, intimacy with God, and practical creativity. Also began intensive week-long conferences in Tulsa called WeekWorks teaching what God was revealing in the words of the lessons I was writing each day. (21 WeekWorks were held between 2004 and 2008).
2005 – Graduated from Regent University with a Doctorate in Strategic Leadership (DSL)
2016 – Born as Theodore, changed my name to Grace Cottingham and began dressing as a woman for about 9 months.
2017 – Changed my name back to Theodore Joseph Cottingham and resumed dressing as a man, letting my beard grow again, knowing I am a woman in breath in a man’s body, okay with it all.
2023 – Incorporated The School of God, Inc. and received IRS 501(c)3 tax exempt status.
I love the beach and the lakes. Love to water ski; enjoy racquetball, pickleball, and living in Eureka.
I love you all.
Theodore Cottingham