The Words The Kwak Family
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The Words The Kwak Family |
Leaders in the New York area have been attending monthly home church meetings with Rev. Kwak, who was recently assigned to take responsibility for the home church providence in America.
When we analyze America's social ills from a dispensational point of view, we come to the conclusion that these painful problems must be addressed more aggressively than they ever have been in the past. Yet almost no one here in America is actively involved on a large scale in reestablishing our moral standards. Besides, only temporary solutions are being suggested. Where can this lead us in the future?
The Unification movement is small in number compared with the American population, yet it offers eternal solutions; so the Unification movement is really this country's only hope. We are aggressively trying to solve social problems on a fundamental level. This, of course, is not done easily. We can't solve a community's problems just by becoming friends with people. It is easy to relate to others on a humanistic level, but people don't really change internally that way. We have to center our approach to people on teaching True Parents' tradition and Father's essential vision and system of thought.
Simple friendly contact doesn't change anything in a person's spirit; the Principle does. You must always try to think, "How can I approach this person more fundamentally, with a vision that will give him life?" With this kind of determination in your mind, the right opportunity will come. Please believe me. Thirty or forty years ago, before True Father ever came to this country, he predicted America's destiny. Thus he knew the problems that would face this society before they became manifest. His approach throughout all this time has been the same: Teach the people the reality of God's heart and His hope for mankind. Home church is your territory, the place where you inherit the messianic role. Unless you experience spiritual renewal in your own life, your faith can't grow, and you won't be able to give life to others. If you approach your missions and your witnessing activities with a self-motivating spirit and inner drive (not merely following directions out of duty), you can come to have life-generating experiences; you can truly experience freedom and spontaneity. At this level you are in the realm of true faith.
Of course, you will be approaching people in many different ways, but the ultimate goal is to deeply impress peoples' minds with Father's vision and ideal. It is also your responsibility to approach them humbly and sincerely. On this pure foundation Heavenly Father can work. The original seed of life in every person belongs to God. This life- seed grows automatically in a person's mind; so it is actually God who takes care of the people you meet. Examine yourself. How are you different now from when you first joined the church? You all joined for different reasons, but while you were growing in faith, your life dramatically changed through experiencing Father's heart, learning of his vision, and receiving True Parents' life element. This definitely changes a person's character. So what we have to do is just awaken that seed in another person, so that God can start to work in his life. God is the one who does the major work, not us. But unless we help others to touch the source of life through our True Parents, there is no hope to save the people of America.
I want to ask all Unification Church members to feel proud of the sacrificial lifestyle and determination you have shown. You are all living testimonies to Father's precious teaching and his lifelong work.
If you leaders focus on home church activities even one day a week, your members' spirits will definitely be influenced.
No matter how well you may organize your responsibilities, if you don't develop your spiritual life through actual experiences, you won't be able to continue as a leader. Reflect on yourself: Am I being a good example to my members? Am I teaching them well and especially sharing the content of Father's speeches? Without giving proper internal guidance, how can you conduct your mission according to God's will? Many leaders overlook sharing Father's words with their members. If so, what is the difference between your work and just any job?
Of course your members must have a focus, a schedule, skills to learn, and goals to fulfill. But all employees have those! However, Father's words offer a different dimension of training. All leaders need to hear his guidance regularly and share it. Father speaks at least 52 times a year -- at least every Sunday -- whether at Belvedere or elsewhere. So listen to him in person, read his speeches, or listen to tapes; every opportunity to hear Father's words has historical value. Furthermore, try to think often about Father's physical life, what he has gone through, what he has fought for. Recognize his value in substance. Father is God's gift to us. So attend True Parents yourself, and then inspire your members with Father's life-giving word.
If you guide your members this way, you will increase the spiritual standard of your organization or department, and your members will be more united and more cooperative. Remember, they are always looking for your guidance and your love. Keep in mind that organizing a schedule and working hard to keep it are only external measures of your success.
If God asked me, "Out of all your responsibilities, which mission have you liked the best?" I would say, "Teaching the Principle." Through teaching truth, I can become a different person. In the past, I did not develop the bulk of my lecture content through meditation or study; more than 50 percent of the content came to me while I was lecturing, by inspiration! I share this to point out that it is through actually jumping in and doing spiritual activities with faith that your spiritual self grows.
Keep in mind that you have two missions -- external and internal. The internal one is home church. You will never lose if you center everything you do on home church, such as your morning prayers and your evening reflections. By maintaining this kind or inner attendance, no matter what you are doing during the day, you will see that the spiritual environment at your work can completely change. Try this for a hundred days. The dedicated prayer of even one person can change the atmosphere among your members. We all need deep experiences of faith in order to give life to others. Go and find them in your area. Heavenly Father has already prepared a welcome for you; the spirit world is waiting.
Ultimately, restoration is working toward one final conclusion: one common principle of genuine love that shall be the standard of each individual, couple, tribe, nation, and eventually the world. Today we are talking about returning to our hometown; are we returning only as individuals? No. We are not talking about an individual's birthplace, but the home to which all mankind is destined to return. That is the ultimate home and ideal, and everything from the individual to the universe must return there....
There is a great distance to go for fallen people to return back to their original home. One type of couple only wants to be happy by themselves when they return to their original home and doesn't feel concern or obligation to anyone else. Another kind feels they cannot be happy all alone, but wants to go on to higher and higher levels and make others happy by enabling them to return home as well. Which type would be welcome by the universe? It is not easy to live the second type of life because the farther you go, the greater are the difficulties you must overcome....
History has been aiming this way from the beginning. Jesus came to complete the journey, but still it has not been complete. It would have been easy for Jesus to return home alone, but that would not be the ideal. He should bring his family, his nation, and the entire world to that goal. That's what made his path difficult. What is the most important reason for us to return home? First, a burning desire to love God, a consuming longing to meet Him. Our question is not whether God exists; we know that He exists and that He is love, and we want to love that Father. We want to meet God in a heartistic relationship so that nothing can ever separate us....
When we talk about returning home, we mean returning to the place where all mankind can find happiness. We need a bridge from the individual level to the cosmos. The bridge is built by the individual's sacrificing himself to go into the center of the greater circle, and then making that greater circle an even greater sphere. Every realm should join with the next higher level and enlarge to form the next realm. Thus, each individual can expand to cover the entire universe. Once the smaller realm is engulfed by the larger one, it is benefited whenever the larger realm is benefited. The greater universe includes all levels of existence, and each level contains the heavenly four position foundation. Jesus came to achieve this ultimate goal, and today the Unification Church mission is to also go this road....
I want you to understand your individual position. You may think that you simply become a Moonie, wait for the Blessing, have a family, and that's it. But that's not the end of it. Next you expand your family onto the worldwide scale and give it for the sake of world restoration. After 10 years, perhaps you have covered only a little bit of territory, and you think that you will never cover the universe by the time you are old. But you can sympathize with God. It took God 6,000 years to find one true Adam, so how much more difficult would it be to create Adam and Eve's family, society, nation, and world? Not everyone can do these extraordinary tasks; though everyone must do it, we know that individual capacity is limited....
We shall be superior to the standard of Adam, who fell. We shall go beyond even Jesus, who was crucified. Jesus proclaimed this revolution, but he became a victim and was murdered. But we will survive to declare victory....
What weapon do we have? At every level of our existence we crave the true love of God. That love is our weapon. There is no other way we can fight. We give our heart and soul in serving and loving people, shedding tears and sweat for brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents, all the people who are extensions of our own families. Home church is your foundation, and in order to make it firm you have to stamp on that area one time, three times, ten times, a hundred times. You must feel that you are launching a satellite that is flying to the moon and sun, and home church is your launching pad. In order to launch a rocket, you need a strong launching pad that can withstand the fiery heat of take-off....
Home church is your world. Go ahead and duplicate the world of God in this small area. Love the people as much as God loves them. When you do this, the 95 percent God created through me will be given to you for free. To inherit this, you must walk the way of life I have walked, for even a short time. Then you shall truly be lord of all creation and a triumphant person. With that accomplishment you shall return home....
Before you reach your destination, you must taste both death and life. Would you mind? Will you cover that distance with enthusiasm and excitement? Who wants to go there? Is home church good or bad? Home church is good! Amen.
The new slogan for 1980 is: Home Church Is the Base of the Kingdom of Heaven.
This slogan shows us that without home church the Kingdom of Heaven cannot become a reality. What kind of Kingdom of Heaven are we talking about? The Kingdom of Heaven is where there is rest and Sabbath, where there is true joy and happiness. When you take that rest, do you do it by yourselves? You want to enter the Kingdom together with your wife, your children and parents, your tribe, your nation, and the world.
If you witness to someone on the street, your action has significance only for that individual. An amazing thing is that, although you are doing the same activity witnessing -- when you do it at the home church level it has historical and providential significance, because it is connected at that point to the historical indemnity course. When you connect with one person in your home church area, that individual is representing his family, clan, nation, world, and cosmos. By working with one person in home church, you connect yourself to the entire cosmos; but when you go out into the streets, you are only connecting with one individual. It is a one-to-one relationship that does not go beyond that level.