Originally I wanted to have more workshops like this, but last year we only had one. We should have such workshops more often, maybe every two months or so. I think it would be good for you and for headquarters; for everyone. We are doing God's work. To do God's work successfully though, God must be with us. Satan opposes us because we are on God's side in the battle between God and Satan. We cannot overcome his attacks alone; God must be with us. If we don't invite God to be on our side we will never gain victory. So the most important thing for us to know is how to invite God to be with us. We must constantly keep this in mind. This means there must be a condition for God to be with us. So we have to make conditions and prepare the circumstances for God to be with us. Then what conditions must we make?

Last night Heung Jin Nim said that harmony is the element necessary to attract God. God is a God of love and can only go where His nature prevails. He cannot go where Satan's nature is prevalent even if He wants to. He can't stand Satan's nature. He must find His nature, then He can come automatically. So we need harmony, the harmony that comes from love. We also need members. You can invite God to come on your own, but if you have good members with you it is much easier for Him to come. So we need harmonious members and a harmonious place of love. And one other thing, I know that Germans like cleanliness and order. You clean your house and arrange your furniture neatly. I think the Germans are famous for that, aren't they? Why is that? No, no, don't tell me that it's because God is a God of order. It's because they don't like disorder. Even when you are invited into a dirty place you don't want to go there. If it's nice and clean though, you will enter even without being invited. God is the same. No matter how politely or desperately we invite Him, how can He enter if our house is dirty? We must prepare a nice, clean place for Him so He will want to enter.

There are two kinds of cleanliness; we must be spiritually clean and our home must be dean. I think many of you have visited Korea. In the old days Korean temples were kept very clean. The monks were constantly cleaning, they just cleaned and cleaned. Father says that our centers should be kept as dean as Buddhist temples; even more so, because our home should be the dwelling of God. God should be there. Therefore we must keep our spirit and our home clean. Spiritual cleanliness means having a healthy and harmonious spirit. When we fulfill these conditions God will come, and when He comes He will help us fight and gain victory. This is the secret of gaining victory. We don't have much power or strength, but when God is with us we can fight a good fight and win. Okay? So what we have to do is prepare the circumstances for God to be able to be with us. All members must do this, but especially the leaders.

Leaders are special members of our church. Then what is the leader's mission? God can only further His providence by speaking His word. The Bible says that God created man through the word. So recreation must also proceed through His word. God needs His mouthpieces, i.e. leaders. In the established churches ministers don't give up their pulpit to anyone; it is their place of life. A minister keeps that place and gives a sermon every Sunday. That is his most important and holiest mission. This is a leader's mission as well. Father speaks every Sunday after pledge because words are the weapon to revive people. That's why he does this. This is also why I try to speak every Sunday after pledge. If I don't do this, I'm not really fulfilling my mission.

What effect does this have? Do you think it's easy to speak every Sunday? You can't say the same thing all the time, but must change the contents of your speech. You must constantly think of God's word. This responsibility makes you think of a fitting topic or contents all the time and as a result you think of God all the time. You must pray to God. If you don't you cannot get material to speak about. So actually this is not only good for others, but for yourself as well. If you have this consciousness it will help you look for God's words. You also have to consider your members, you must discover what they need. Sometimes by speaking with them you can find a topic to speak about. So in this way you will concentrate more on God, your prayer and your members. This will benefit your work as a leader. Of course you cannot always give a good speech, I know that. Sometimes you can give a Divine Principle lecture for Sunday service instead; anyway try to speak. You can improve yourself in many ways by speaking.

Sometimes we make mistakes. We shouldn't be afraid to make mistakes though; everyone makes mistakes. But we shouldn't let them defeat us. This is very important; when you make a mistake you shouldn't be defeated by it. If you want to retreat or just collapse as a result of a mistake, then you have been defeated by it. You should overcome your mistakes. If you learn something from a mistake you can win over it. So don't be afraid to make mistakes; learn from them. Don't repeat the same mistake. There is a saying that true failure lies in the repetition of mistakes. When we make the same mistake over and over again, that is failure. One mistake is okay though; we can learn from that. Actually we have much to learn, so we should be open to learn from anyone. Father said that he is learning many things from the inmates in Danbury. We should be aware that anybody can be our teacher. If we do, I think we can improve ourselves and you can become better center leaders. So you should have the desire and ability to learn from anyone at anytime.

It is also important to record everything we do. I don't mean to say that you should keep a diary, but you should keep a record of your activities. This can be your reference to evaluate how you did. This is why we asked you to submit activity reports twice a month stating how many center members worked how many hours doing what. In this way you can know how much you did in the previous fifteen days. If you don't keep such records, however, you have no way of knowing how effectively you are working. By keeping reports we can see how our members are working: how many hours were used for fund raising, how many for witnessing and how many for visiting ministers. This is not to criticize your work, but to keep track and let you know how much you did. Actually it is more for yourselves than headquarters. We also want to see, but the main purpose is so you can see how you are doing.

More and more couples' separation period is ending. Some members have already started family life and others will soon start; but before they do they should attend 40-day workshop, especially those who are not in an active mission. Those who have already started, who didn't attend 40-day workshop should also attend. Actually this is a condition for them to start. We should encourage all blessed members to attend 40-day workshop before starting family life.

We must train more German members. Austrians are like Germans, so we should consider them as such. We have to train future leaders. German members must take more responsibility and in this way be trained to accept even greater missions in the future. I attended the International Security Council meeting in Paris recently. Two German generals also attended and I learned from them that Germans usually don't listen to people of other nationalities. They trust their own people, but not foreigners. I think this may be part of the German mentality. So, it may be the same in our work. Germans may pay more attention if German members speak to them. What do you think about this? Only generals are this way? No, I don't think so. Anyway we have to invite more German members and blessed couples to get involved in God's mission. The many foreign members working here will return to their own countries someday and then Germans will have to take care of this nation. We should start preparing for that time.

In some cities there are home members and blessed couples who are not full time members. We must get them involved, we have to involve home members and blessed couples in God's providence. Many center leaders are younger than the blessed couples, so they shouldn't feel that they can give orders to blessed couples. No, don't think that way. Visit them and ask them for their help and support. Ask for their advice when you have difficulties or when you are planning something. Go to them and discuss any problems you may have with them. In this way they can cooperate with you naturally. If you don't go, however, if you don't share your problems with them, it will be difficult for them to cooperate with you. Always humble yourself, especially with older blessed couples, and ask them for their help and advice. If you do this I think you can develop a good relationship with them. We also need to develop good contact with our associate members. We have many associate members. Sometimes you can't visit all of them yourself. In that case, ask your members to visit them. Anyway, we need a close relationship with our associate members, otherwise there is no sense in having them. If you ignore them, then after a while they will just leave, becoming like other fallen people. We should cultivate good relationships with them.

Another important task is taking care of members. A center leader's mission is to care for his members as parents care for their children. The center leader's position is similar to that of a parent. Center leaders must take good care of members, caring for their spiritual as well as their physical needs and health. If a member has a problem with his spouse, his center leader should help him take care of it. We always stress that leaders should have a parental heart. You don't have any children, so it is difficult for you to have a parental heart, but try to imagine what a parent's heart is like. Parents worry about their children more than themselves. It won't come easily, because you haven't experienced raising your own children. Nevertheless, try to achieve this.

I think it is very good to discuss everything. Whenever you have something to discuss or some problem it is always better to share your situation. We should provide more opportunities for members to speak out. If members speak out, I think they can be relieved some way. We can also learn many things from their situation. We can discover ways to help brothers and sisters. We should always be aware of the importance of give and take. We cannot generate any energy or power without it; we need give and take to provide the power necessary to accomplish our mission. Try to take the time to have give and take with your members, just as we have done today.

Center leaders must try to have pride and confidence in their work. Of course we have to help them develop pride, but they themselves must try to have confidence in their work. Without pride and confidence it is difficult to fulfill the mission of a center leader, so we must help them. Headquarters staff and the center leaders must work together to reach that standard.

Center leaders have many responsibilities, the most important of which is giving Divine Principle lectures. Center leaders must be able to lecture. You need to study and practice to be able to give good lectures. Also, you don't have to explain everything when you lecture, but there are some main points. When you only have one or two hours, you have to choose the most important points. We will give you the points to concentrate on later, points which you shouldn't overlook when lecturing. I think you saw the video this morning. What were your feelings or impressions? Whenever I asked someone to make a video before, he said, "It's not good if we just make a video of someone giving a lecture on a blackboard." But how was that? Good. It was good. But whenever I wanted to make simple videos I was always told we have to add some scenery, or something. But we can make good videos even without scenery, just with a lecturer and a blackboard. If you feel you can make good videotapes, you can make them very easily; you just make them, there's no need to do a lot of sophisticated work. But, as you see, to make good videotapes the lecturer must have practice. Through experience you gain inspiration about how to present better lectures thereby developing into a good lecturer. Today's lecture was for ministers. It was very good. We should make similar videos, not for ministers, but for the public, something to suit the German mentality. This can only happen when you have more lecturing experience though.

You don't have much opportunity to lecture, because you rely on videos too much. This is the problem now; you don't give lectures yourself. Maybe at workshops, but at other times, in your center for example, do you lecture? We made a condition to lecture for half an hour each morning. It was good. Good. Center leaders should try to give lectures. It's okay to use videotapes, because you never know when a guest may come. The videos are good for that purpose; they are always available. But in other cases you should try to lecture. With practice you will give better lectures. We can always find better ways of presenting the Principle. With experience we can make better videotapes that can be used in every center. I think we should continue the center leaders workshops we started some time ago. The focus being to learn how to give good Principle lectures. First Divine Principle and then CAUSA World View. Actually lecturing is not difficult once you know the main points. We should concentrate on these points. First we must be able to give good Divine Principle lectures, then we can work on CAUSA World View.

We want to compile 100 questions and answers on Divine Principle for our members, just simple questions and answers, then we will give a test based on these questions. If the members study and understand these questions and answers, they will surely pass. The questions will be simple, but cover the aspects of the Principle everyone should know.

The German church is the first in Europe; it is the forefather or founding church of Europe and therefore has more responsibility than the other churches here. God had a special providence for Germany centering upon Charlemagne. If he had succeeded, God's blessing would have come to Europe. We must restore this failure. Father was very happy to hear that we had a special 40-day witnessing condition. I reported the results to him and explained that this was the first time we had visited ministers in Germany. We now have 477 positive or neutral contacts. This is quite a good number. We should concentrate on bringing them closer to us and helping them understand us more. Many ministers don't realize we have a theology. They think the Unification Church has no teaching, that we just follow Rev. Moon. But we do have a theology; one that is based on the Bible and can be connected to their theology. Some points are different, but the base is the same. Once they understand this, they won't oppose us as before, but will be our friends. We must work in this direction.

Let us close in prayer:

Our loving Heavenly Father, we came together the past three days to discuss many things as center leaders of Germany. Father, without you we cannot fight our fight well nor can we gain victory. We ask you to use us as your instruments and be with us so we can have your wisdom, your power and your spirit to drive your enemy Satan from this earth. Father, we were called and have struggled for this purpose, but we couldn't bring as much result as you wanted, because we weren't mature enough. We weren't well equipped with your weapons of truth and love. From now on we want to become more successful in our mission. We ask for your guidance, we need your help to become better leaders so we can truly represent you and our True Parents in Germany.

Father, Germany is very important providentially. We know how much you love this nation. Heung Jin Nim and Jesus also said they love this nation very much and that they expect a lot from this nation. So we must love this nation as you and our True Parents love it. Father, we want to have a loving heart for the German nation and people. We want to fulfill our mission by giving your love and truth to the people of this nation.

Father, we want to dedicate ourselves in this year 1985. We need many members. We haven't much power by ourselves, but when we are united with our members and our blessed families we can gain great power and do more for you. We ask you to send prepared people that we can raise as your children and march forward with to achieve your goal of restoration. Father, we are truly grateful for your love and care these past three days. We especially want to return our gratitude to our True Parents who still suffer for us. Father, we ask you to be with our True Father so he can be safe and pray that he can be released from Danbury soon.

Father, after this meeting the center leaders will return to their centers. Please be with them, that they may return safely and meet their members with joyful hearts. Please be with them and give them abundant blessing so they can always have a joyful heart, abundant power and enough strength to overcome all the difficulties they face. We pray all this in the name of our True Parents. Amen.

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