Our new witnessing card - get it from your pastor

Thank you for all that you are offering to God in your daily lives and all that you do to support our True Parents mission.

The new outreach card is printed and hopefully will be in your hands, in church, by this coming Sunday.

This is a week later than we originally intended. But I know many of you have already taken up several initiatives to get out meeting people and working on local outreach.

It is for me a learning experience this campaign and a formation stage experience in some respects.

Looking ahead towards the rest of the campaign: I would like to propose 3 weeks of passionate prayer to start this coming Sunday 18^th April – Saturday 8^th May. At least 12 minutes each day.

Here are some suggested prayer points:

-          Pray for people you want to witness to

-          Pray for the unity of our Blessed families and our church communities

-          Pray for the growth of our congregations both in heart and in number

-          Pray for a more intimate personal relationship with our True Parents

Let us seek deeper insights for our outreach and church development. What I hope we can gain is what David Earle recently called ‘authentic spiritual revival’, which means we have more than a momentary experience of inspiration, but make the right conditions to have a genuine experience of rebirth that can then sustain us over the longer term to show our steadfast determination and passion.

How many of you would like to join a condition to hand out 360 outreach cards over the 21 days which will be the same period as the above prayer condition (18^th April – 8^th May)? Please discuss in your community how to best go about this.

One suggestion for the outreach contact cards is to make an additional A5 leaflet for any events or worship services that you would like to invite people to and then either post through people’s letter boxes or put into people’s hands both the outreach contact card and a locally focused flyer.

I am going to put some effort into preparing a 3 week sermon series for our Lancaster Gate community church to start at the end of this prayer condition on the Sunday 9^th May. I want to design it for introducing new guests to the Principle and True Parents.

Please remember that one focus for May and June are the weekend Divine Principle retreats held in Livingstone House that will take place on the following dates:

May 7^th – 9^th

June 4^th – 6^th

We will be working on the new www.unificationmovement.org.uk site over the next week or two to develop the content more. Please give any feedback you consider will be helpful and also under the communities section think if you would like to have anything added regarding your local area.

If you want to join the prayer condition please leave a comment in the blog and or let your pastor know.

Have a good week.

All the best,

Simon

Purpose of Music Ministry

To create a foundation for our Lancaster Gate community church through music, and eventually spread it throughout the nation.

Music Ministry’s general Mission/Goals:

•    To encourage and recruit more musicians to channel their musical skills into their life of faith, through worship.

•    Create a new songbook (Research contemporary popular music, and explore up to date ideas from other kinds of worship)

•    Build a team/committee who are inspired and committed to this area. (A reliable, talented band)

•    Be the ‘music part’ of developing a strategy to reach out to new people

•    Managing band and/or choir, preparing the music, preparing reflection music on Sundays.

•    Creating a music database for UK. (we should know who plays what, and what they can offer/or want to offer. Develop resources to support those people, in order to help them, and inspire them.)

•    Other projects could include: video promotion, album projects, music workshop, fundraising projects/organising projects to raise money, showcase talent.

Job Description:

•    You should have a passion for God, and worship.
•    You need to have a passion for music
•    Good knowledge of music theory/and knowledge of at least one musical instrument (Can be vocals)
•    You need to have good management/coordination skills
•    You should be motivated to develop our church community and outreach
•    You need to have an open mind for different opportunities, and should be able to work with all people (old, young, etc)

Salary negotiable. Full-time or Part-time. If you would not like to apply for the main post but are interested to be involved, please also get in touch.

Please contact: Simon Cooper (Lancaster Gate community pastor)

It’s been a while since the last MBU report, so here’s a brief update on how things have developed over the season so far.

Basically, MBU has been going through a steep learning curve. There were some tough times, when things became so frustrating on the field, tempers flew off it and relationships within the team were strained. These, and other problems, were teething pains, predictable in the sense that this is our first season, a formation stage, and thankfully things are beginning to click into place.

With the exception of a solitary victory in a knock-out cup competition (against a team who are no longer participating in our league!) MBU has become familiar with defeat. The scorelines have been quite embarrassing at times, but frequently, and especially recently, the lads have felt that these scores were poor reflections of the large steps we’re taking forward in our improvement. Individuals are growing in their ability, there’s more fluidity in our game and the managerial style is gaining confidence.

We won our first league game just over a week ago, a 3-4 away victory with a late Toby Suda goal securing the victory. Wild scenes ensued as the touchline members of the team celebrated; the manager ran onto the field in jubilation, and although the referee reminded him to return off the pitch, the ref was rather sympathetic to our joy having refereed many of our defeats.

Below are pictures and a video (courtesy of Tadaharu Hashimoto and Chris Jubb respectively) of last Saturday’s game (a 6-0 loss, but there was some tasty football on show).

Expect more victories to come!

David Fortune on his debut in goal - he did a sterling job

I'm putting on Kyung's shin pads which were worn by Victor, because Mark is wearing my pads after forgetting his ones...

Half time team talk

Yoshiko Chellew brought her Japanese friend & Joanna de Souza her Chinese friend, so there were  8 of us listening to William Haines teaching about Adam’s & Noah’s Families  at our weekly Monday evening Divine Principle presentation & discussion at Lancaster Gate.
Why is this important? Well, if our identity is socially constructed by our relationships, then surely the most significant relationships for each of us are family relationships.  Our self understanding comes largely from this source, and in an ideal world, we would all essentially feel that we were a sons/daughters of God.  However, because of fallen human lineage, we are on a roller coaster emotionally as far as our identity is concerned. We tend to invest everything in being British, or being a Man Utd. fan etc.
Because of the Fall, Adam was in the midway position between God & Satan, so neither side could clearly deal with him. Therefore Adam was symbolically divided into his two sons, Cain, further from God, & Abel, relatively closer to God.  If Indemnity is to fix what has been broken, then Abel was in a position to restore the Foundation of Faith by believing & following God’s word, and Cain was put in a position similar to the Archangel, and he had to show by his attitude that he had no relationship with Satan.
William made the story of Cain & Abel more interesting by readings from the Talmud & Koran, showing that how we think & feel & behave are such important conditions in coming to God’s or Satan’s side. God loved Cain, but Satan had a claim on him through his attitude in the offering, so what could God do, except warn him to be careful!
Noah made many conditions to establish the Foundation of Faith, however Ham had to inherit his fathers foundation in order to stand as Abel.  We heard from the Talmud that because of bad conditions, his shameful response to his naked father showed that he was from the lineage of Satan, and God could not use his family’s foundation any more. Sometimes, when we react really badly to a situation, almost out of control, it is because of something we have thought or felt or done, and we should reflect on our conditions. Are we showing the lineage of God, or the lineage of the enemy?
Next week we will hear about Abraham’s family.

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:

get poster

Robin Marsh
Lancaster Gate, London

Recently there was excellent cooperation between the brothers and sisters of STF, other second generation young people, Central London church, UPF Secretariat and Ambassadors for Peace, who came together to hold a Blessing Seminar, Ceremony and Entertainment.

Eleven couples were blessed amid a very beautiful atmosphere, even though in some cases only one of the couple could attend. While there were elements to improve for future occasions, it was an important stage in the development of a working system to educate and bless our contacts and Ambassadors for Peace.

One of the joys of having an STF* team present is that they mingled with the wedding guests, brides and grooms, and sang to them to create the nice atmosphere. Chris and Catherine Moloney also sang at both the beginning and the end of the programme … in fact the singing caught on, and by the end of the Marriage Blessing Ambassadors for Peace too were singing and and dancing.

After interfaith prayers from Hindu, Christian, Buddhist and Islamic faiths, Bharat Koria, an Ambassador for Peace, spoke to the audience to say that Father Moon is the source of True Love that makes the Blessing possible. The  majority of couples were re-dedicating their marriages to each other, but one couple exchanged rings in what was their wedding ceremony.

Holy nectar/wine ceremony

The Moloneys sing for everyone

Simon Cooper and Robin Marsh gave a seminar on marriage values and the purpose of the Marriage Blessing, and Margaret Ali filled in any gaps in the event and introduced the interfaith prayers. Mr. Marsh was even able to talk about the Marriage Blessing on the radio show of one person who, at the last moment, was unable to attend and wanted other people to understand what it was all about.

The Hayashis – a well-respected elder Japanese couple were the officiators for the Holy Blessing ceremony. Our thanks must also go to Naomi Sato and Ann  Kobayashi for preparing the refreshments, and to Joyce Suda who took care of receiving the guests, grooms and brides.

*STF: Teams of young volunteers, usually on a gap-year.

40 UK Community leaders, department leaders and UPF/WFWP leaders gathered in HQ at 7am for a time of worship together and a chance to bring us into one mind and heart also learning some new songs. It was great to welcome the new STF young people to UK and to the meeting.

After a hearty breakfast, we spent the whole morning sharing testimonies about what we had all achieved and learnt in 2009 and what were our plans and determinations for 2010.

In the afternoon, we had an exciting brainstorming session about defining the role of the pastor with a view to being able to evaluate their success and development. Tim Read and Matthew Jubb gave a presentation on the new and improved Family Fireplace website and how to best keep it attractive and informative.

At last years strategy meeting, one key goal was to establish a network of small groups in each community. David Hanna gave an update on progress and again explained how they should function and grow organically. One of our main activities over the next 3 years will be outreach and Blessing. Franklin and Cecilie Fortune lead a discussion on how best to encourage this activity and empower blessed families to support this activity in their local community.

Here are a few reflections from attendees :

Jeff Bateman , North London Community leader : The tone of the day was well set with a reading from Divine Principle “Christology”  section. Each person is as important to creation as the parts of a machine which cannot be replaced. Therefore each individual has the value of the Whole of creation (paraphrased see the actual words on page 165)  – such profound words! If we feel more connected to each other we will find strength for what we are doing. Connection vertically with God and True Parents and with the new spirit that Hyung Jin Nim is inspiring us to bring.

June Darby, FFWPU Trustee : I was so grateful that I could attend the meeting because I was really uplifted and inspired by the day’s proceedings. It was so easy to pray for everyone because there was such a high spirit present. I felt as though everyone there was being enfolded and held by God and True Parents’ Love and Presence. It was an amazing experience. I felt such an incredible love from God for everyone present – they were all so humble and sincere in their desire to change and improve themselves and their ministries. I was very moved by the love each one had for True Parents, by how they are trying to care for and respect members and how they are trying anew to reach out to share and testify to their conviction and love with new people. They were all trying so sincerely to unite with Hyung jin nim’s directions.  I thought that he would really be happy and comfortable in England when he visits us. It was also very inspiring listening to their reports as they all testified to dramatic encounters that they had experienced with God in the past year.

I left LG feeling so much hope for the future. Whenever I look at Leaders now in the future I shall be seeing them from a new perspective, with respect and love, for I can never forget how I saw them all with God and True Parents’ eyes of love and appreciation.
I was very moved by Mike’s report at our service about how Simon’s sermon had set the tone for the day. H e said that Simon had spoken about how we need to first care for and value the unique gifts of all our members before we embark on witnessing, that it was important to be a loving and caring community first and that we should analyse and meet our own needs and wants; that the success of our witnessing would be according to our love for God, True Parents and people and the strength of our faith, conviction.

Susan Crosthwaite, Blessed Families Department : From 6.30am to 5.30pm we sat in an informal style, ate delicious meals prepared by our STF team guided by chefs Michael Franklin and Constance Rennie, and reconnected with our national team…some whom we see only once or twice a year. We were asked to focus on the theme of uniting with True Parents Pure Heart.

My most important memories which come to me over and over as the days pass are:

Ron German’s story.  This is what I remember from it….he was woken up in the middle of the night and given a very clear message from heaven ( meaning God and/or spirit world ) to tell an old friend who introduced him to our movement to buy his house.  He followed the message without delaying when he got up after dawn, and asked if he could visit her.  She answered that she would do it, on one condition….that Ron and his family stay living in it!  As Ron spoke I was stirred by his real and living relationship with the living God.  Thanks for your most sincere faith Ron! This has enabled Ron and Catherine to be full time community leaders for Wales.

Another thing which comes to me over and over is a memory of Simon Cooper’s eyes.  When I was speaking to the group, I was moved by the loving look in his eyes…he looked so proud of me, and so encouraging!   Several times he made the most complimentary comments after someone’s presentation…so generous and positive and caring. Thank you Simon! As we launch into 2010 with the desire to multiply ourselves by sharing our faith with others, I will often think of these beautiful people – the 40 staff who are the shepherds of our UK movement – and thank God for such heart. Probably the most memorable words will be of Patricia Earle’s – love for people is what moves the spirit world to send prepared people to us.  When we love and serve them, they will open up to understand the wonderful truth we have to offer.