What would God do in Singapore

George Glass
January 1981

South-East Asian missionaries meeting with Rev. Kwak in January 1980

What would Heavenly Father do if He were in my situation?

Would He be active, passive, innovative? Would He just sit and wait for someone else to take care of everything?

From our Divine Principle, it is so clear that Heavenly Father's way is one of action, based on planning. God has a plan for the restoration of every nation, and therefore our job is simply to try to understand God's feelings about us and what His plan is for us -- and then to actualize that.

In the beginning of our work, we had to lay a foundation, just as in Moses' course we study about the need to establish the providence for the start. Thus, we taught the Divine Principle as often and as deeply as possible, in order to gain one member. Then we worked for three members, 12, 21 and 40 members. A corollary of this was that we worked equally as hard to become financially self-sufficient. Furthermore, we worked to gain registration for our church. This was our goal in the first three years, although it actually took a little longer than that.

This basic approach in our mission stems from our fundamental attitude -- an attitude which is gained from our knowledge of Part II of the Divine Principle, God's providence of restoration.

This begins with faith in God and hope in finding the people that God has prepared. We felt that just as Heavenly Father had prepared the whole world to receive the Messiah, certainly He has made some basic preparation in each country and has selected individuals in those countries that He would like to work with. So we have to find these people.

Then our response is to love the brothers and sisters of our nation whom God has sent to us. We are fundamentally brothers and sisters in attitude, not Cain and Abel in conflict with each other. Cain and Abel were brothers first, and only later became enemies.

In our case, almost all of the members we have came in an almost miraculous fashion. Therefore, each person is so precious. We determined to share our Divine Principle and standard of living with the people that God sent us. Our family members range in age from teenagers to people in their fifties. Everyone has a different educational and spiritual background, and yet, as we always find, the miracle is that God can bring us together, and through our efforts to unite around the Divine Principle and True Parents, we can see the beginnings of a true worldwide family of God.

What we feel about our Unification Church is that God wants to use us to set a new standard for the world, and our goal has to be reflected not only in what we say, but what we do. We want to be the people who contribute the most to Singapore, so we stress very much that Heavenly Father is always with us and hoping that each one of us will develop his talents and abilities to the fullest.

The number one responsibility of each of us is, of course, to share our Divine Principle with people. Parallel to that, we have our everyday responsibilities as well, which means we have to be, if we are students, not just good students, but the best students (or as best as we can be). If we are working in business, we want to be as principled in our endeavors as we can be. If we are anything, the objective is the same. What we are really trying to do is to set the heavenly example for all the other people of our nation to follow.

One of the saddest things that we have experienced throughout the world is the negativity that has been built up towards our True Parents. We know that so often, when people meet us, they wonder how such nice people could be associated with that evil Reverend Moon. We hope that through our daily life, people will come to see the spirit of God and True Parents residing in us.

As another part of our attitude, we feel that the essence of world restoration is the restoration of the family unit. Therefore, we emphasize the members in Singapore keeping the very close connection with their parents and families, supporting them both spiritually and physically.

Although it took us until October 10, 1980 to register our church, by that time we had made a foundation. We gained members and money, and now we have a plan of action.

For us, the way to really carry out God's will is first by sharing our Divine Principle with as many people as we can, as quickly as we can, and there is no better way to do this than through Home Church. Thus, our next goal is to increase membership and establish our Home Church program. Once members receive and understand the Divine Principle, our desire is to have them experience God and restore their relationship with Him. The way to do this is through Home Church.

Until now, all throughout the world, we have always been hampered by the fact that it takes time to learn our Divine Principle and learn how to teach it. We did not have enough teachers. We could not really counsel people about the Divine Principle, because we were so busy working, witnessing and even teaching -- investing so much time and energy. But we are now so fortunate in having so many materials at our disposal.

One way that we want to develop our teaching will be by utilizing videotapes. Our educational program will involve inviting people to a two-hour introductory lecture, and then inviting them for seven evenings of Level 4 videotape lectures. Following this, we want to bring the interested people to the two-day workshop (which we will hold every weekend). Then, because people have to work and carry out their normal activities, we will have a seven-evening workshop, with a lecturer and staff. Then we will have a 21-evening workshop course.

During this time, people will naturally carry on their routine responsibilities, and they can stay with us or stay at home, as circumstances allow. But after the 21-evening workshop, our emphasis will be on our members returning to their homes and from that base carry out their Home Church program. With the experience gained from Home Church work, we feel that our members will be qualified to participate in a 40-day training program. This will be our basic pattern for sharing the Divine Principle with people.

Thus, the initial phases of our educational program will use videotapes extensively. This can be done systematically. If we have, for example, ten Home Church areas and use a videotape recorder in each one, bringing 14-15 people per day to each location to hear Divine Principle, within one month, more than 4,000 people would have heard at least the two-hour lecture. If we could double the number of Home Church areas and thus the number of video tape players, we could teach 8,000 people a month.

Our Home Church areas are all housing flats. Housewives could come down to see a tape when they are free. Students attend school in two shifts, from 6:00-1:00 and from 1:00-6:00. Thus they could come when they are out of school.

If the families average four members, each 360-home area would have 1,440 people. If 14 people come every day to hear the Divine Principle, that means that we should be able to teach at least the basic outline of the Divine Principle to everybody in a Home Church area within 103 days. Of course, our two-hour videotape lecture has to really reflect Heavenly Father's heart and be Heavenly Father's message to His children.

We would think that out of every 40 people who hear the Divine Principle in its entirety, at least one person could fully accept it.

Beginning with the basic two-hour lecture, and developing that lecture through workshops, we should be able to create a wonderful educational program, which will also include talks by educators, professors, media people, spiritual leaders, etc. We want to develop a complete library of videotapes on a wide range of subjects, which will enable us to understand Divine Principle in our practical, everyday life.

A central point of our week is our Sunday service, and we hope to develop Sunday school and, beyond that, day care centers, at least initially.

Some people can give 100 percent of themselves to God, and that is ideal. Other people can give maybe only five percent of themselves. No matter what, anything that we can contribute certainly must be acceptable to Heavenly Father. It is obvious that we can only get out of our relationship what we put into it, thus, we want to encourage people to give as much of themselves to God as they can.

Our basic theory is that everyone has a different indemnity path to reach True Parents and Heavenly Father. If we put 100 percent of our effort into doing what Father has done, we will know him and, consequently, know God. But for many reasons, people are not always able to work for God 100 percent. Those who can will know Him sooner, and the world will be restored more quickly. Surely, God has prepared an adequate number of hearts in every nation to carry out His will. We believe in thinking positively that God has prepared people for us to meet, and if we can do this at the correct time and with a sincere effort, Heavenly Father can work.

In the world as it exists today, we always find that people are so desperate for love and hope. Furthermore, if we can really share the Divine Principle, as God Himself would do were He right here on earth in bodily form, then people can feel love and find hope in our Divine Principle and the Unification Church.