Hyung Jin Moon
January 28 and 29, 2009
UK National leader's (Simon) notes from Korea
January 28, 2009
I would like to mention some of the things that have kept me very constant in my mission:
Every time Father gave me more responsibility and greater missions I would ask him: "what should I do now?" Father always said the same thing. His answer was continue to give Chung Song (make sincere devotion to God.)
We have many theories why the movement is not growing, and so we do need to develop systematic about development, but we should never get so caught up in the technical that we forget the internal core.
At the core we are a spiritual movement, so despite how systems help us avoid pitfalls and organizational disasters, we must always make the devotional aspect of our life central.
Every healthy religious tradition has that very alive spiritual life which is very real and vibrant.
We need to truly try to rid ourselves of the trappings that catch us when we take on positions of power etc.
Out of emptying our self will come humility etc,
Kook Jin Nim in his work uses the principle of results over popularity.
We try to focus on the empowerment of our members, whenever we get authority from True Parents we try to give it away to our members.
So with the new women's ministry we have just initiated, we let the women of the congregation elect their women leadership.
It is important to let go of authority and learn to empower our membership.
They chose the exact people we were scouting that we wanted...so I have tremendous confidence in the congregation.
All the church donations are managed by the financial management team and not by the pastors.
We report every month to the membership from the finance committee exactly where all the money has been spent to the last penny.
I have been focusing on Headquarters Church because I want to work with practice rather than just theory, and we are trying to test things out and see what really works, and brings results and can be somewhat predictable in terms of bringing success.
Rough Analogy: one doesn't put a medicine into production before you have tested it out.
It is the responsibility of our leadership to continue to offer a spiritual atmosphere, and those ministers who focus more on really practicing a spiritual life are more popular for members to bring their people to. People are less keen to bring their people to those who are essentially more like managers.
That has been Father's secret: to continually focus on the spiritual practice of devotion to God.
In the future of our movement the membership will have more information and more say in how decisions are made.
Giving away power helps us to stay spiritually pure as leaders, rather than clinging onto authority.
If you look at the most successful big protestant churches like Rick Warren's you can see that they do live a very devotional life of fasting, praying, studying, etc.
However good your marketing is you still have to inspire people spiritually and with the religious life. A church can only grow if it has a religious lifestyle at the center.
We are very serious about the world temple as the continuation of our spiritual tradition and root in the Fatherland.
Sorry for not visiting, but we want to make sure that things work in the lab rather than unleash a bunch of disasters on you, and of course no system is perfect, but we are honing our methods as best we can.
Dr Seuk: explains the intense condition and schedule that Hyung Jin nim's couple is making. Through that type of condition comes spiritual power.
He often is calling our country name as he makes bowing condition.
January 29, 2009
2.45 am exercise and meditation and guided visualization w/ Hyung Jin Nim and Yeon Ah Nim
He showed us Father's morning exercises and then asked us during the meditation to sit absolutely still cross legged on the floor for more than 40 minutes. He took us through a visualization where we placed our self in a cell in Hungnam prison, at the end of which we realize that Father is in the cell next to us. And he teaches us as a prayer and mantra Father's prayer from that time: "I am alive, thank you." He emphasized the power of expressing gratitude throughout our daily life.
He wanted to also do a 120 bow condition with us, but we had to leave to go to the peace palace for Hoon Dok Hae with True Parents.
5 am Hoon Dok Hae with True Parents
Father moved slowly onto the stage with True Mother, but once sitting down he became vibrant and dynamic, before any speech could be read Father started talking with an energetic spirit. He continued until 9.30am, and despite his grandson working very hard to get Father to come for breakfast. Once or twice before Mother left the room, she turned Father's wrist after the first 90 minutes to check his watch. Father then asked how long has it been? Everyone laughed, Mother smiled...and then Father just carried on.
His talk covered a vast expanse of topics. I will just list a few of them to give you a rough idea: early years being opposed by universities in Korea, WWII, Korean war, various other historical invasions, various aspects of history, Russia and the orthodox Christian tradition, football, Eiffel tower, Rockefeller, democracy, science, electricity, television, Obama, catching and skinning snakes in the Pantanal, different rivers, polar bears, being bitten by ants when going to the toilet in the mountains.
It was I like a snap shot of all the thoughts and feelings that were going through Father's heart and mind this particular morning, a summary of God's cosmos and history.
Then there was a report about gifts from the North Korean Government and Kim Jong Il for True Parents' birthday. Really incredible gifts: personal letter from Kim Jong Il, State letter, 3 Ginseng roots from the mountains (70, 80, and 90 year old roots). Two very large beautiful vases by the most famous Asian vase maker (probably worth a small fortune), ribbons with gold thread, and calligraphy written by another famous person. North Korean rep. asked them to prepare 90 roses and 67 lilies for True Parents age, and then asked them to place the special ribbon on the bouquet. This was all reported to the South Korean Government representatives.
1 pm Father and Mother arrive,
Father is not happy that more people have not been invited, seems to have thought he had made things very clear, and wants to change to bigger room. We change to a bigger room, and the Chung Pyung workshop participants join us shortly after.
Father asks for several reports from Bo Hi Pak, Mr. Joo, and others. They give extensive reports. Later Father talks very profoundly about how precious and absolute the relationship between husband and wife is.
Father finally asks Peter Kim to read one of the peace messages. He does so faster than any race horse commentator, or tobacco auctioneer; a quite phenomenal speed. Occasionally Father interrupted but Peter Kim tried his best to go straight back into the speech and finish his reading.
My main conclusion is that the regime Father keeps himself to is relentless and unforgiving regardless of his age, and he never stops working to bridge the gap between God and us (representing all of mankind).