This essay is based upon Dr. Hendricks's sermon given at UTS on December 18, 2005.

Our goal is to attract 30 new American students from the next generation in the fall of '06 and 150 over the next five years. The context is that we have no track record bringing young Americans to UTS in the last fifteen years. As President of UTS, this weighs on my mind, but I see the opportunity lying within. That opportunity lies in UTS' mission to produce spiritual leaders. Our job begins with generating a conversation concerning the spiritual leadership our movement in North America.

At a recent conference I learned that the President of a seminary's role is to "see to it that all who have a vested interest in the success of the theological school are regularly reminded of 'the main thing' in theological education." The President has to be able to answer the question, "what is it that makes your school indispensable?"

The answer is to be embedded in the school's mission statement, which announces what the institution promises to do, for whom, and to what benefit. UTS' mission focuses on preparing students for different types of ministry, including ecumenical-which is a major inclusion-in the Unification community, other churches and larger world. In the process we help articulate the Unification worldview, manifest authentic Unification community life, and help students move into fields other than ministry. Is this unique? Often people challenge me by asking what is it that UTS does that is different from any other seminary. They are asking the "what makes your school indispensable?" question.

My answer has to do not with the form of what we teach, but with the content or, if you will, the heart. That heart is rooted in something called "God's lineage." This is a major emphasis our Founder draws out from the Judeo-Christian tradition. God has a lineage. In the Old Testament God revealed that He begat us, that He is our Father. In the New Testament God revealed the nature of His creative love as complete self-sacrifice and that through His sacrificial giving, we are reborn.

We are reborn? This tells us that we had "the name of being alive but were dead." It tells us that God begat us, that God is our Father, but that something stole us from God's family, bringing death into the world. So, Jesus said, "you are of your father the devil." Paul said that we are adopted into God's family. Reverend Moon is taking it the next step. God cannot be happy to have His children stolen and then come back by adoption. God has revealed the way of restoring His lineage, of bringing forth His natural-born children. And this is through the Blessing.

In his 100-city peace speaking tour, Reverend Moon made this clear. "Hence, for us to become the ideal people envisioned by God, that is, people of ideal character, and to create ideal families, we first need to be linked to His lineage," he said. "To take it a step further, only when we are linked to God's lineage is it possible to create God's homeland, the ideal nation. Only when we are linked to God's lineage is it possible to establish world peace.

"Let us now boldly step forth to . be grafted onto the root of the lineage of the True Parents. . The Holy Blessing Ceremony offers the grace of being grafted onto the true olive tree. It was inaugurated through the True Parents, who bring God's true lineage to humankind. Once you change your lineage to God's lineage, your offspring will belong to God's lineage naturally. . Once you receive the True Parents' Holy Blessing, you can give birth to pure, sinless offspring and build an ideal family."

A lineage naturally spawns a culture. The lineage Reverend Moon envisions combines all races, nations and religions. Reverend Moon calls this universal culture of God's lineage the "culture of heart." He does so because "heart" is the deepest core of God's Being. Heart is the impulse to love, the energizing center of our desire to make joyful oneness with a partner. Heart takes four basic forms on earth: the realm of the child's heart, the realm of the sibling's heart, the realm of the spouse's heart, and the realm of the parent's heart.

The culture of heart is a process of relationships in a family framework that evolves through time. It starts with the person's love for and dependence upon parents (children's realm of heart). It evolves as the person's developing the ability to live for others (sibling realm of heart).That culminates in the person's transition to become a spouse (conjugal realm of heart) and then parent (parental realm of heart). The culture of heart manifests, protects and celebrates these myriad incarnations of God's heart. The closest humankind has come to the culture of heart is what we find in family life nurtured by religion at its best. To create the culture of heart is one goal of Reverend Moon's ministry. As does any culture, the culture of heart needs educators and servant leaders.To create these leaders and educators is the mission of UTS. That's the best I can put it right now. And since all religions partake of the culture of heart, UTS can prepare educators and leaders for all religious settings, and can prepare individuals who want to bridge religion, race and nationality. II.

Our consideration of UTS' mission has to take into account the rapid changes taking place in society around us. The walls between religions are coming down. Consider the statement of Enrique Ledesma, Secretary-General of the Oceania branch of the Universal Peace Federation, "there are certain universal values that are common for all people, regardless of what faith they come from. Reverend Moon may believe what he wants to believe . but that is not the main point of the Universal Peace Federation." Ledesma's statement was affirmed by Filipino Ambassador for Peace, Mr. Daawar, "Peace can be promoted by a leader of a Catholic Church or a Christian Church or of any religion. Peace is desired by everyone." The Unification movement is multi-faceted. In the words of Dr. Thomas Walsh, "We are a religious movement seeking to contribute to building God's Kingdom. We have a set of teachings, a systematic theology, a scripture and traditions. These teachings call us to work to build ideal families, to serve the community, to promote inter-religious respect and cooperation, and to seek to transform the world, build a world of lasting peace." Yes, we do manifest as a church, but this is just one of many "sub-communities with differing areas of emphasis." Dr. Walsh's view is that ".we are not any longer creating a conventional church. We represent a new paradigm. More a religious movement, rather than a conventional Christian church. another way is to say the church is a people called together to work for the realization of God's Kingdom, a realm of universal peace. The 'church' would be the time, place and occasion to fellowship, connect, listen to God's word, be strengthened, centered as one goes about the kingdom building way of life." "Clearly Father Moon is talking more and more about religion as a result of the Fall, and as restoration gets closer to its objective, religions become less and less necessary, and eventually unnecessary. That is, Adam and Eve prior to the Fall didn't talk about church. We're in the era after the coming of heaven." III. It seems to me that we are making two assertions. The first assertion is that the culture of heart is a universal value, at least reasonably consistent with all religions. I adopt here the definition of our faith's purpose provided by the Founder's youngest son, Hyung Jin Moon. The culture of heart is where everyone strives to achieve mind-body unity, unity in marriage and the family, and to become an exemplary family that can bring positive change to the world. That's the first assertion and I think it is defensible to claim this as a universal value perspective.

The second assertion is that there is one gateway to the culture of heart, and that is the Blessing. The Blessing is a necessary-but not, be it known, sufficient-condition to build or participate in the culture of heart. This second assertion is what most people rightly call a sectarian claim. Its truth-value has to be proven by results. The results are to be seen in the communities of blessed couples, in their way of life, their families, their works, their spirituality. Do we embrace all people? Do we create peaceful homes and neighborhoods? Are our communities free of drugs and sexual immorality? Are we at peace within ourselves and with God? Are we as loving, giving, serving and sacrificial as befits those who claim to have inherited God's complete blessing, liberation and release? I believe that we are not there yet. And as Rev. Levy Daugherty put it a few years ago, "how can you settle when you haven't arrived?"

To build such individuals, families and communities takes great educators and great leaders. UTS serves to create such educators and leaders. UTS serves to help bring the results. So the UTS mission might be condensed as preparing educators and pastors for the culture of heart in next generation.

As to the phrase, "for the next generation," it is there because we live in time, and time is moving on. The future belongs to our children. I have no prescription for the future. All I know is that it is not my voice that needs to be heard, it is theirs, and that we need a process that empowers the next Unificationist generation, that gives them a voice. This is the task of UTS, that will attract a significant number of the next generation to study. UTS needs to develop a process, and help the church develop a process, that will enable the culture of heart to take root in time, in our lives and in our institutions.

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