The Words of the Nagasaka Family
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The Words of the Nagasaka Family |
Elements
of Cheon Il Guk
After I was asked to come in as the project manager of the Vision 2020 Project of FFWPU International in March 2013, I went around speaking to our leaders and elders in and outside of Korea in an effort to understand what had been said and hat had been commonly understood about the project. Although there seemed to
be general awareness of the goal and the new system and budget already in place, I felt that a basic consensus had not yet been reached. This presentation is an attempt to confirm what most of you already (should) know, which are the basics and the fundamentals. All I did was try to draw an overall picture of what I learned from the hearings of our leaders and elders in world missions. I hope to take each area one by one, so we can move toward consensus and to provide an external framework for you to evaluate and consider in line with your strategies and priorities as we drive the Vision 2020 Project of FFWPU forward in various strategic nations.
My first attempt was to spell out our common vision for this project, a universal vision. We often use terms such as "restore a nation" or "restore sovereignty," which 1 thought could be misleading if our intentions were misunderstood. If we are to use those terms, we should clarify that they mean to help restore the nation's or state's sovereignty to its original ideal under God, where people are governed in peace and happiness with true love. "Cheon II Guk" is our religion's term, which is often translated as "nation of peace." It has very deep significance for us and actualizing it on earth is our ultimate goal. We should never mistakenly see ourselves as seeking to win a power game, take over a government or gain political domination through the church. Such misconceptions in our members or miscommunication of our true intentions can create unnecessary conflict with the current and existing stakeholders of a nation. Our end goals are the peace of the state and the happiness of the people. As Father says, "The nation does not exist for our church, but our church exists for the nation, so that the nation can exist for the world."
True Father gave the slogan, "love Heaven, love the people (humanity) and love the nation," to many of our educational institutions. I would like to propose this as our common mission. A mission usually explains whom we serve and how we serve them.
Through this slogan, I want to shed light on a simple truth -- that to love God means to love people, which results in loving the environment or institution that they dwell in. Sometimes, we see those who forget the second or third parts of the slogan, but as much as we love God, we should care about our fellow citizens, his children, and the state of the nation they live in. As I heard from my elders, at least in Korea and in Japan, that our movement grew the most in times when everyone in our movement, from the top leaders to those who just joined, were genuinely crazy about saving the nation spiritually and politically. I believe that others ought to recognize our movement as a patriotic peace movement that exists for others' sake, because of our love of our Heavenly Parent. If there are other patriotic groups, let us ask ourselves, Are we more genuine than other patriotic peace movements, our competitors in the nation?
Let's say that our vision or ultimate goal is the substantiation of Cheon II Guk. What does that mean? Making our faith a national or state religion? Crowning True Parents the head of state? Or would it entail all citizens going through the Blessing Ceremony, or the president or the prime minister taking an oath on our "black book"? These are all just hypothetical ideas.
No broad agreement has been reached on what solidifying Cheon Il Guk means. Whatever the expected outcome, however, they have one thing in common: Becoming the national mainstream must happen before any of the suggested outcomes can occur. So let's ask ourselves, How do we become the mainstream of the country? Yes, it's a headache. I would like to take a step back and make it easier by asking you to think about how we enter the mainstream. I remember asking myself that during a class I took at the Unification Theological Seminary in the late 1990s when the professor (I believe it was Dr. Ward) was lecturing about a thesis written by an American scholar claiming that the Mormons and the Unification Church have now entered the mainstream. According to that scholar, Mormons who dominate the state of Utah can consistently send senators and congressmen to capitol hill, and the Unification Church through the Washington Times gained a strong voice, allowing both to influence the policies of the country. That taught me that entering the mainstream means to have an influence on national policies. In other words, it is to secure a foundation allowing us to apply our principles to the culture and structure of the nation. The means for doing this could be different depending on the country. It might be a political party, a national media outlet, a municipal majority in the capital or nationally, a broad base of core membership or associate of peace ambassadors. I am sure groups that have recently emerged and have attained such status exist in your nation and are worth studying.
Let's say that when we "become the main-stream," we "restore sovereignty" or socially gain the "rights of a king," which can mean a comprehensive authority entrusted to us by the people. That is ideal. However, in many nations, we currently are in the "survival" realm, trying to secure our social "rights to life." Here, not having rights to life means that the government tolerates discrimination or persecution against us based on our faith. The big question becomes how to emerge from the survival stage and progress to that of sovereignty.
As explained in the Divine Principle, all things go through stages of growth. You do not give birth to a grown-up. This tells us that there are also stages in the development of our social engagement levels. (See diagram 1) To move up from the level of survival, we must be "accepted" by the society, which may mean winning our civil rights, where discrimination against us is no longer tolerated by law. From being accepted, we need to move on to being respected, which may mean in our teaching, winning the right of the eldest son. When we hold the right of the eldest son, it may mean that we share certain social responsibilities and leadership in society. From being respected, we may move on to being expected, which may be interpreted as gaining the right of a parent. Here, "expected" can also mean that some degree of authority in certain areas is delegated to us. We become so trusted by the people that they start saying, Give Unificationists a chance; they might make the country better.
Expectation develops on acceptance and respect. When we meet the people's expectations well enough, they may entrust us with comprehensive authority, and that may be the situation that qualifies as restoration of "sovereignty" or "kingship."
The point of this discussion is that it takes a process to get to the ideal, and we must take it stage by stage. It also means that every nation may be at a different level in light of our national movement's social engagement; hence, the required initiatives and focuses could also be different. You should discuss among yourselves at which stage the foundation in your country may currently be, how stable it is, and to which stage you want to rise within the next two to three years.
If you make such analyses and goals, we can discuss how to get there. I will not go into details about the diagram; for example, though, from the stage of social survival to being socially accepted, we need to understand the law and comply with it, have proper accounting, clarify our decision-making process and have a certain level of communication with the public sector in order to build credibility in society. If you want to move on to become respected, you need to think of what kind of contributions you are making to society. It can begin with short-term service projects, graduate to sustained initiatives and ideally culminate in work that has an infrastructure, is driven by a permanent commitment and provides valuable contributions to society. In the way that the processes or focuses required may differ for a child as the child goes through different stages of growth -- for example, infant, childhood and adolescence -- our processes or focuses when developing our degree of social engagement may change depending on our current focus and goal. It is better to set relevant goals and relevant focuses by understanding where you are in the social context. This model of development may be difficult to apply in countries that lack democracy or freedom of faith, but it should be applicable to at least the strategic nations that were selected this time.
Another perspective I would like to present is the growth stages of a church foundation. When we say "church foundation," we often talk about the size of membership, but here I am presenting the perspective of organization model or the character of the management. (See diagram 2)
In an early stage of our ministry, we start from a family- like group. Everybody knows everybody else and members share a close bond of heart. The group may not be systematic or disciplined in terms of organizational principles, but it can work well for groups of up to perhaps five hundred people. However, if you go beyond a certain number, the group begins to resemble a tribal community, where people may not share personal relations with everyone in the group, which now requires a strong drive from leadership and layers of leaders to keep adherence. It may not be completely systematic, but there is a sense of direction for the people. As I have observed, this model can accommodate three thousand to five thousand members, depending on the situation of the field and the definition of membership.
A church at that stage can conduct strong campaigns to bring many people to our centers, workshops and events, but after a while, we may begin to see very little change in the size of the congregation, even with the efforts of many people mobilized to witness. If this is the case, the problem may not be with the inflow of people, but with the quality of the container, or the church management style itself. To break through this barrier to growth, the church is challenged to adapt its practices to fit its size.
You cannot continue to study in high school in the same way you studied in elementary school.
Likewise, the church needs to discipline itself to become systematic and organized. This process may cause the leader to feel he or she is sacrificing freedom and becoming more restrained, but as the leader attracts and unites people, their collective abilities and intelligence give the leader greater power and freedom. The processes includes respecting those who are skilled in administration and are specialists with knowledge of society, such as lawyers and accountants, as well as sharing the decision-making process with more people, or different types of people, as the group grows. Recording or documenting the decision- making processes will protect the leadership and the organization. Having a good database and analyses of membership will help the leaders make informed and educated decisions. Relations, communications and exchanges with the public sector will help you keep your organization healthy and stable. These disciplines will help you lose fewer members.
Again, from my observations, this type of group can maintain tens of thousands of members until coming again to a barrier to growth. One reason may be the loss of important qualities that spurred our previous growth, such as close bonds of heart, strong leadership and a sense of direction.
If that is the case, we must regain those without losing the earned discipline. Another cause may be that this model has an inherent limitation. Apparently, no case within our church yet exists of breaking through this limitation and becoming a national movement.
In order to break through the barrier to growth in a systematic organization, we need to transform ourselves in line with a model of a "movement," which is a less centralized federation of communities and groups, or even of individuals. You just cannot completely control everything, so you try to manage by clarifying policies and functions of the headquarters.
Anxiety is natural over opening up to decentralization, because without the strong ability, the essence of systematic organization, and a mature leadership, the core organization may not be able to hold the organic discipline, with the result that the movement may fall apart. As parents try to nurture heart and teach purposes, disciplines and life skills to their children, eventually' they must take risks as the children go beyond adolescence and enter maturity and independence. We may also need to develop such a mature relationship within our group to rise to a higher level. I have not yet observed the numerical limit of this model.
Based on the ideas of growth stages in social engagement and church growth, I made a matrix to see how our strategic nations are doing. The rising line shows that maturity in church growth should be prioritized over the development of engagement in society. This analysis of nations is subjective and inaccurate, but it should help us in setting goals. Please evaluate where you are positioned and set a goal point of your position in the next two or three years and decide how you are to get there. In other words, make a set of mid-term and long-term goals and plans.
I also made a comparison of membership purely based on the latest annual reports. Some reports have not been submitted for a while and the definition of membership may not be exactly the same depending on the time and region, but it gives a rough comparative view of the nations. The other chart is the ratio of our membership in comparison to the respective general population. If you look at the matrix of development and these charts, you will notice that Korea, Japan and America are relatively well positioned.
For members of those nations, it may seem impossible to achieve the vision, but based on a simple analysis, they are better off than the other countries. Some may say that the developing countries do not have the challenges that the developed countries have. I agree, but we can also say vice versa. What may make a difference in any country is the element of timing and opportunities. I believe if you reflect deeply, you will find elements that God prepared and be able to catch the wind of the providence and ride it. That is, if you prepare a healthy, balanced and appropriate model of church and social engagement.
As Mother emphasizes often, expectations of the realization of Cheon Il Guk are in the order of Korea, Japan, United States, and then the other strategic nations. We should not expect that it will happen in other nations but never in our own. If it does not happen in your country, the same chance exists of it not happening in the others.