Mother of Peace: Run Forward
Photo credit FFWPU-USA
A year ago today, on December 28, 2019, cheers erupted from a packed stadium at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. Six-hundred clergy from around the world had joined thousands of live participants and another 25,000 satellite guests for a special Peace Starts With Me Clergy Rally and the launch of the World Christian Leadership Conference (WCLC) by Mother of Peace, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon.
A year later, the global reach of Dr. Moon’s peace rallies in 2020 skyrocketed like never before.
An estimated one million people joined the virtual Peace Starts With Me rallies streamed live around the world on August 1 and September 21. A new monthly Rally of Hope series also launched in late summer, drawing an equally staggering audience size. Then, most recently, hundreds of thousands of people globally celebrated the WCLC’s one year anniversary during the virtual WCLC Rally of Hope Conference on December 4 and 5.
Throughout the year, the COVID-19 pandemic became an instrument of immeasurable growth for spreading messages of peace and unity to all regions of the world. And Dr. Moon, keynote speaker of the rallies and co-founder of Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU), connected with untold masses through each online broadcast—continuing the peacebuilding legacy of her late husband, Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon.
At Prudential Center in 2019, Dr. Moon declared, “God did not bless America just for its own sake; He blessed America for the sake of the world.” And through the WCLC, she called on all Christian clergy to unite, which would lay the foundation for restoring America and the rest of the world. Her anniversary message earlier this month echoed the same urgency for “one united heart” among clergy and all people.
Today, let us remember the guiding wisdom of the Mother of Peace as we venture into a new year and era.
“Now you must take the lead. When we think of the 7.7 billion people of the world, we cannot turn a blind eye to the children whom our Heavenly Parent wants to embrace. I sincerely hope that you will become the righteous people, clergymen, clergywomen and other leaders, who can guide people to become Heavenly Parent’s children in the shortest possible time. In doing so, please remember that the founding of the World Christian Leadership Conference, which will bring your individual foundations into unity, is the way to realize Heavenly Parent’s dream and humankind’s hope in the shortest time. I pray that you will all become the righteous people and religious leaders standing in the vanguard and that you will not look back, but run forward.” —Mother of Peace, Prudential Center (2019)
The global Peace Starts With Me movement was initiated by Dr. Moon in July 2017 and has brought together countless people of different backgrounds to transcend all barriers and affiliations as one family under God.
You can read Dr. Moon’s full 2019 speech from the Peace Starts With Me rally and WCLC inauguration at Prudential Center here, and read her recent anniversary message in full here.
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