Cheon Seong Gyeong: Episode 291
Cheon Seong Gyeong Book 9: Home Church and the Tribal Messiah
Chapter 3: The Mission of a Church Leader
Section 4: Giving Sermons that Move Hearts, 30
Section 5: Witnessing and Pastoral Care, 05
(30) Before going to the podium, first think about the posture you will take when you stand before the audience. Then think of a way to impress the audience within the first five to ten minutes. If the audience does not incline toward you within the first five to ten minutes, it will be difficult to move them. That being the case, it is important to know what to start with. Begin with a topic that catches everyone's interest. Or begin with something totally irrelevant, unusual or unfamiliar. Employ a strategy to draw them to you, so that they will want to listen to what you are saying. You need a strategy to draw them in.
(31) Study people to figure out whether they are open-minded and cooperative or narrow and inflexible. By finding out the sorts of topics intriguing to a person, you should be able to discover his or her personality type. Study by making comparisons: "Ah, that person is the same type as this friend of mine. Among the one hundred people I know, he is like so-and-so." Select three or four people of different types and test how they respond to your sermons. Choose them from different categories, for example, a humble person, an arrogant person, a passionate person, and an indecisive person. Then observe them. At a certain dramatic moment you may shed tears, or when you are preaching about forgiveness, for example, your expression should show your emotion. In this way, you should be able to move that person. You are fighting an invisible battle. For a person who has poetic sentiments, you can recite a poem. Recall a suitable poem, and during the sermon take a minute to recite the poem, losing yourself in poetic sentiment. For a person with literary sentiments, you can whisper to express intense emotion.
(32) Wherever you are, when you lecture the Principle, whether it is Part One or Part Two, your lecture should be seamless and smooth. The Principle should become like a formula for you. If you use this formula to comprehend the whole world of phenomena, the knowledge you acquire will be so vast. You should find the Principle so interesting that you want to stay up all night reading it. If you are intoxicated by the Principle to that extent, it will bring internal growth. You will see progress in your daily life as well. Unless you study the Principle with that level of focus, you will hardly make any progress.
(33) How can you become a great lecturer? Go listen to famous lecturers around the country. Record their lectures and evaluate them. Choose their best points and write them down in your notebook. Always have piles of the tapes you recorded. Collect the witty and useful materials from tens and hundreds of their sermons and use them whenever you give lectures. Then you can become a great lecturer. You should lecture more than eight hours every day. Lecture to even one new guest.
(34) If you can shed tears when holding the Principle book, you can move your audience. Become a person who clings to the Principle book, staying up all night reading it, begrudging the fact that time is passing, and having amazing experiences from page to page. After you have had such experiences, try giving lectures while intoxicated with the Principle and see how spirit world moves the audience. Without fail, people will have new and moving experiences. If you are dead, things will lose their life force and atrophy, but if you are alive, things will definitely develop. When they develop, new things will come into existence. That is a natural law.
(35) When you lecture, what do you want to give to the listeners? And when you speak, what message do you want to convey through your words? When you use your hands, what impression do you want to make with your gestures? When you do anything, what impact do you want to make? You need to have answers to these questions. Even when you walk a difficult path, always think of the legacy you will leave behind. Though your path may be arduous and tiring, to leave a legacy you have to be full of spirit and fun. You cannot afford to wallow in exhaustion. The more difficulties you face, the more you need to pay attention to this matter.
Section 5. Witnessing and Pastoral Care
(1) Considering the current situation of the Unification Church, we cannot expect any innovative developments in the future as long as the leaders cling to the same methods they have been using thus far. We must not just hold on to old ways of thinking, old attitudes, old methods of witnessing, or existing approaches to faith. This is because these methods have not met our expectations in bringing results. It would be different had we achieved good results. However, since we have not, we should abandon our conventional faith and life, as well as witnessing methods, and transform ourselves into new and different people. Unless we come up with a new attitude of faith, a new attitude in life, and new activities, it will be difficult to bring new development.
The standard of heart comes first
(2) We all need to grow. However, before we pursue growth, more important is cultivating a pure heart. Therefore, you need to take the time to pray and offer devotion. You should not offer devotion just the way you are. First you need to clean up your past. If your old concepts persist, you should consider where those concepts could drag you. You, who are immersed in old concepts and stubbornly cling to them, must evaluate yourself, and determine whether your past was pure. If you believe you were pure, consider whether you have been good and whether you are currently situated in a good position. Also, you need to evaluate whether your desires are pure. What is pure goodness? It is not living for your own sake. It is not strengthening yourself. Goodness is serving and attending God, as the owner of goodness. The owner of goodness is God, not fallen people.
(3) When you go out to rural areas to witness, you should first attain internal unity with the people of that village. Internal unity refers to unity of heart. Then you need to attain unity with their life and thoughts. This means that your mind and body need to unite centered on God, as a reality in daily life. In other words, the mind attains a state of total unity with God, and then the body surrenders to the mind. That is how you connect the three points of formation, growth, and completion. Do not follow this path just as an individual, but also take people with you as you travel this path.
(4) Some church leaders believe they have reached the standard of Heavens perfection and demand that others serve, attend and honor them. This is very wrong. The position of a parent is to serve others rather than to be served; to live for the sake of others, rather than to have others live for them. From the viewpoint of brothers and sisters, a church leader is in the position of Abel. From the viewpoint of a parent, a church leader is in a parent-child relationship with members. That is why it is very wrong for a leader to think that Cain should serve him or her in the position of Abel. For what does Abel exist? Abel exists to restore the position of a parent. Therefore, you cannot become Abel without first having the heart of a parent. That is the principle. Yet many have forgotten that their position is to become a parent, thinking of themselves only as Abel in a relationship between siblings. You need to rid yourself of that wrong concept as quickly as possible.
(5) We have plenty of content by which to grow. We are also fully equipped with the favorable conditions and environment that have been given to us in this age. Then why are we unable to grow? It is because we are not adding anything to the people of this age or to the environment they are living in. Simply put, we are not benefiting them in any way. Although we are unable to benefit others materially, if we can make people feel deeply that they can benefit from us spiritually or mentally, then they are bound to come to church even if told not to come.
FFWPU, USA