The following is an excerpt from Rev. Hwang's speech at a workshop for rural and urban district hoondok family church leaders held in June. The hoondok family churches will provide members with spiritual support in their efforts to breakthrough in neighborhood outreach, tong ban gyeokpa. Korea and Japan have this year organized to establish hoondok churches in each designated district nationwide.

As you may know, True Parents' lives represent a providential course to restore through indemnity the entire history of humankind. Thus, we can put a spotlight on each of the numerous providential shifts in history through the course of True Parents' lives.

Numerous events and changes have occurred in their lives as they walked along the path of sacrifice to restore all of human history. Among those changes, the current activities of the hoondok family churches in the rural and urban districts are in fact the final providence and the culmination of True Parents' lives.

True Father was born in 1920 so he'd lived eighty years by 2000. The first forty years of that providentially significant life were spent walking the course of the Messiah; the ensuing forty years were spent walking the path of the True Parents.

From a providential point of view, 2000, the start of the twenty-first century, was the year in which the first eighty years of Father's life were completed and the providential history of restoration was brought to a conclusion. It was also was the year of True Father's eightieth birthday, the fortieth anniversary True Parents' Holy Wedding and the twelfth anniversary of the proclamation of the Foundation Day for the Nation of the Unified World. It was the eighth year of the Completed Testament era, and the third year since the proclamation of the realm of the Cosmic Sabbath.

A historic transition in the providence came about in the months of April and May this year. That important turning point occurred during the time of the forty-fifth anniversary of True Parents' Day and the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of our church. During the period from April 19, the forty-fifth True Parents Day, to May 1, the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of our church, True Parents concretely established four providential initiatives for Cheon Il Guk.

The first was the designation of Cheon Seong Gyeong [Holy Scriptures of Heaven]. On April 18, True Parents designated and proclaimed Cheon Seong Gyeong as the word for Cheon Il Guk, and offered this to Heaven.

Second, Father proclaimed Ahn Shi Il [Day of the Attendance of Safe Settlement]. This indicated a revolutionary transition. As we pass through the Completed Testament era and enter the era of Cheon Il Guk, this lasting Sabbath culture has now been changed. During pledge service for the forty-fifth True Parents' Day on April 19, True Parents established and proclaimed Ahn Shi Il. Based on True Parents' Day on April 19, Father designated the period after the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of our church as the time after heaven comes [Hu Cheon Shidae]. Since then, True Parents have observed Ahn Shi Il every eight days.

Third, the Family Pledge has been perfected. On True Parents' Day in the fourth year of Cheon Il Guk it was completed through the addition of the words "of the family" in part two and "and the realm of being completely free" in part eight.

Fourth, during Hoon Dok Hae in East Garden on April 13, Father proclaimed the era of the realm of being completely free [Seokbang Shidae]. This means that we are in the age of being set completely free [from our debt of sin], which goes beyond the value of liberation.

With these four initiatives, True Parents designated Ssang Hab Shib Seung Il on May 5 and proclaimed the arrival of the era of heaven. This declaration is proof that God's ideal of creation has been substantially manifested on earth.

What kind of day is Ssang Hab Shib Seung Il? On that day Father reported in his prayer:

Heaven and earth were reversed; top and bottom were reversed; left and right were reversed; front and back were reversed. Evil, that was the darkness in the beginning, has been changed into goodness. A time for glowing victory has come, an original era when we can attend the Parents of Heaven and Earth -- the Parents of Heaven, Earth and Humankind. The sun is at high noon in heaven and on earth, and will never set. Due to the Fall, an era of struggle and the evil kingdom of Satan developed in place of a peaceful kingdom. Now the day of the final battle has come. We can clear away this kingdom and restore the world as the peace kingdom based on true love. With Ssang Hab Shib Seung Il, we moved from the time before heaven to the time after the coming of heaven. Centering on the number 13, heaven and earth have become one, and God's throne and authority have become the center of heaven and earth. Through Ssang Hab Shib Seung Il, we have entered the age for the day of great victory, where we can proclaim the fatherland [homeland], and the kingdom of love in God's unified universe, based on the world being the expansion of the family connected to God's true love, true life and true lineage.

Thus, in pioneering the era before heaven, True Father invested his entire life of eighty years in this period. Now with the opening of the era of heaven, he is offering devoted effort every day for the realization of God's will, fully prepared to dedicate himself for another eighty years for this purpose. Even though Father is elderly, he is offering intense conditions here at Blue Sea Garden for eighty days, which represent eighty years.

This is the current situation of the providence and the beginning of the time for final change. Throughout the course and stages of the providence, there have been times of change. Without these changes, we would still be in the era of restoration through indemnity. Change is the first sign of the coming of a new age. The changes we are seeing nowadays are the ultimate changes needed for the final stage of the providence--the completion of Cheon Il Guk--by 2012.

We are living through the fourth year of Cheon Il Guk and in this time of ultimate change, in this time after the coming of heaven, have been given unprecedented position and responsibility. Namely, the mission of tribal messiahs, neighborhood outreach activities [tong ban gyeokpa] and the hoondok family church activities in the rural and urban districts.

Our doing neighborhood outreach and hoondok family church activities all over the nation has been the long-cherished desire, wish and ambition of True Parents throughout their lives. It is a destiny we must fulfill. In order to achieve this, we must secure a stronghold for our activities in these local areas. Without a stronghold in the rural and urban districts, we can never succeed in our neighborhood outreach activities.

In this regard, the providential status of those who are in charge of the hoondok family churches in these districts is indescribably great. You must deeply realize this point once more. The hoondok family church activities in each community are an inevitable part of True Parents' work and the unchanging mainstream of the providence. Only when these are fulfilled can the will of Heaven be realized.

Dear leaders, be strong and courageous as you go forward to clear the way; burn your bridges behind you and be prepared to have your bones buried in your assigned area. Know that your children will have to take on the task if you do not.

Please engrave the following, which Father has been emphasizing this year, in your heart:

First, the hoondok family church activities in local rural and urban districts are God's ultimate providential works and the hope of humanity hinges on them. Second, hoondok family church leaders in the areas you are working in are True Parents' representatives. A representative of True Parents means a person who has inherited everything from them.

As their representatives, we have already inherited the land and people from them. Land here means your towns, rural or urban districts, wards and villages. There you must establish God's kingship and become ancestors of goodness.

As True Parents' representatives, we must now educate and take care of the members, restore our land and establish the kingship of Heaven and the tradition of Cheon Il Guk. Among the many tasks that need to be accomplished to establish this tradition, the most urgent one is raising church leaders.

God's will can be fulfilled when church leaders are firmly established in all rural and urban localities in Korea, which number more than 3,500. For this, the leaders must be upright people. By creating a culture where the members are strong and at the side of their leaders, the great wheel of God's providence can turn.

Now I would like to talk about exactly what you must do in your district churches. You must not think of them as the kind of churches where we hold services. Large halls of worship like those we used in the past are no longer needed. All we need is an administrative office for the town or district.

Like the district government office that offers many services to the people of a district, you must create a church that can function as a Cheon Il Guk district office in the Cheon Il Guk era. What shall we do about church services? When God's will is fulfilled, there will no longer be any need for a separate place of worship. Wherever people gather will be a place of worship -- be it a church, temple, district office, school classroom or family home.

The services we hold are not our exclusive rituals; they should be festivals shared with Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims and all seekers of truth. Only then can the world of peace take root. In order to introduce this initiative, we are creating these district churches.

How will we conduct our activities based on these district churches? The district church is a base for Cheon Il Guk activities. In the future, the district church must take on tasks similar to those of a government district office. In particular, it should aid alienated sectors of society, such as elderly people living alone and orphans so that all citizens can live together as one.

A good example is the hoondok family church in the Cheolwon area, which established a food bank where they collect leftover food and produce that is still edible from cafeterias and bakeries at the end of the day and distribute it to people that are in need of food. This service activity is slowly changing the local community.

This is but one of many tasks that the Cheon Il Guk district office should be involved in. There are many places that are waiting for our support. The problem is our will to act.

We must also organize our tribes. When a child is born, you register his birth at the district office. In the same way, the district churches must witness to people, organize them into tribes, and create name lists. If you can take good care of the blessed families and ambassadors for peace living in the area, the foundation for Cheon Il Guk will surely be made. Thus, the churches in the rural or urban districts will become the strongholds of Cheon Il Guk and the epicenter for educating ambassadors for peace.

My dear leaders, in order to create a foundation of love and peace in the districts that we live in, we must be the first to invest there. We are fortified with an ideology and we have the will to commit ourselves to this task of service. If we can invest our determination, effort, time and ideas, Heaven will help us.

The headquarters will spare no effort in supporting the rural and urban district churches throughout Korea. If we can sacrifice, serve and commit ourselves for one, two or three years and embrace the world, it will lead to the fulfillment of the will of God. Our culture of heart will, in the end, be incorporated as the general culture of society.

Beloved hoondok family church leaders, even now True Parents, who are at the center of all providential change, are tirelessly investing everything they have in order to usher in the era of heaven. As we follow True Parents, who are relentlessly marching forward toward the realization of the will, we must also embrace change.

Now is the time to manifest our strength as a community of heart, together with our members. As we disperse to conduct activities and gather again, the light of our members and the value of this community of faith will shine even brighter in the current providence.

Although we may be working separately, our hearts should be tied even more tightly together with emotional bonds; and if we can unite, centering on our True Parents, our hopes will soon manifest as reality.

 Download entire page and pages related to it in ZIP format
Table of Contents
Information
Tparents Home