This is an excerpt from the keynote speech given at the workshop for Sunday School teachers this August, 1995 at the World Mission Center.

As do you, I know the value of good education for the second generation. During my childhood my parents sent me to Sunday School. I received spiritual nourishment and inspiration from my parents and grandparents. They very heartistically guided and taught me. This was the most important foundation for my spiritual life. Also I received special experience and realization from the one year of Christian education I received in the kindergarten, run by the Methodist Church.

I have been wondering how the Unification Church in America can make a good children's program. This conference is a great step, a beginning, in the history of our American church. We are publishing many good educational materials, and also we have local summer camps and family education programs. But even if we have an amazing number of buildings, properties and programs, but our second generation struggle and struggle, it has no meaning. It is important that our spiritual life and life of heavenly tradition flow smoothly to the second and third generation.

Everyone has received a God-given responsibility and destiny, so now at Headquarters we have a committee working very hard on the Divine Principle book retranslation. You have the black Divine Principle book, but honestly in the early time there were language barriers. You know Divine Principle, but sometimes reading it is very difficult, because of the translation. So God especially prepared one person to translate Divine Principle. He is of the second generation, the son of Rev. Won Pil Kim, Jin Keun Kim. He came from Korea and studied at Harvard and UTS. He knows Korean, Chinese characters and English very well, and he knows theory very well. I am the committee chairman, but Jin Keun together with Dr. Andrew Wilson and June Saunders are now doing the translation. You will be so inspired. You will have an easier time witnessing, you will be able to clearly understand Divine Principle.

For example, so ui dei, which means four position foundation. English translation of ui is position, but actually this Korean word has three different meanings. One is time, one is position, and one is function. So God created parents, husband, wife and children. They each have different position, different time, different physical age, and also different function. Husband has husband's function, wife has wife's function, children and parents the same. If one function does not work, this family does not work. Big trouble. But in English we cannot express these three meanings using only one word. So very complicated and sensitive word translating. In this new translation as much as possible we want to perfectly translate all points. We finished the initial translation, so now the committee is again checking and double checking.

We now have a limited dominion over time. Our generation on earth cannot live eternally. Physical life has a limitation. How can we live on earth eternally? Through the second generation and through the third generation, we bequeath our heart, character, personality, faith and lifestyle and culture. Everything is passed down to our second and third generation through our DNA. Through this we can live on earth generation to generation, forever. But even if our first generation lives very successfully on earth, and also has a good spiritual life on earth, if the second generation rejects our faith, it is a serious problem. It would mean that our Unification Church will completely disappear from the earth. So we as the first generation serve two important functions. We restore the evil historical background which we inherited, and set up heavenly tradition. This is our responsibility. And then we need to convey and connect our foundation to the second generation.

As the first generation we chose our faith by ourselves. We chose Unificationism, we chose the Blessing, we chose everything ourselves. But our second generation did not choose; they inherited. This actually can be problematic. Because we chose means we feel it is necessary, we are very hungry and thirsty about value and lifestyle, and we choose this. But our second generation freely receive, so they don't necessarily appreaciate it as much as we do. So taking care of the second generation is important.

Education really begins with the life of the child in the mother's womb. In oriental culture, during the child's nine months in the womb, the mother needs to educate and influence the unborn child in a good way. She should not be up and down emotionally, not watching bad things or fighting with her husband. She should have a peaceful, joyful, faithful attitude. The baby receives influence from that atmosphere children. That is the meaning of blood lineage.

Another important thing is, even in the mother's womb, which part develops and grows fastest? The baby's body is small but its head is big. After the child is born, the head continues to develop the fastest and is almost full size by around ten years old. After ten years old, the rest of the body continues to grow physically. In this sense our children's heart and spirituality develop before the age of ten as well. After ten years old is too late. So physically the head is full grown by around ten years old. That means before the child reaches ten years old, we have to influence the child's heart, spirituality and personality.

But what happened in today's world? Our first generation has many missions and duties: do this, do this, do this, go to Russia, go to Africa, so many things, so we have no time to take care of the second generation. So there is the danger that a lot of television will influence them, and Satan's influence will invade and destroy our second generation along with the corresponding secular generation as well.

Another important thing is that in the history of recreation, from the Divine Principle point of view, there is formation, growth, perfection. Number two, the second stage, is always dangerous, so our second generation is in a dangerous position. This was true in the history of restoration as well. There were the Cain-Abel struggle, the Shem and Ham problem, and Moses' second generation problem. In Divine Principle we say Moses' first generation made many mistakes, distrusted God, etc., so they had to wander forty years in the wilderness. But the second generation, centered on Joshua and Caleb, created even more trouble when they entered Canaan, so God divided them into Israel and Judah, and they all eventually went into exile, suffering hundreds of years of punishment.

So any religious movement needs to pass through three generations before we can say, "Yes, this is a good religious movement." We cannot say the Unification Church is really God's church, the top spiritual community right now. We believe it to be so, but after three generations we can prove it. That's the academic and scientific proof from religious history of the direction of the Unification Church. After three generations we can say that the Unification Church is not a cult. Now the media is saying that the Unification Church is a cult. We need time to prove them wrong. The second generation was always invaded by Satan in history, so we have to overcome this. This is very important. So, following the pattern of religious historyl, we need success to the third generation.

Father said blessed couples of the first generation, second generation and third generation should live together in the same house. It matters no if you can introduce yourself as, "I am a 430 blessed couple, I am so and so;" your second generation and grandchildren have to still grow up successfully. If you become grandparents and your children marry, and then your grandchildren, the third generation, are not blessed, we cannot say you have a successful blessed family. So in that sense, as Sunday School principals, teachers and coordinators you have a very important responsibility.

When we went out as pioneers, we had only two changes of clothes, one for summer and one for winter. But our second generation has new clothes every week. We take care of them physically, externally providing very good protection, but sometimes we over-protect our second generation. This is a problem. We as blessed fathers and mothers need to say clearly in front of second generation, "Yes or no; this is good, that is bad; this is righteous, that is unrighteous." We need to give clear guidance and direction. But we love them too much and protect them too much. We always follow them. So I watched carefully in Korea and America and I saw that the parents of those second generation children who have a right attitude have a very clear attitude and clear judgment. The parents are sometimes angry and sometimes give punishment. That's very important. So we must not spoil our children.

My grandfather taught me so many things me when I was a child. I was born to the Pak family; I was a fifteenth generation elder son. My grandfather really waited for the coming of his grandson. For three days he made a special condition, he did a cold shower condition and put on a special Confucianist robe and prepared. Also he wrote special words. Then he came to my mother's room and sat down in front of me. I, his grandson, was only three days old. Then he said, "Hello, I am your grandfather. Congratulations. Welcome, my fifteenth generation grandson." Then he read the words he had written. He said to me, "I am very happy, my new grandson." Then he explained the Pak family history, the course my ancestors followed during the last 2,000 years, their values and philosophy and lifestyle, and my lineage and background. Then he expressed his hope for me, "My grandson, please become this kind of person, this kind of value, this kind of philosophy, this kind of lifestyle, this kind of character. You have to serve the public." That was his prayer and blessing.

After that, when I was became a little stronger, he asked my mother, his daughter-in-law, "Can I hug my grandson?" So he held me and recited words, like a Lord's Prayer. That was his greeting, his prayer. Until I went to kindergarten, he recited this prayer every day. So God answered his prayer. I am from a humble background, but I met Father at a very young age, when I was in high school. You may not know the value of your prayers and your education for your children. But after ten years, twenty years, thirty years, the result will come.

Also my grandfather taught me so many things. He said always, "Someday you have to teach your children and your grandchildren as I am teaching you." I taught my son, my daughters. They also inherited this. They also have that lineage, that responsible feeling. So our very sincere, heartfelt, true investment and loving and guiding and educating our second generation is very important. Among your lineage, maybe a world-level, shining figure will come. President Clinton is very controversial, but he has many positive points too. He had a simple mother, his mother married many times, his stepfather was an alcoholic. But as a child, he knew how to negotiate this bad, drunken stepfather and make friends. He never complained. He helped his mother in a humble store. He grew up in Arkansas, a poor area. Because he didn't know Divine Principle, he followed the secular America young generation lifestyle, so he made many mistakes, but his attitude of 5 his life he got inspiration and realization from his mother. So he said, "She is my spiritual mother, I miss her." So we need to take care of our family, our children, and we need to take care of our blessed community children, with everybody working together.

What is kindergarten? Sunday School is the bridge from the family to the world. So Sunday School and kindergarten responsibility is to enable all of the children have a better family life. Through Sunday School kindergarten the children will become successful patriots, saints, and holy sons and daughters of God. They will become peacemakers, righteous people and holy sons and daughters of God. They will give joy to God.

But actually the most important thing is the parents. If one's family education is good, we don't need kindergarten. Originally in the Garden of Eden, what was the school? Adam's family was the school. The most important thing is family education. So family education means education by the grandparents and children through good give and take action. This makes the function of the four position foundation work very well. This is kindergarten. So kindergarten means your community, your church congregation, your blessed family community. Before marriage, when the child goes to the university, they have an individual life. But humankind actually functions on the level of family to family. Why? Because God is centered on the four position foundation, on true love. Human life moves from family to family.

Today the Catholic church and Buddhism do not teach the fullest concept of the family. So the Unification Church is teaching the highest value of the family. That's God's original creation of human life. But today's humankind has become animal-like. They don't marry, they become homosexual, they divorce. Even this trend went to Red China. I read recently that, in Red China, one-fourth of marriages end in divorce. What is the population of Red China? Over one billion. But one-fourth are divorced. Probably soon one-half. Is this a small amount? It is too big. If we go to Red China, the most important gift for Red China is this four position foundation, the ideal family, the blessing of the family.

So we really need to understand the family. Actually humankind education comes from the family. But this family is not working. Today's world family education is only expecting the public educational system to take care of education. Actually the public educational system is very good, teaching techniques with lots of equipment. They teach social, academic, technical information, but actually the idea and function of public education is controlled by the government. What is the purpose? Our industrialized society needs engineering schools, so they build them. We have some money, we need some entertainers, so we build this number of art schools. They are for the purpose of making public technicians. That is public education. But it cannot teach heart, love, personality and character. If public education is not good enough, who will take care of this area? Sunday School. So Sunday School is the bridge between blessed children, from the family to the big society--tribe, nation, world and cosmos.

So do your best. Also you have many experiences and have developed much material, so send it to Headquarters and we can expand those ideas to the North American continent and the world. All your experience and wisdom and research, send to Headquarters. Thank you very much. God bless you.

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