The Words of Hak Ja Han Moon from 2013
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The Words of Hak Ja Han Moon from 2013 |
In the late 1980s, Father initiated the Top Gun Workshop in the United States for members that had vision, determination and persistence and that could help the American movement achieve greater heights. The idea was to provide special training to some especially capable individuals from various backgrounds who would then routinely analyze the state of the movement and cooperate from within their various departments in working toward its betterment. The term "top gun" comes from a movie by the same name that was set in the U. S. Navy Fighter Weapons School, for which the Navy uses the military shorthand Top Gun. It is a school for the U. S. Navy's best pilots.
True Mother recently called for a similar workshop in Korea. According to Rev. Ju Sung Sun, "True Mother's definition of what a top gun is was a good one. She said that the top gun workshop Father called for in America drew people who then succeeded in their missions. If we are to be 'top guns,' we must inherit their success." Rev. Sun had provided True Mother with lists that she had requested of second-generation leaders and first-generation leaders in the second- generation realm, from which she chose the roster for this top gun workshop. "True Mother," he said, "personally chose each person for the workshop." Mr. Sun was the vice-president of CARP Korea until near the end of the workshop when Mother made him leader of South Chungcheong Province.
Mother wrote down a list of people she felt were qualified to participate in a top gun workshop. She directed Rev. Kyeong Seuk Lu, then the vice-president of the Korean church,' to organize it generally and she put Dae Mo Nim in charge of the details. Forty people took part in the 2020 Vision Twenty-One-Day Top Gun Workshop, which was held at the Chung Pyung Heaven and Earth Training Center.
Thirty-two of the ones selected were from the second generation. The eight others were first- generation members in the second-generation realm. The expression, "first-generation members in the second-generation realm," which perhaps is only used in Korea, refers to those of the first generation that joined when they were very young and grew up in the church. At least one of those participants joined when he was about twelve years old and later persuaded his parents to be blessed. As Rev. Ok Yun-ho, a district leader expressed it, "Most of the second-generation leaders here are in their forties and fifties. We are old. We are not young. I am already a district leader in Seoul with eight churches to take care of. So it is not as if we are learning a whole new tradition. It is more that Mother is empowering us, giving us more support to conduct Vision 2020 through this workshop."
The bare fact is that Korea has developed to such a degree that second-generation Unificationists may also feel a dearth of young people in FFWPU. They may long for younger people than themselves to respond to True Parents' message.
Mr.
Ju Sung Sun
Mother had said that these top gun members need to resemble Joshua and Caleb, but at least one participant, Ju Sung Sun, felt that "we need even better leaders than Joshua and Caleb and that they can be raised through CARP." Rev. Sun will be leaving the workshop with three goals in mind for his new mission as church leader of one of Korea's nine provinces. Not surprisingly, he will focus on witnessing, but rather than individual witnessing, he will concentrate on developing a witnessing system. Secondly, he will invest his effort into developing the quality of mid-level leaders. "I am fostering twenty-six leaders. We want to develop a church where members of our second-generation feel happy and comfortable," he said. His final point will emphasize Chung Pyung's role in achieving Vision 2020. "Members could not connect in heart with Vision 2020 and the goals of reaching so many people in that short time. I realized through my experience here that we need not only education but also the Chung Pyung experience to gain confidence in the spiritual world working with us," he said.
As elsewhere, most workshops in Korea are organized for single groups or one generation. This workshop was inter- generational and included people from various backgrounds. Not only church-related leaders but also leaders of providential organizations and church NGOs took part, as did Special Envoy; Chan Uk Yu, who works in Moldova.
In the beginning, the fact that the men and women in the workshop have spent decades focusing on church goals and activities from different perspectives than one another was apparent. They were all in a somewhat alien environment and were not yet comfortable. Because the people that were invited were all specialists in their own fields, bringing them together to the point of sharing one heart, united in purpose was not automatic.
For workshop participants, this sudden discomfort came after some years of feeling as if they have full control over missions with which they are familiar. This caused them to esteem more highly the value of interpersonal relations, that is, horizontal unity. All had a personal relationship to God and True Parents. Suddenly they had to deal with finding harmony despite their different backgrounds and habitual practices.
Rev.
In Young Song
We may not easily appreciate the degree to which being of different generations can be a struggle, especially (as in this case) when the ages of those of the first generation members were similar to the ages of those in the second. In Young Song, the regional leader of Daegu, has known most of the second-generation top gun participants for the twenty years that he has been a pastor. He, too, is in our second generation. Rev. Song made an interesting observation about what some in our second generation find difficult to overcome. He commented on how first- and second-generation members perceive a central point of our faith differently. "Being in the second generation," he said, "when it comes to relating to True Parents through faith, it is a hit more difficult than it is for first-generation members. We tend to see True Parents as the people that made our parents' lives difficult, that made our parents suffer. That gap exists between the generations."
The workshop was beneficial for him. During it, he experienced an epiphany. "I now feel how great True Parents' love is," he said, "how much they wanted to love every single one of us. I could directly and deeply feel True Parents' love."
The top gun workshop ran for three weeks, during which they went through the full lecture series on the Divine Principle and the lecture series on True Parents' lives and read, in its entirety, the 1,650-page new Cheon Seong Gyeong. They also participated in most of the Chung Pyung chanyang sessions.
Significantly, True Mother was using the top gun workshop to restart Vision 2020, the quest to take the Unification movement mainstream in the next seven years. This indicates that she is leading from the front, as she promised soon after Father Seonghwa Ceremony, and that she is keenly aware of our state of progress.
Mrs.
Jung Hwa Yoo
Mrs. Jung Hwa Yoo is the wife of the pastor of the Cheongshim church, which is in Seorak, the village nearest the Chung Pyung Training Center. She said that Mother emphasizes that Seorak should become our "Vatican City," and that we need to bring all the people of Seorak to believe in True Parents. About the Vision 2020 goals, Mrs. Yoo said, "Many Korean church members actually doubt the vision. They find it unrealistic and too focused on numbers." Mother is aware of this lack of confidence and is determined to correct the trajectory of the Vision 2020 efforts.
Mrs. Yoo, on her part, felt by the end of the workshop "that Vision 2020 was not just a dream, it can actually come true; we can realize it.- She gained this understanding through their Divine Principle study, reading how the series of central figures had dealt with their responsibilities -- some failing, some partially succeeding, until Jacob finally accomplished the foundations of both faith and of substance. Her goals when she returns to the mission field are to pursue Vision 2020 on various levels through achieving multilevel unity. "The first thing we have to achieve, I realize, is body -- mind unity. It is ultimately necessary in this process toward Vision 2020. Body -- mind unity, couple's unity and family unity, those are the first steps toward Vision 2020. We need to be able to make a happy, good strong family, so that even people outside, when seeing my family, say, This is indeed a beautiful, good, great family."
Mrs. Yoo is rare among second-generation members in that before this workshop both she and her husband had liberated 210 generations of their ancestors. She said that few among the top gun participants had done so. She decried the fact that some second-generation leaders have rarely even visited Chung Pyung. "Even though they have led public lives," she said, "some have only come to Chung Pyung twice." She added that often members assume ancestor liberation is something about which only first-generation members need be concerned. This assumption, she explained, has led to a lack of interest on the part of second-generation members. Referring to the top gun group, Mrs. Yoo stated, "Once we came here, we saw that without spiritual assistance, we cannot achieve Vision 2020. Everyone that attended this workshop has come to realize what the spiritual world is and is now determined to liberate 210 generations of ancestors."
One facet of the participants' experience in the 2020 Vision Twenty-One-Day Top Gun Workshop is that many have been persuaded to convey a supportive understanding of Chung Pyung's work to members everywhere. Based on their sense of the need for spiritual support to achieve Vision 2020 goals they have become advocates.
Mrs. Yoo also feels that graduates of the top gun workshop are to spread True Mother's true love culture. "We are to play a bridging role," she said, "Everyone here is a leader. We are not special or anything but because we are leaders of churches and providential organizations, we can now play a key role in expanding that culture among the other members."
The participants in pairs or small groups often discussed Vision 2020 and ways that they might move toward accomplishing it. Twice, all participants discussed it. Each person expressed his or her views. Daegu's Rev. Song explained, "We could reconnect and share based on the truth and on Vision 2020. We all have different responsibilities, but we could share what we think of Vision 2020 and how best to carry it out."
Rev.
Yun Ho Ok
Rev. Yun Ho Ok felt that a good basis to begin moving toward Vision 2020 was to first ease members' physical difficulties. Dae Mo Nim had told them that the hands are like surgical instruments, having the power to heal. He decided to test this idea out. He had arrived at Chung Pyung with pain in his shoulder. He was unable to reach behind his back with his left hand. During chanyang sessions, he concentrated on his left shoulder. The experience reminded him of the expression Hyung Jin Nim used to use about "seven deaths and resurrections." That is how painful the experience was. "You have to go through so much pain before your hands actually begin to have that power to heal," Ile said. Over time and through great endurance, lie realized that what Dae Mo Nim had said was true. His hands were becoming instruments of healing.
Three members of his area came for a workshop and Rev. Ok attended to their pain. He invested himself in trying to heal them. They got better. The following weekend seven people came. He again invested himself, and these members, too, left feeling much better. "When it comes to witnessing," Rev. Ok said, "I think we should start with our 'internal' members, and Chung Pyung is the best way to do this because many members are in pain and exhausted." He believes that when his members have good experiences and are refreshed through coming to Chung Pyung workshops, they will receive the word more deeply in their hearts during Sunday services and become more enthusiastic about witnessing. He sees logic in this. "True Father gave us Chung Pyung as a mecca for the spiritual world. To start witnessing, Mother said that we need to have churches filled with the Holy Spirit and the truth. I think the Holy Spirit comes through Chung Pyung and the truth through education."
Rev. Ok contrasted his state of mind before and after the top gun workshop. Before, he knew the numbers -- the numerical goals Korean members were supposed to reach in bringing new members and in gaining the support of many people in Korean society. Yet, numbers do not make a vision. Even for the numbers, little information on how to reach them was being disseminated. "When 1 came to the top gun workshop, we had many discussions about why Vision 2020 was hard to grasp and what problems we faced related to it. The concepts and goals had not been articulated well and communication and cooperation were sparse." Identifying those problems was helpful but did not make reaching consensus among the top gun leaders easier.
The body of members that took part in the top gun workshop at Chung Pyung did seem to agree that the Chung Pyung providence and the spiritual intervention that occurs there were necessary components to achieve the vision in Korea or even globally. Rev. Ok said, "Especially related to Chung Pyung, my understanding of the providence had some holes. Through listening to the lectures, those holes were filled. I now understand why certain religious ceremonies took place at Chung Pyung and in some ways I understand Chung Pyung's significance." He learned some aspects of this through the healing of his body, regaining full mobility in his left arm, which he attributes to spiritual intervention.
Another insight that Rev. Song had about those in our second generation is that although they know that True Parents say that they do not have original sin, as they conduct their lives day to day, they often feel confronted by their own fallen internal characteristics. They are aware that they have imperfections that make them feel less worthy; nevertheless, they have benefitted from True Parents work and efforts. "What matters," he says, "is that we return to our original selves. True Mother chose Chung Pyung as the workshop site for us, it seems, because we cannot return to our original selves by ourselves. I am grateful to Dae Mo Nim and Heung- Jin Nim for helping us work to find our original selves. This was all necessary and helpful to restart and refocus on Vision 2020."
Mr.
Sung Il Cho
Mr. Sung Il Cho was among the first-generation top guns. He is the director of administrative affairs in the FFWPU International Office, the parent office of this magazine. He believes that achieving unity between members is more difficult than feeling a sense of oneness with True Parents and God. Horizontal unity among members is something he believes we all need to work on. That the forty members of the top gun workshop were able to harmonize and coalesce as a unit he sees as deeply significant.
Another facet of the workshop that he thinks points to future success is that the members experienced many spiritual phenomena during the twenty-one days. "Normally when we think of Chung Pyung," he said, "we recall negative issues. We are not very favorable toward it. Even though True Parents were the ones that conducted the Chung Pyung spiritual providence, because we are closed-minded, it was difficult to understand it." Mr. Cho observed that as the participants' hearts opened toward Chung Pyung, they "felt a lot of spiritual aid and support and spiritual intervention took place."
When asked about specific incidents, he mentioned some. Rev. Kyeong Seuk Lu, had a vision in prayer of Hyo Jin nim walking up behind him, hugging him and telling him to support Mother well. In a chanyang session, the person behind Rev. Lu saw Hyo Jin Nim embracing Rev. Lu. Mr. Cho saw Hyo Jin nim, Heung Jin nim and Young Jin nim come into the hall. He also said that Rev. Sun had had a car accident before the workshop. He could not flex his foot at first, but by the end of the workshop, he could freely move it. Different kinds of spiritual experience occurred. He added, "I did not think that those were just spiritual experiences, but they seemed to me indications of how True Parents, Heung Jin nim and Dae Mo Nim have been working in Chung Pyung. These helped us to gauge just how hard they have been investing themselves."
Top gun workshop participants all seemed to feel strongly that the goals they are pursuing for Vision 2020 call for spiritual support. Yet, they are not ignoring practical aspects.
The top gunners are connected via a cell-phone group and a members-only web site. They will also meet physically once a month, so that they can bring up ideas that help the church develop and ones that the Korean headquarters can actually implement. They are trying to develop that type of culture. If other people in what one might call Abel-type positions are available, they would encourage those people to also come to their monthly meetings to voice their opinions.
Mr. Cho concluded, "More important than goals is being reborn spiritually. If we are spiritually reborn, whether our goal is sixty thousand or six million, that is of secondary importance. Being reborn and having conviction that we can achieve Vision 2020 is what is important. From there, we can work on something. This workshop provided what was most important to the leaders -- conviction."