Turning Your Inheritance into Leadership
By Won Pil Kim
Rev. Won Pil Kim, then president of our church in Europe, spoke about the meaning of tribal messiahship at the annual general meeting of the Unification Church of Germany. The date was September 24, 1989. His words are still relevant today. The first part was posted last week.
Part 2 (Click to read Part 1)
Opening heaven’s gates
Earlier, I explained that all of you have been assigned by God as the mayor of the place where you are living. You are not members, but clan/tribe messiahs. Therefore, when you start acting as your village’s messiah, loving the people and sacrificing yourself for their sake, on that foundation the gates to heaven will open.
Representatives of True Parents
When the disciples of Jesus went witnessing there was a big difference when they just went by their own initiative or when they had been sent by God and the Messiah. When you go to your hometown, you will be asked: “Who sent you here?” When you are sent by the Messiah, you must give the people you visit the Messiah’s words. From this viewpoint, when we look at ourselves who are we? We are sent by God, True Parents, our national leader and our church leader. We are not just individuals. To be sent by the national leader means to be sent by True Parents. If you go to your hometown by yourself, of your own decision, even though you witness a lot, you were not sent by God and True Parents. Likewise, when someone sent by the leader doesn’t report to the leader he is not fulfilling his responsibility. As a consequence, he is in the same position as the person who went of his own volition.
Please understand this point deeply: don’t do things just by yourselves. When you are sent by God and True Parents, if someone accepts you he will receive blessing from God and True Parents. If you are not connected with the Church, even though you find a spiritual child, he will not receive blessing from God and True Parents because you cut yourself off from their lifeline and are not representing them. You have to connect these people to God and True Parents through your central figure.
If you officially go to your hometown and start working there, you will meet all kinds of people. After a while, you can organize a meeting at your home which many people attend. You give reports of all these activities to headquarters. When a 40-day blessed wives witnessing condition starts and you are already making so many efforts contacting all your relatives, friends and neighbors, do you think Headquarter’ s leadership will mobilize you for the witnessing condition? Would it be wise if you were taken from the good job you were doing in your town? Leaders, would you call this person for the 40- day witnessing condition, or would you let this person stay and continue her good work there? [Would let her stay.]
Why do you think we have such conditions as a 40-day witnessing campaign? It is because you are not making a foundation. In other words, you lost your pioneering spirit. When you were pioneering, you went alone to a place you had never been. But you have lost such a spirit and that’s why we have to organize witnessing conditions—to revive that spirit so you can carry it to your hometown and keep it high by continuously witnessing.
When we joined the church, we left our home and cut connections with our former life. The purpose was not the separation itself, but to enable us to take God’s position and become children of the True Parents. We had to inherit the heavenly tradition before we could return to our hometown and restore it to God. Originally, we had to first restore our Cain hometown or home church; but Father gave us the grace of going to our home and to our relatives now!
The Kingdom of Heaven is a place you enter together with your spouse, parents and relatives. Please do not forget that the purpose of cutting from your past was to make you a new person. Until you joined you were spiritually dead and how could a dead person save another dead person? First you had to gain new life, then you could return to save the dying people.
The hometown providence
Now, I want to address an especially important topic. This has to do with those who were once active full-time members, but for one reason or another, had to leave their full-time missions to find an outside job. When such a decision was made, the Church should have assigned those couples to be home church leaders in some particular areas but was unable to do so. Although the Church never officially said anything, each person should have done home church in their respective areas as tribal messiahs.
There are some couples who live and work outside and still have a great desire to work for God’s Will. When I see those couples, I feel so moved! Looking at them, I cannot be quiet. That’s why I chose today’s topic. From today, go and work in your hometown, become part of the hometown providence!
Consider yourselves pioneer center leaders and there is hope for Germany to be revived! If you all live in houses or apartments, but have no relationship with your neighbors, how can you do restoration work? In order to meet people you have to visit them. When you visit them, you must have a clear reason. This reason must always be for the sake of these people, not for yourselves.
Go to people’s houses and introduce yourselves even simply as their neighbor. Through this, you can find the Abel-type people. When you go shopping, or are walking on the street, you meet many people. Don’t ignore them, greet them. If you do this two or three times, they will naturally start to respond and greet you, even without your speaking to them. Then some conversation may begin.
You should never forget that you’ve been sent by God as the messiah of your area. If you are “messiah-conscious,” you will be motivated to pray for the people of this area, since all these people are your spiritual children and will be your future relatives. All the material things which exist in your area want to belong to you because God assigned you to be the owner of this area.
Relate well with your leader in order to be a leader
Your neighbors may be living in more luxurious homes than you, but those beautiful homes belong to the original or true owner of that area. Father came on earth as the true heavenly owner of the world, but in reality Satan took this position. How did Father consider this situation? He knew that when the original owner came, all things would want to go back to him. Knowing this, Father never felt jealous when he saw people owning big houses. Satan is like a housekeeper, taking care of the house on behalf of the owner. But when the original owner comes, the “Cain” owner must accept the true owner.
You are convinced that witnessing means to go to a particular street next to the video center during a certain period of time; but this is not the right way of thinking: you need to meet the people where you live. Then you must find your own disciples and raise up a successor who can take over your mission.
I want you to change your consciousness from that of a member to that of a leader. Also, I want you to feel you are in the owner position. Do not act like servants, only doing what you are told. If you have the owner-leader consciousness, you won’t feel pressured if leaders ask you something. Just don’t misunderstand: when I tell you to be leaders, I don’t mean that you have no leaders above you. A good leader is a person who follows his own leader very well.
When you grow up, you begin to make your own experiences. You might feel, “I don’t need my parents anymore; I’ll do things by myself.” But this way of thinking is wrong. The real meaning of independence is to inherit everything from the parents and then to practice what has been learned from them. You received love and care from your parents, and now you must return love and care to them. This is the formation stage of independence. The second level is for you to do for other people what your parents have done for you. On this foundation, when your children grow up, they will return to you what they have received from you. Finally, at this point, you can say you became truly independent.
In the same way, you should not think, “The Parents’ Age is finished, now we are in the Children’s Age, so we have to take responsibility ourselves.” This way of thinking is wrong. We’ve been receiving the heavenly tradition from True Parents, so we have to inherit it and return it to them. On this foundation, we must do for others what True Parents have done for us by putting what True Parents have shown us into practice. We must multiply what True Parents have done. This is a sign of real independence. When parents see their children acting like this, they feel very happy.
In conclusion, when you try to build your leader consciousness, you must first unite with your own leader. You have to report to him always and receive advice. In my situation, I need to receive advice and guidance from True Parents, who are my leaders. The real meaning of being a true governor is to first be someone who is governed well. In other words, someone who can be under the dominion of God and True Parents can be good at taking dominion over others. You cannot simply go your own way. You have to always relate to your Abel figure. When you find it difficult to be understood by him, you can bring your case to your leader’s Abel. This is the way Cain can go to True Parents—through Abel. That’s why I ask you to report regularly and receive guidance and advice from your Abel figure. This principle is unchanging.
Rev. Won Pil Kim ascended in 2010, and his Seonghwa Ceremony was held at the headquarters church in Seoul. Father honored him with the message “Congratulations, eldest brother among the blessed members, Kim Won-pil. May you be one who offers himself while embodying Heaven’s heart.”