Cheon Seong Gyeong: Episode 292
Cheon Seong Gyeong Book 9: Home Church and the Tribal Messiah
Chapter 3: The Mission of a Church Leader
Section 5: Witnessing and Pastoral Care, 06-16
(6) Why is our church not growing? It is because the church fails to take care of new members to the end. Instead of showing greater interest in them as time passes, the church pays attention to them only when they are being witnessed to. Once they join the church, they are neglected. The church needs to pay attention to new members for at least three years, no matter what. Why is this the case? People's spirituality develops gradually. Their state when they first listened to the Principle is different from their state one year later. After a year they are able to understand the multidimensional content of the Principle both internally and externally. The more deeply they understand its content, the thirstier they become. They have a craving to learn more about the Principle, and they will want to meet people who can teach them about it. Therefore, the church needs to invest more time in such people. It needs to make a detailed plan about how it will satisfy the internal cravings of their hearts.
(7) Why can't the church grow? It is because its leaders do not live for the sake of others. Therefore, the spirit world does not cooperate with them. The leaders know how to tell the members what to do, but they do not know that they need to run errands for the members. Therein lies the problem. The church cannot grow because the leaders are not willing to live ninety-five percent of their lives for others.
(8) Witnessing is the activity of leading people to leave Satan's world behind and follow the path to Heaven with a smile. It is an activity to guide them to the heavenly kingdom. When you try to witness to others, I see you telling them forcibly, "Come, come," regardless of whether they want to or not. You should not do that. People are spiritual beings. So, as an experiment, try praying for a certain person. Try loving that person sincerely and shedding tears with an anguished heart to bring that person before the Will. Then study what happens. The issue is how you can truly advance to the position where you can love that person more than his or her parents do. It is a battle. The issue is whether you can win over that person by demonstrating a heart greater than that of his or her mother and father.
(9) Abel is in the plus position, whereas Cain is in the minus position. In relation to Satan's world, you are in the position of plus, or Abel. Witnessing is to bring the plus of Satan's world to obey, so that it can become the minus of Heaven's world. Thus, witnessing is the act of creation. That is, it is to re-create that person so that he or she unites with you. Therefore, you should be glad to witness to him or her. You should do it joyfully. When God created heaven and earth, did He do it out of joy or sorrow? He did it out of joy. Likewise, you should invest amazing love for that person rather than thinking about the difficulties and hardships of witnessing. Thinking that you exist for others, if you care for others you will become their subject partner. You can re-create others by investing yourself. When their re-creation is completed, you become their subject partner, and they will all happily bow their heads before you.
Our attitude to witnessing
(10) How should you witness to people? Do not just wander around aimlessly every day. Visit one hundred homes and choose ten of them, and out of those ten homes choose one person. Then concentrate on conveying the Word to that one person. I tell you, focus on the goal of witnessing to one person a month. To attain this, you must offer devotion and work hard during that month. After witnessing to that one person, you should tell him or her, "Just as I have done for you, you should witness to your relatives with devotion." If you establish such a tradition and guide others to do the same, you will certainly do well. By following this uniform method of witnessing to one person per month, a horizontal expansion of witnessing will unfold from one person to another, and membership will markedly increase.
(11) You say that you go out witnessing, but what is witnessing? It is showing the way. You are showing the way for the world to return to God. How wonderful this work is. If you ask a person's original mind, "Where are you going?" It would reply, "Oh! After passing through this world, I shall return to the heavenly kingdom." You are pioneering the way for people to do just that; how marvelous this task is!
(12) Religion, until now, has been focused on individual salvation. However, that kind of religion is bound to decline. It will come to an end. Even if it has become a worldwide religion, it will have to be resurrected once again. It must do so at all costs. Religious believers, Christians in particular, maintain their faith in order to save their individual lives. But for what purpose? They assert that they will be saved and go to the kingdom of heaven, but they should not have such a purpose. Even if you go to the kingdom of heaven, what are you going to do there, all by yourself? You should be living a life of faith that aims to bring all humankind with you into the kingdom. If you live that way, you cannot help but witness to others even if you are told not to witness. You cannot help but practice goodness, even if you are told not to.
(13) You go out to witness not only to save Cain but also to save yourselves. In other words, witnessing is the path of taking action to receive certificates from God and Satan. You should strive, even fight, to make the conditions that will entitle you to receive those certificates.You should witness with this understanding. But did any of you understand this when you went out witnessing? All of you have been going out without knowing why. Hence, the greatest enemy is not Satan, but yourself. You stand in the position of the enemy; therefore, the enemy Satan chases you. For this reason, always keep in mind that you yourself are the enemy. That is because the enemy manifests through your own body. To put it another way, because we are connected to Satan through our bloodline, our bodies stand in the position of the enemy.
(14) If by offering your life you can overcome evil, God's love will come to you and you will recover your life. This is the formula. It is like placing weights on a scale: if one side goes down, the other side goes up. If you eliminate much evil, good will go up; if evil increases, good will go down. You will receive love to the same extent as the evil you eliminate. That is also why God told you to love Him more than anyone else. He told you this because the more you love Him, the more love you can receive from Him. You have loved God, and that is why you can receive more love from Him.
(15) When you are witnessing, you ought to devote yourself and pray, clinging to God and shedding tears, "Please guide me so that I may not fail You in connecting with this person whom You have prepared for me today. Please allow me to become a person whom everyone here can welcome and who can motivate each of them." Try going out witnessing with such a heart. If you neglect to do this and go out unwillingly, even if you meet the nicest person in the village, that person will reject you and drive you away. You need to go through such experiences in your daily life. You need to realize on your own through experimentation, "Ah, God is with me in this situation, but He is not with me in that situation." You can then develop yourself and cultivate your character to reach the world of God's heart. It is no good if you just sit around harboring greed in your heart and thinking only about what you can gain.
(16) Witness to people through your boundless giving. When you have done so, those who do not respond will be summoned by Heaven. They will have no excuse. Once goodness is sown, it will always be reaped. Hence, when a good person calls you, if you do not respond to that person, you will face consequences. Although goodness has extended its hand, if no results ensue, that neighborhood and even the neighboring villages will be entangled in the snares of Satan. When you go out witnessing in a certain place, the ancestors who have good connections there will try to gather their descendants and guide them to meet you. Because they know the basic principle they try to guide their descendants, even by appearing in their dreams.
FFWPU, USA