A Personal Reflection on the Meaning of Foundation Day

| December 07 2012

Foundation Day (February 22, 3013) may be understood as the day on which progress truly begins. Rev. Sun Myung Moon (True Father) often referred to Foundation Day as "D-Day." D-Day was not a completion; it was a beginning. D-Day was the day that the Allies invaded fortress Europe. It took the Allies years to prepare for D-Day, amassing soldiers and armaments in England, making strategic plans, and encircling the enemy. So too, Unificationists have been amassing people, institutions and the expressions of God's Word and offerings, and making strategic plans.

Like D-Day, a good deal of sacrifice and effort stand before us, but with the foundation of True Parents’ decades of ministry, and our proper gathering of it and planning, our forward motion will be steady until true freedom, peace, unity and happiness emerge for all.
True Father called Unification Church members to participate in this preparation, and each Unification Church family is free to call others beyond the church to participate. This makes us responsible to appropriate Foundation Day in a way that makes sense to us. I would like to share how I’ve appropriated it thus far.

My Professional Offering

It came to me late in August as I drifted off to sleep; the education department at Unification Church headquarters in New York has been working on a path of ministry and education to bring a new person — whether an adult or a child born into the church — from unawareness of True Parents all the way to the Holy Marriage Blessing and robust life as a family in our church community, what we call “Tribal Messiahship.” Our team has been building a curriculum piece-by-piece, grinding away in what I considered a rather slow and uneven process, with the last two components — relating to the blessing and Tribal Messiahship — somewhere beyond the orbit of Jupiter. We had place-holder names, but no content.

As I lay in bed, I conceived two things: One, to set the completion of the entire curriculum as a goal for Foundation Day. Just do it. Two, finalize the basic outlines of the Holy Marriage Blessing and Tribal Messiahship curricula. This is huge. But as I lay there, the basic outlines that I had been seeking just came to me. The next day I drafted the first part, with deadlines, and offered it to the team and had it approved. I also drafted the outlines for the final two components of the curriculum but held onto it for further consideration and discussion when the time was right.

That is my first Foundation Day offering — not just mine, now, but an entire team’s. And it’s no insignificant piece of work. It is a way to conceive of what the Unification Church is and what it does on a local level. It is an expression of ministry and education that attempts what the Allies, amassed in England before the assault on fortress Europe, attempted to do. It might not be the best expression, but that’s not the point in this case. The point is that many can fight in this battle. I’m an average guy, and anyone can do what I’ve been doing. If we can get this empowerment in place on a local level, we will have contributed significantly to a well-oiled church; we will be crossing the English Channel. At least that’s what I think. That’s the professional Foundation Day offering I am part of and I’m happy to report: so far, so good.

Next is a local Foundation Day offering, and that is planting a new church. I have to face it (as if it’s a big secret from God): I am not going to bring lots of couples to any Holy Marriage Blessing next February. It is an exercise in frustration, futility and guilt. But what can I do, even if it’s something small? Well, I can make, hmm… a foundation -- no, not Father Moon’s foundation. That’s already done. I can make my foundation.

My Foundation

For years I’ve been aware that a contingent of church families living in and around Kingston, New York, across the river from Barrytown, has had a desire to evangelize. I started up a Bible study group with one of those families, headed by Abdou and Marra Gaye, some eight years ago. It didn’t last too long. In the years that have elapsed since, some of these families have created community or interfaith events, but they haven’t been centered on building up the Unification Church.

There it sat for me, until my wife and her friend, Traudl Byrne, began going door-to-door in Kingston, introducing Father Moon’s autobiography. They met a very nice woman named Sheryl. Sheryl studied the Divine Principle and liked it. She heard the entire DVD series of lectures given by headquarters’ Blessed Family Ministry team member, Rev. Phillip Schanker. She came to the local Unification Church Sunday Service at Barrytown once and was complimentary but didn’t come again. Then, one day, she said to my wife, “Why don’t you start a church in Kingston?”

My wife conveyed this to me, and I thought, “Oh my goodness, out of the mouths of babes!” I mean, why not? Sheryl has no concepts. She’s participated in various churches and spiritual groups. It’s not a big deal, guys. Just start up a church over here! Why not?

I felt kind of accused. Lazy. At ease in the Zion of the Unification Theological Seminary (UTS) buildings and campus. Where no Philistines dare enter. So, I started brainstorming with fellow Unificationists Abdou and Marra, Rollain and Ruth Muanda, Michael and Kufre Akpan, Isagani and Ikuko Purganan, and others who sometimes evangelize in Kingston. I reported about it to our pastor, Gavin Hamnett, and to our church board. They were totally in support. Abdou and I presented it as an outreach team that would give Sunday Services. What’s not to like about that?

The planning was a process taking several months, talking once in a while after church or meeting in Kingston, slow but steady. During this period, Abdou, Marra and I started another Bible study group, called “A Matthew 19 Marriage.” Abdou found a deli owner in Kingston named Rachel, who gave us space to meet for free. It was a seven-week small group, and the group reached a peak of 18 people, including perhaps seven new guests. Then it declined, until at the last meeting, it was only Abdou, Marra and me. We realized that the main problem was not bringing new guests. They will come. The problem was creating an experience to which they would return.

So, our months of discussions were not about witnessing as much as about what the church would do. Of course, teach Divine Principle. But how? When? Where? With what as the next step? And the next step beyond that? Americans have to know where something is headed before they get involved. You start with the end in mind. So, we had to map out the entire skeleton of the ministry before we started, and figure out who was going to do what. It took time, because we’re all busy people. And it took time to find a good place to meet on Sunday mornings.

Long story short, we found a community center that welcomes us on Sundays at a very reasonable price. We have worked out the tithing and financial arrangement with the bookkeeper of the Mid-Hudson Valley Family Church — our mother-church. We had a laying-on- of hands prayer with the entire mother-church congregation during our last Sunday Service on the east side of the river. We made a sign and found an artist’s easel in my garage to put it on. The sign read: “The Unification Church of Kingston, founded by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, called by Jesus Christ, led by the Holy Spirit, Bible-Based.”

We have created a model for our Sunday Service and Divine Principle education after service every Sunday. We have monthly themes for the sermons. We keep our service to one hour, sharp. We have warm singing and prayer. We have given door-to-door areas to seven families. My wife and I do our best to go door-to-door for an hour or so on Wednesdays and Saturdays, or visit new contacts. We have scheduled two Divine Principle study retreats and two Vision Classes between now and Foundation Day. We have scheduled a Christmas potluck lunch after church on the 23rd of December, 2012. And we have three regular new guests coming, two of whom have committed to attend a retreat and Vision Class, the third of whom wrote, on his registration card last week, “God’s grace was here.”

God willing, we will have, as a church plant, two new members by Foundation Day. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is two more than have joined in Barrytown in 15 or 20 years. For me, that’s what Foundation Day is about. It’s not easy; it’s not as glamorous or glorious as it might sound to you. We have a good deal of work to do. Like small businesses, new church plans can easily go under. We have a game plan until Foundation Day, when we’ll reassess and set the plan for a new date, September 1, 2013. Then reassess, and set the plan to February 1, 2014. That’s our vision.

It’s not, ultimately, about the details of what this team of families is doing. It’s about any family, anywhere, doing it as a team, just crossing that English Channel. A group of five or six families can start up an evangelical Unification Church. Mother churches can birth daughter churches. Local members can attend the church of their choice. We can choose the more evangelical service, the more family-reunion style church, the one where the music is to our liking, or the one where we like the sermon more, or like the children’s, youth or young-adult ministry more, or the one that’s closer to where we live.

Foundation Day isn’t just about February 22, 2013; it is about what happens the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year. It’s about inheriting the past and living realistically in the present, based on a vision for the future of the church. “The Messiah will come to install true parenthood, including all the traditions of love. The original standard of measurement would be the True Parents themselves, and then many copies could be made. …You are like the copies of the original standard, going out to make more duplicates in your home church.” – Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Home Church, p. 360.

Contributed by Tyler Hendricks