…and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1)

Chieko and I go most mornings to offer some devotion in the ballroom in our church HQ and we study our scripture with some of the brothers in LG.

I don’t believe it’s a very attractive option for most of us, most of the time to get up super early, but there are times when God’s word just comes alive and finds its way into your heart, mind and soul.

We were reading the Cheon Seong Gyeong from page 1039 to about 1044, and the words felt so strong and true. I could feel the timeless spirit of truth that my mind and body almost physically responds to.

more than words on a page

We do a bit of meditation and breathing practice after our reading and again, that is something that is easy to find difficult, something to avoid doing, but over time it can from one moment to the next bring so much blessing into our body. This morning I could feel God’s word and the breathing practice stirring around inside me and generating a special kind of energy.

The challenge is how do we find a way in, a reason, to start our day with God’s word. And I realised how Chieko and I are blessed because we caught a similar vision despite not been similar.

As we sat there in a circle with the brothers, listening to each other read, I could see what a powerful way to build trust: when we all start our day together from that same point of submitting our self to God and listening to His Word we have a chance to respect and value each other more deeply. We come together not just on our own often capricious terms but instead on God’s terms which can be relied upon.

On the car ride home, as we went through Shepherds Bush, still feeling that special kind of energy that only comes from the source, I became partially aware of True Parents’ loving behaviour towards all of us and the tradition that God has been passing on to us over the millennium: the study of His Word that has the power to impact our life.

I know often God’s words are hard to catch, understand, and sometimes they just cannot find their way in. But it only requires a bit of patience and persistence. You can find a 100 reasons why starting the day this way is not practical for your life, but if it is just one sentence, then why not start with that.

Feed yourself with something each morning that takes you deeper into who you really are, that guides you to where you are really meant to go, and where actually you long to be.

I get to work with the coolest, most sincere, clever, generous, committed, honest, sometimes v organised, insightful, humble, passionate, deep, beautiful, hard working, loving, spiritual, skilful  people IN THE WORLD. And sometimes when my head is screwed on properly and my heart is hooked up I even get to work with God too. And I just want to say: thank you God for blessing and trusting me in this way and letting me work with and learn from all these amazing people. And I know that saying this here is not going to jinx me, cuz you are a generous, patient and loving God who only wishes the best for us.

After seeing how so many people, both staff and volunteers put things into place for our Sunday Worship, I just felt  the power that people who share a common vision have. And then through talking to a few different people on the phone this morning and going with one of our HQ staff for breakfast at Pret for a coffee, Proper Pret porridge (that’s a tongue twister…), a work review and an appraisal, I tasted what we can do, when we share our passion, and see each other’s potential.

proper porridge

Actually I want to say thank you to Colin Turfus who as one of our new trustees was sharing about how in his work he conducts work appraisals, and how unless you schedule them in they don’t happen… and gave me the feeling I should really start doing that more often. I guess this is what it feels like when based on faith we have the right give and take dynamic in our lives; it’s just a divine principle.

Our message in HQs today was all about John Ch.9 and how when someone has a personal undeniable experience with God all the explanations and questions that have been obstacles to their faith shrink.

We had another go at letting people join us online for our Sunday worship and we had quite a few people join us: not sure exactly how many, but it was good to hear the STF team was joining us all the way from Belgium and we had a couple of students also from Scotland tune in.

One thing I would recommend checking out is Terry Sweeney singing ‘come what may’ @ 15minutes 20 secs. into the service. He is the soul man.

It felt good to know even when the room is almost full we can make space for others to join in and connect through their computer. Really felt people were worshipping during the music.

Will put the message power point up tomorrow, but here are a couple of pictures from the slides with some v cool models:

The vision: to make it easy to connect

43, Lancaster Gate should be a place which radiates True Parents’ love and spirit, and where our nation wide members can feel proud of their Unification Church Movement. We also want to properly remember all those who gave all their love to purchase and develop this incredible Grade 2 listed property that became the home of the Unification Movement in the UK.

Please donate on the right

Please see the powerpoint below for a a slide show of the budget and the upgrade plan:

Dear HQ congregation and friends, and anyone who doesn’t have a church they can go to,

Pastor’s update: Sunday Worship, 7th March, 11am at LG: ‘it’s personal’

Been missing you over the last couple of weeks since going to Korea. This Sunday at 11am we are going to look at a fascinating story that will help you consider how you let True Parents into your heart and life:

Jesus spat on the ground mixed his saliva with the earth, put the mud on a blind man’s eyes and gave him back his sight. What was all that about!? And what happened next? John Ch.9

Come and find out why this story can tell you something about your life, and how your big decisions mostly get decided by your heart rather than your head.

not super relevant, but notice the saliva

Message: It’s Personal…

MC: Tom O’Connell

Music: Kathleen and Chris Moloney
(with special performance by Terry – aka Van Morrison – Sweeney singing ‘come what may’)

Reading: Alex Shaw
Prayer: Wen Chang
Lunch: Grant Miller
Ustreaming: Ajay Rai

As we have done previously we will be developing our use of Ustream. So if for whatever reason you don’t make it in for Sunday Worship in person, feel free to join us over the internet at:

http://www.ustream.tv/user/FFWPU-UK-HQ from 11am.

There will be a 3 minute pp presentation in the announcements about our plan to raise £21K to refurbish and upgrade our HQ church facilities.

Lastly, there is now a high end quality video of Pastor Hyung Jin Moon’s message that I originally put up on my blog filmed from my iPhone. Check this link below for a perfect picture and sound done on a professional camera:

http://www.vimeo.com/9915570 (if you haven’t watched this yet, it is well worth checking out.)

God bless,

Simon
Your Pastor

…towards balance

This blog is going to be based on my personal experiences…I feel the urgent need to share about what life has taught me about being physically healthy. We urgently need to take proper care of our health! As True Parents showed at the first Original Divine Principle Workshop in Hawaii last year, by inviting an acupuncturist who also uses moksa herbs, we need to take care of our physical bodies, and we need to use natural methods to heal ourselves as much as possible.

Over the next 27 months I am going to tell you some of the highlights of my 36 year journey to health, and the lessons learnt along the way. The emphasis on physical care in no way diminishes my belief in True Parents or God’s Providence…I always kept active ‘on the front line’ as we say, whilst doing all these amazing things. Deepest thanks to God for guidance, and enthusiasm along the way!

There will be the 27 topics:

1. Drink Water; You are Gods’ Temple – Kidney Disease 1974
2. Energy healing through visualisation and music – Naturopath Tracy De Geer, Blessed Sister, Sydney Australia
3. The Joy of Steamed Vegetables (lessons learnt from my first Spiritual Daughter, Gail) 1978
4. The Poisons that make us Unhealthy 1980
5. The Base of Health in the Human Body – elimination and detoxifying the colon: part 1 1980
6. Personal Self Control and Sacrifice: Three Day Juice Fasts and Enemas: part 2
7. Colonic Irrigation raw juices, and mono-diets 1981: part 3
8. What I learnt in the Solomon Islands 1982
9. Radical diet improvement ‘on the road’ ( the MFT road!) 1983
10. Guided Meditation, and the Reversal Course 1983
11. The joys of Water Melon fasting on MFT in Queensland, Australia 1983
12. The Health Institute in New York City and using fruit to clean your digestive tract 1984
13. Exercise and Bioenergetics and being together with Ashley 1986
14. Fresh air, emotional healing and the body, and chiropractic support 1986
15. Friendship for Health – the sister’s meeting, and best friends in mission together 1986-89
16. The Miraculous Saga of our first child Patrick…balancing natural remedies with fertility treatment 1990-91
17. Training as a Massage Practitioner (‘Body Worker’ as they also call it) in California 1991
18. Keeping Healthy in Russia…kidney stones and other lessons from Russian hospitality 1992
19. Preparing to have another Baby, and the ‘total cleanse’. 1997
20. The wonders of skin…how to help it do its job. 2000
21. Healing Childhood Traumas – stage two of the reversal course 2000
22. An answer to prayer at the Tree of Life and discovering EFT 2000
23. Comfort Eating and ‘post-natal depression’ 2001
24. Supplements and their place in the picture 2003
25. Family Constellations and Laughter 2007
26. The Emotion Code 2009
27. Back to the joys of the mono-diet to detoxify and bring discipline to my eating

I offer this, hoping you will find it interesting, enjoyable and useful!

Susan

Here are a bunch more pictures I took during my 2nd visit on Monday 23rd February before heading off to the airport. The general feeling is light, stylish, and functional as a place of worship and devotion.

the main auditorium for worship service

The pews

Sofas

Sign and bell

Some sort of flight control system?

Pastors' offices

Hyung Jin Nim's quite small office room ...

... and his desk

Went to Stratford to join the East London church for the first of their Saturday outreach programs.

stratford station is always alive

I love the East London community how though small in number they come together young and old and bring the entertainment the food and all spirit.
A few new people came who I had not met before, one of them was Marva’s neighbour.
The message introducing True Parents and the Divine Principle was called: “a vision that brings blessing to your life.”

And then came the entertainment. Here is a song that Terry Sweeney wrote along time ago and performed for us today. Felt like the soul man himself, Van Morrison was in the room. I already booked him for a performance for HQ church next Sunday 7th March.

And then came the breakers:

Nice moves by Julian, back flip and lot of upper body strength from Sean, and something about Jude, everything can fall out his pockets and somehow I think he wouldn’t even need to move to still be shower.

Big thanks to all of you in East London. It is exciting to get out there and share the good news about True Parents and the Principle. Looking forward to the next East London church outreach Saturday. Gotta think of something more concise.

the leaflet

Tomorrow, Saturday, 27 Feb 2010 is kick-off in East London; we are going  witnessing. Stratford is our place. Preparations have  all been done  over the last few weeks. Among them  a leaflet. Pretty looking,  how was it done? Let’s ask the creator.

“I used Microsoft Publisher for the design. And the content is the result of a meeting between us members in East London,” she explains. “In a constant feedback  between  junior and  senior members we reached the present result.”

“Originally I wanted to put a picture of a woman – looking up as if in prayer – in the bottom left hand corner, but we decided to change this to honour the founders of our movement instead, Dr.Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon, who we proudly announce.”

“Do you love working in design?” “Yes, I do!”

its creator

I am on the flight back to London from Seoul and taking a bit of time to distil the last 4 or 5 days. It is essential for me to do this, in the context of sharing my thoughts with you, because I went on behalf of and to represent our UK church community. To post my conclusions here is important for me because I want to allow us to have a shared experience that articulates the vision for our church community over the next three years.

on the outside of the ground floor shrine for the 4 great saints

The world mission department staff did a great job taking care of all the national leaders. But when they asked for feedback on what to improve we gave them several suggestions. There was a severe case of information overload and by the end they also realised this. As a result of the multiple power points and case studies there was way too much talking at or to us rather than with us; generally there was a need to develop a more effective process of communication.

That was the toughest part for me to cope with and I regret that I was not more constructive in getting over those frustrations in the heat of the moment.

Aside from that I could salvage some interesting information which I will compile and send out over the next week or two.

Now here is what really made it all click into place:

morning devotion in the temple prayer room on Ahn Shi Il

We concluded our assembly this morning by attending the first Ahn Shil Il in the new ‘mega’ Unification Church temple. Hyung Jin and Yeon Ah Moon were there and he gave an almost one hour long message that washed away most of the frustrations from the previous days.

He spoke with a powerful honesty. Through charting for us his personal journey he cast a clear vision for the Unification Church.

He outlined the Unification Movement’s main problem: Insufficient faith in True Parents as the Lord of the Second Advent; a lack of personal daily awareness of how True Parents have saved our lives by dying for us again and again. He pointed to the fact that many members are not able to be openly proud of these truths as evidence of our need for deeper more personal faith. He pointed to the book of Acts as an example of the type of faith we should aspire to. He referred to himself as an apostle.

He outlined the solution to the problem with two elements: For each of us to get into a life of devotion which allows us to first see True Parents with our spiritual eyes, and secondly gives us the heart and conviction to bring people to accept True Parents as their saviour and lord.

But why us, and why now?

Father is 90 years old and is doing his very best to stick around and give us a chance to help him secure the future. It is us because True Parents have blessed us and given their lives for us more than for anyone else. In that way we are the bridge for True Parents to the world. If it is not us now, then who is it and when?

Pastor Hyung Jin Moon says thank you as he leaves

It is clear that pastor Hyung Jin Nim will keep on repeating this vision until is sticks. But what we must do is unpack it and bring it into a practical set of action steps for our community. We have to flesh it out so that we have a workable strategy and process which will empower each family member and give all of us the opportunity to fulfil the vision: Establishing True Parents as the Way, the Truth, and the Life for building the Kingdom.

I know we all have different approaches and styles of doing what we have got to get done. That is inevitable and fine. Nevertheless we need a recognisable rallying point for all of our efforts. The Sunday before I went to Korea I spoke about our HQ church’s main purpose. We need to focus on teaching the Divine Principle and bringing people to True Parents. We will do many things, but our clear and transparent objective and purpose should be to successfully do these two things.

Again this needs to be unpacked and articulated in more detail. But let us keep our eye on these two purposes and patiently, step by step, answer all the other questions that will spring up as we go along.

I had my video camera ready because I felt in that precious moment all of you needed to be there too!  Here is part 1 of Hyun Jin Nim’s talk at Ahn Shi Il:

On the bus to Incheon airport after leaving the temple this morning I realised we have to thank the Japanese church members for Hyung Jin Nim. It is because of his experience with their faith in True Parents that he is able to provide authentic spiritual leadership. That is why sincere, genuine, personal, mature faith counts. We need those adjectives to qualify the noun, but let us nevertheless remember that faith counts and trumps personality, local culture, and any other relative human factors.

UNfortunately my video camera battery died. But God bless my iPhone, just it doesn’t have a zoom yet. Here is part 2 and 3 of Hyung Jin Nim’s very personal morning message, u might need to turn up the volume or use some headphones for volume: