The Words of Hyung Jin Moon From 2010
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The Words of Hyung Jin Moon From 2010 |
Good afternoon, brothers and sisters. It is great to see you all. It's always our honor to have you here in this sanctuary.
In our faith life we have ups and downs, but one thing I know is that in our deepest part of our heart we always have true love towards our Heavenly Father and our True Parents. That's because that's our original heart. That's because that's our original nature. Do you believe that today? Aju!
Today we'd like to offer that beautiful heart to our Heavenly Father and our True Parents through this service. Welcome, brothers and welcome, sisters.
Good afternoon, brothers and sisters. Let's start by manifesting the Principle:
Give and Receive action
Four
position foundation
May I inherit the True Love of God.
Aju!
Today is Cheon Seong Gyeong 644. It's the chapter on the Kingdom of Heaven. Father says,
"The Kingdom of Heaven cannot be found in the physical world alone. It is not of this world. As such, it starts from the point where we actualize the visions of our heart. Finding that one place enables us to welcome the Kingdom of Heaven."
True Father is really pointing us to the fact that the pathway to the Kingdom of Heaven begins with our own internal posture, our own internal stance. Father says that even though the Kingdom is here in the physical, if our hearts are not prepared or connected in any way, we will have no connection to the kingdom. No harmony will be reaped from that.
Brothers and Sisters, this is an amazing day, because guess what? Next service is our last service in this sanctuary and we are going to the growth stage temple, the World Peace Unification temple next week! My, my Lord! So brothers and sisters, it's important that we bring the Kingdom with us as we enter into the temple. If you believe it, let's give it up for God and True Parents this day!
Brothers and sisters today will be the last service of this kind. We have today a wonderful speaker whom I have had the great privilege of being able to work with the last couple of months.
Our administrative director, his name is Sung Il Lee, Shik Jung Nim, has actually had vast experience in managing organizations. He's had over 30 years in the marketplace. He's been a president and CEO of TIC Corporation, which was part of the Chedan group. The group was sold, managed and then improved when Kook Jin Hyung came in 2005. He worked with him until last year.
Mr. Lee was actually going to just start his own business or take a little rest from work, etc. Again, Kook hyung really asked him, he said, "You know what? For thirty years you've been an incredible Unificationist. You've been an incredible supporter of the church down in the south region of Korea. Not only have you been a CEO and had that kind of experience, but you also have been always in the church, managing the finances that are helping the church to maintain its financial strength and to be transparent." So he said, "Why don't you come work with us at the church a little more? In these very important times, we need somebody who has had your kind of experience."
I'm very pleased to work with Mr. Lee because he brings so much stability and maturity to our leadership. He brings so much knowledge and experience in terms of making the right decisions. For any type of organization, that's very important. He also brings a whole new cadre of tools and skills, not only stemming from management or group psychology, understanding such things, but he understands and deeply loves the Unification tradition.
I remember when I first met him, in a more casual setting. We were talking and he said, "You know, even if everybody leaves Unification Church, even though everybody leaves, I'm going to stay here. I'm going to be the last member and I will continue to love True Parents and serve them as the Messiah and Returning Lord." Let's give it up for that kind of incredible faith.
He has an incredible heart and maturity which I have really grown to appreciate and respect. He has a peace of mind and a calm, cool, decision-making ability which I have also come to deeply appreciate.
As Mr. Lee came to the church, he realized, "This is not the same as when I was managing a business as a CEO." After he did a little analyzing and meeting the different individuals in the team, he said, "We want to make an offering condition. We want to make the Foundation of Faith so that the Foundation of Substance can arise. Before we enter the Temple, we've seen other ministers do the 21,000 bow devotional practice, etc. You know what? We're going to do it as well!"
So the administrative department embarked on an over forty-day condition. After every morning service here held at the Headquarters church the directors of the administrative department would congregate and they would offer 500 devotional bows every day. I'm very happy to announce that they did complete the 21,000 devotional bows! I'm very proud of them spiritually setting the right condition.
We were worried about them and said, "We are ministers and we can focus on this kind of thing. Us doing it is not a problem. That is part of our work. We do that kind of spiritual devotional practice as part of our work. But you are part of the administrative department. You are helping us a lot with the financial management, the transparency, keeping accounts, and all that kind of thing. I don't know if it's necessarily fitting for you members to be doing that kind of rigorous practice while you have to be working at the same time."
He said, "I want to do it. I want to do it because I want to offer and put my heart in as much as I put my mind, my talents and my experience. I want to offer my spirit. I want to offer my heart."
With that heart they were able to walk that kind of path for forty days. I was worried about them, to say the least, but they did it. I'm actually very proud and I've heard incredible stories of experiences that they have had while doing the incredible Jeong Seong together.
Brothers and sisters, when we ask Lee Sung Il to come up, let us offer him a warm, true, true family welcome, a real family welcome. Let's welcome our brother, Mr. Sung Il Lee Shik Jung Nim.
I am very happy to meet you all today, brothers and sisters. I do not know whether I can live up to the introduction our senior pastor has given me.
I am going to talk today about our mission as we enter the growth stage Cheon Bok Gung. Let us read what our True Father said in 2008, October 12th, in Hawaii about Cheon Bok Gung.
"Cheon Bok Gung will be built in the Republic of Korea, the New Jerusalem and homeland of our faith. It is to be built by January 13th, 2013 and serve as the foundation for the substantiation of Cheon Il Guk, and as the temple that will complete the providence for the Abel UN. Building Cheon Bok Gung is a responsibility of the utmost importance that all people of the world must fulfill together."
Our vision is to inherit the True Love of God, and our mission is to establish the foundation for Cheon Bok Gung by witnessing to 210,000 people. Let us become a model of victory for the growth of the church and the restoration of the nation, and let us complete the substantial foundation for Cheon Il Guk.
Right now in Korea, we have a population of 50 million and among them 20 million practice a religion. In our church, with 56,750 members, we represent 0.12% of these religious practitioners in Korea.
The chart shows that there are 10,944,000 Buddhist (22.8%), 8,784,000 Protestant (18.3%), 5,232,000 Catholic (10.9%), and other religions have 720,000 members (1.5%).
Our True Parents have missionaries working in 193 countries and we have members working all around the world.
Next, I want to report on how many members are registered and how many are attending the Headquarters Church. At the beginning of last year, we had about 1,500 members attending the service generally each week, but by the end of the year, the number raised up to 2,300 members per week. The number of members registered into this church went from 6,400 to 9,200. This includes the members of seven other churches that were incorporated into the Headquarters Church last year in July.
Now I will give you a short report about the results of tithing and other offerings. Donations went from about 60 million won (about $53,000) a month in January to 160 million won (about $140,000) a month by the end of the year. The total amount of offerings including other types of offerings went from 97 million won (about $85,000) to over 200 million won (about $175,000). This victory is the result of your faith in True Parents and your devotion.
I want to introduce now the six departments we have in our administration.
The chart shows:
The Planning and Finance Department
(Organization, Finance)
The Culture and Promotion Department
(Promotion)
The Family Department, CARP and Church School
(Nurture)
The Education and Witnessing Department (Education and
Witnessing)
The Worship Support Department (Worship)
The
External Liaison Department (International Relations)
Until last summer, we only had one department, the church office. Since August, we have six departments and each has its own function. You might say that these six departments are divided into two groups, one that makes policies and procedures and the other one that implements them.
The policies and procedures department is there to create an infrastructure that can support Cheon Il Guk as it grows. It will make manuals and systems to educate new members for all kinds of functions the church needs to fulfill as Cheon Il Guk develops. The other function we have to fulfill is taking care of the congregation we have now as it grows and develops. We also have to administrate the large church events, such as Blessings, holidays, and other big church functions.
The most crucial thing is that when you go out for witnessing and bring new people here, we must prepare a warm and welcoming place for them to come.
I now want to show you the direction of change at the growth stage of Cheon Bok Gung. First, Cheon Bok Gung members must inherit International President Hyung Jin Moon's foundation of devotion (Jeong Seong) and become the true owners of the church and the providence. Next, we must build a transparent and specialized church system and create the foundation for witnessing to organizations and groups. As we go on from there, we must create a model of church growth to realize Cheon Il Guk and present this model to churches worldwide.
I now want to give you the most recent teachings from our head pastor.
"When we clearly proclaim True Parents as the Messiah, the Returning Christ, and the Savior, our true identity is established."
"The secret to all victories is defending the value of True Parents."
"That is precisely the path for victory for the Unification Church. When we elevate True Parents, the Unification Church cannot help but prosper and be victorious."
"Faith is witnessing. By witnessing, we fall in love once again with True Parents over and over again."
"When we proclaim True Parents and witness to people, we see how the people are transformed and we fall in love with True Parents all over again. This is eternal love."
I have been here for five months now, working with Reverend Hyung Jin Moon and Reverend Yeon Ah Lee. The thing I have noticed the most is how much our two pastors truly love our members here. We can find this in the Bible in John 14:6, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Reverend Hyung Jin Moon has talked a lot about this and he has taught us that True Parents are our way, our truth and that true love is the only way that we can go to the Father.
We remember the early members who came to the church and were overwhelmed by True Father's spirit and the level of devotion that they observed in the church. Some of those early members who were so much in love with True Parents, we do not see them in the church now. This brings us to a painful realization. We are very concerned about how we, as members, can love True Parents in such a way that they can be within our hearts, within our bones, within our skin forever.
If you come to the service here, you will have already noticed that Reverend Hyung Jin Moon, at every single service, is working so hard to let us know that we need to be deeply in love with God and True Parents.
You have seen how he works to give each member who comes here a rebirth experience, a reawakening experience to let them fall in love with True Parents once again. He is building deeper and deeper love and faith in True Parents within each one of us with his words and the True Parents declaration, and through every action he does with us during the service. I think he is trying to give us the greatest gift, to be eternally in love with True Parents. Let us give a warm round of applause to thank our head pastor for this!
Next, let us have a look at what our Tongil Group Chairman Moon Kook Jin's message is.
"A leader is someone who makes the impossible possible."
"From now on, we need a paradigm shift. Instead of witnessing only to individuals, we need to witness to whole organizations."
When Kook Jin Moon started to work with our companies, he took a very business-like approach because he was desperate to save our companies. He gave the impression that he did not love us, that he was kind of cold and firm.
He undertook the work of restructuration of our foundation in 2005. At that time, I was the CEO of one of our companies called TIC in Cheongwon. I was there when he started his very first campaign of reorganization. Why do we need to reorganize? What is the goal and purpose of this reorganization? What did he want to accomplish by reorganizing our companies? When I was in Cheongwon I was in charge of eight companies. By the end of 2007, only three were left. Five companies were either merged into other companies or gotten rid off completely!
The same time at the end of 2007, there was a Saeilo company conference in New York for the heads of our worldwide companies. I was called to participate in this conference, so I went there. Each company president was asked to make a short presentation about their company and their work. One of the presidents of a Japanese company in the automobile industry reported that because the financial situation of their company was so bad, all the employees including the company president had taken a 15% cut in their salary.
Our President Kook Jin Moon responded like this:
"If you continue in this way with this kind of management, this kind of level of salaries, the company will close. If you continue to operate with these reduced salaries, all your really valuable employees will go somewhere else and you will be left with only the employees who do not have many skills or abilities. I do not want you to operate with reduced salaries. I want you to give back all the reduced salary money to all the employees. Keep looking for people with abilities and then put them into the company. That is the only way your company will have a vision for the future."
I was very surprised when I heard him giving this company this kind of advice. I could not quite understand why, when he had just been closing down companies and cutting people all over Korea, he was saying that this Japanese company should take a different course. I finally understood that the important point is that you have to fix the organization where there is a need of fixing. Otherwise, there is no way to continue into the future.
After that, we have been working on reorganizing the church as well. The reorganizing of the church involves combining some small churches together, getting rid of some churches, and many of our clergy are losing their positions. This was very painful for many of the ministers and many members who had been working sacrificially for a long time, that their lives would be reorganized. But we have to keep in mind that our goal is to establish a substantial Cheon Il Guk by January 13th, 2013. So if we are stuck looking at the short term difficulties instead of looking at the strategy that will enable us to accomplish our long term goal, we will never be able to reach that goal. I hope you will all understand and support our strategy of doing the difficult things now that will make it possible for us to bring victory to True Parents in the future.
No matter what kind of obstacles we face, we need to challenge ourselves to make this goal absolutely. We need to thank Kook Jin Nim for doing this difficult work that no one really wanted to do and allowing us to get the strength to go forward in a much better way. Please give him a warm round of applause.
Now, I will give you a little detailed report about the preparations to move into Cheon Bok Gung. We will be standing on the front line to inherit the True Love of God and True Parents' victory as we move into Cheon Bok Gung. Each one of us needs to have a heart of ownership and responsibility as we move forward. Our administration department will work very closely with our pastoral team and our Women's Evangelical Association to build a culture that realizes the ideal of Cheon Bok Gung. Our goal is to make a well working and organized church and create an environment where we can feel that all members are VIPs.
Let us finish by reading some words from our head pastor about Cheon Bok Gung. The growth stage of Cheon Bok Gung has several providential meanings. One of them is that it is one of our True Parents' palaces located in the center of Seoul, which is the center of the nation of Korea, the homeland of our faith. It is not a very big palace but it has a very special meaning, along with Cheon Jeong Gung Museum.
Chung Jeong Gung Museum is the place where True Parents live. It is a very important place for the security and health of True Parents. It is located in a very beautiful and natural environment, with lots of fresh air. It is not a public place. It is a private palace where we can truly protect True Parents' safety. You cannot go to Cheon Jeong Gung Museum unless you have a security clearance in advance. You have to get an invitation.
Cheon Bok Gung is a completely different kind of place. It is located in the center of the city and it is a public place. Cheon Bok Gung is a temple where we can reach out to the world and proclaim True Parents as the Messiah, as the Savior and the Second Advent of Christ. It is a place where we can witness to True Parents, where we can give people new life, a place where people can inherit the True Love of True Parents, and where the blessings of Heaven can be given out to all people. This is a place where we can take people away from Satan's dominion and bring them back to God's dominion.
This will be a historical temple where people receive true salvation, where people receive eternal life and where the Cheon Il Guk culture is realized. We have to proclaim the joyous news, the Gospel of Heaven. We have to proclaim, according to our world president, with a loud voice that Christ has returned. Cheon Bok Gung is the place to receive Heaven's blessing.
The entire world is watching Cheon Bok Gung with great anticipation. We are going to put a huge Unification Church sign on there and will proclaim True Parents' mission as the Messiah with a loud voice.
Cheon Bok Gung has to be the place where we proclaim True Parents and give people new life.
I will finish by asking you to join me in giving our whole energy to realize our pastor's words.
Thank you very much!
Brothers and sisters! I want to start by thanking all of you for all of your hard work and devotion for the sake of the providence and True Parents' will.
Everyone in the administration is working hard to support Rev. Hyung Jin Moon and all of the Headquarters Church members as we prepare to enter the growth stage Cheon Bok Gung.
On the foundation of devotional tradition established by Revs. Hyung Jin Moon and Yeon Ah Lee, we have worked to establish an environment and management systems that embody the spirit and culture of Cheon Il Guk, and we are dedicated to providing friendly and efficient service to all of our brothers and sisters.
And we will continue to make effort to create a culture of Cheon Il Guk public service here at headquarters.
Your interest and participation as owners of the providence is crucial for our victory. Thank you.
All of us in the Family Department will make constant effort to live up to the level of service that you, our hardworking and dedicated brothers and sisters deserve. Although our work may be complicated or difficult at times, we will always be available when our brothers and sisters need us.
Particularly now, when our head pastor has placed such a large goal in front of us, the Family Department is upgrading our records and procedures so that we'll be prepared to handle the increase.
In cooperation with the Education and Witnessing department, we are developing new educational programs to raise up our brothers and sisters so that all our Blessed families can live well and be happy. We will also do everything we can, working closely with the Pastoral team and members to bring victory in the February 17 Blessing.
We pledge to work with a spirit of service and dedication to all of our members and families. Thank you.
As we are drawing near to entering Cheon Bok Gung, and the fulfillment of the dream of True Parents and our International President, we are dedicated to accomplishing the goal of witnessing for 210,000 members.
The mission of the Education and Witnessing Department is raising up members and witnessing to new members, so we will be standing on the front line to accomplish the vision of the growth stage Cheon Bok Gung.
We will do our utmost to support the Pastoral team, the Women's Evangelical team and all of our members to accomplish this dream. Brothers and sisters, don't you think 2010 will be an exciting year?
We can see the will of God clearly with our spiritual eyes, so let's all unite to accomplish that will!
Preparing to move into the growth stage Cheon Bok Gung makes this a very exciting and hopeful moment.
It also brings me memories of our earlier days at the Mapo Church.
When we were at Mapo church Rev. Hyung Jin Moon told each one of us we should live a life in attendance to Heavenly Father. Let's go forward with the same spirit, from the Mapo Church to Headquarters Church, right on into the growth stage Cheon Bok Gung.
I wish all of you good health, and I love you!
In 2010, the Foreign Liaison Department will focus on the new deeper understanding of the grace and offering of our True Parents' life as illuminated through the Seven Deaths and Resurrections and the Eight Stage Victory that was given to us by our International President and share it with our Unification Church brothers and sisters all around the world.
As the name Cheon Bok Gung tells us, we can inherit blessing and grace and happiness, and we will prepare to share all of that with our international brothers and sisters around the world.
We are living in an age of change.
Brothers and sisters, can you feel how things are changing?
The echo of the beating heart of Cheon Bok Gung is spreading all around Korean and the world, centered on our Headquarters Church.
Centering on our International President, we are creating a world with a culture of heart.
I hope each and every one of you will join us in creating this new culture.
The whole staff at Headquarters Church will work together in 2010 to enter the growth stage Cheon Bok Gung, and to witness for 210,000 members with True Love for all our brothers and sisters!
Let us fight for that!
Let's give it up for everybody in our administrative team! All the directors you saw in there participated in the 21,000 bows and all that. It's really wonderful to be able to work with so many different people. We're not all the same. We have different personalities. A lot of the people in the administrative department have quietness behind their work, but still they have this incredible maturity and confidence in whatever they do, so it's very inspiring to be able to work with such a wonderful team.
Brothers and Sisters let's join our hearts in our final prayer for this service.
Dearest most beloved Heavenly Parents, our most beloved True Parents, thank you so much for guiding us to this stage. Father, we've had an incredible journey together for the last two years and more. Father, I have personally seen the incredible miracles that you have allowed us to see.
There were so many times where we just couldn't see how anything would work out, so many times of uncertainty and so many times of despair. So many difficult stages and so many difficult hurdles had to be overcome. But Father, we tried to stay true to Your course and we tried to always keep our hearts centered on Your glory and on elevating True Parents, and not letting it be about us but letting it be about True Parents.
Father, we have seen incredible miracles happen. I can personally testify that in my own life. I have seen amazing changes and amazing things that I never knew we would be able to overcome such circumstances. But Father, You have showed us that with man it may be impossible, with human beings it may be impossible, but with You, with faith in You, all things are made possible.
We thank You so much because two years ago, nobody would ever have believed that we would be moving into the new temple, into the growth stage temple where we would be showing the whole world that the Unification Church is not dead, that we are not over. But although so many who had come before us who had prophesied that we would plummet and we would fail after True Parents, Father, we are here to show them in 2010, that NO WAY are we going to go under; that we are standing strong and we are standing proud of who we are, proud that we are your children, proud that we have this faith and we are moving forward into the future with hope and inspiration and a desire to want to truly return glory to You.
Father, we thank You so much for bringing us to this stage, because we know that it is not by human means that You have allowed us to come this far.
Father, we also ask of You to be with us now as we have our last service next week and as we move to the temple.
Father we pray that we may truly come to realize our own value, come to realize the value of our faith, and that there are so many archangels that want to tear that away from us. May we learn how to protect what we have, to be proud of who we are and to be able to share with confidence and a clarity that comes from true wisdom and compassion.
Father we thank You so much. We want to inherit Your true love as we now heard the words from all the people who are working day in and day out to help run our Headquarters Church.
As we move to the next stage, we know it's not going to be all perfect. We know that there will be difficulties. We know that there will be challenges, Father. We know that we will have to grow. But we are ready for the challenge.
Father, we know that if we hold on to our faith and hold on with hope, that we can accomplish things we thought wouldn't be possible.
We thank you so much and we want to pray and offer these things to You in this service. We want to dedicate this to You with our grateful hearts and with a heart of true love. We give ourselves in the names of our blessed central families around the world and in the great name of the True Parents of heaven and earth we pray together. Aju!
1: "Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.
2: In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
3: And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
4: And you know the way where I am going."
5: Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?"
6: Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.
7: If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him."
8: Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied."
9: Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, `Show us the Father'?
10: Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
11: Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves.
12: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father.
13: Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son;
14: if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.
15: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
16: And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever,
17: even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.
18: "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you.
19: Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also.
20: In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
21: He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."
22: Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?"
23: Jesus answered him, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
24: He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.
25: "These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you.
26: But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
27: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
28: You heard me say to you, `I go away, and I will come to you.' If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father; for the Father is greater than I.
29: And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe.
30: I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me;
31: but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go hence.