Dr. Kim Speaks to Chicago Family Church on “Heavenly Parent, True Parents and Blessed Central Families”

Dr. Ki Hoon Kim, Regional Chairman of Family Federation North America visited the Chicago Family Church on September 9, 2018 and delivered a sermon entitled “Heavenly Parent, True Parents and Blessed Central Families.”

Good morning everyone. So how do you like your new church here?

Congratulations. Please let us know, I am always open to support the Chicago Family Church. And this year, we are building our churches around the nation, and by Vision 2020 our goal is at least 12 new churches and communities. So far we have 5 new churches like Chicago and Philadelphia and Minneapolis. We even have Las Vegas where there’s a big education center– they are trying to build a new church over there. So we are investing 10 million dollars for all of these new buildings for the sake of our community nationwide. We are hoping to build the other 5 churches next year and by the year 2020.

We really want to support our local communities, like Chicago, and we really like to come together, all of our first generations and younger generations, like CARP and their activities. I heard about the Chicago activities for the first time today. Please let me know more about our college student activities and I will be ready to support. Like Las Vegas CARP and Los Angeles CARP, they are doing amazing things. I’m always saying these are miracles. Miracles are always taking place around us.

We are ready to communicate vertically with Heavenly Parents and True Parents. It was a miraculous year this year and last year with CARP. One sister initiated Los Angeles CARP and had around 40 members come to the Hyojeong trip to Japan. The second year, 120 went on the Hyojeong trip to Japan and Korea. This year they planned to have 360 and they reached the 360 to Japan and Korea! This really inspired Japanese CARP members and Korean CARP members. True Mother was really impressed how American college students are standing up for the sake of God, for the sake of True Parents and are inspiring our Mother Nation, Japan and Father Nation, Korea. True Mother invited the 360 CARP members to a hotel in Tokyo, Japan.

I really hope that we can create a new CARP center here and invite many college students every Friday, or whatever you can plan. That is the first step. Meeting face to face. Meeting is the first step. We can come together. We can discuss. We can fellowship and we can discuss about God’s vision on the CARP movement here in the Chicago community.

As you’ve seen in this video, two weeks ago we came back to Chicago– not New Jersey– and usually I go to New Jersey to report from South America. But this time I spent two weeks in Korea with my wife. Participating in this International Marriage Blessing, 4000 couples got together, not only young couples but previously married couples like congressman Dan Burton. This time they came to the stage with some other international VIPs. 7 couples. So these couples were selected by True Mother and they received the Holy Water and the Blessing of prayer. Dan Burton was very proud of that. I was concerned: Can we ask them up on stage? Maybe that’ll be tough… But without fear Michael Jenkins approached him and his wife, “Mother Moon wants you to come up to the stage as a representative couple from around the world. Can you come?” Without hesitation, his wife said, “Yes!” His wife said yes and the husband must follow his wife. They were proud to be the first couple with water sprinkled onto his family. This is another incredible memento about the Blessing Ceremony. Who was at this International Blessing Ceremony from Chicago? We had around 100 couples from the USA, and they had a wonderful time and maybe you should watch see the newly matched and blessed couples once again. They are so beautiful and wonderful.

This is our power. Our younger generations getting married and starting a new life centering on Heavenly Parents and True Parents. This is the only way we can build this country, America, a God-centered country and God-blessed nation. Without Blessed Central Families centered on Heavenly Parents and True Parents we cannot rebuild this country back to God and we cannot build the Kingdom of God on Earth and in Heaven.

I’d like to give my congratulatory message to the newly blessed couples. I really want to share my gratitude and my appreciation and congratulation to each couple, those who received this blessing centering on True Parents and centering on Heavenly Parents. Give them a big hand.

When I go back to New York tomorrow, I’d like to invite the New York newly blessed couples to headquarters and have a ceremony with cake and sharing together. Half of our headquarters’ staff is second generation.

I’d like to give this message to the newly married couples. Why do we marry? Why do we receive the blessing? It’s not only for the newly blessed couples. This is for all of Blessed Central Families. When I found out about the purpose of these Blessed Central Families, I asked why we need to receive this blessing from Heavenly Parents and True Parents. Our church and our families are concerned about rebuilding our families centering on True Parents and Heavenly Parents, but many of us missed the core, essential point of the reason we receive this blessing.

What is the purpose? When I studied this, I found out the purpose of the Blessing centering on True Parents is for the sake of Heavenly Parents. That was very surprising: Should the Blessing be for my family’s sake or should it be for my sake, or my spouse’s sake? But we call True Parents’ way of this ceremonial marriage Blessed Central Family. True Parents gave this blessing for the sake of God: “God, Heavenly Parent, I offer this newly matched and blessed couple.”

We need to share True Mother’s message: ‘What is God’s purpose of creation for Adam and Eve?’ The purpose of God’s creation was to educate and perfect individuals and for them to stand together as husband and wife. They should build families centering on God. This is the purpose of God’s creation. Through this, when God created Adam and Eve and saw a God-centered family, they returned great joy to God and great love to God which He has never felt before the creation. Adam and Eve’s family can return great joy to God. This is the purpose of God’s creation. Adam and Eve, after they built their own family, they joined in God’s providence to build the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth and in Heaven.

True Father and True Mother share about relationships between God and all of creation, especially human beings. We have a parent and child relationship. It’s not just a master’s position and servant’s position. We are in a parent and child position. There is a big difference. This kind of relationship is the right relationship. We are not just worshipping before God. We have a relationship as his children, his sons and daughters. To recognize and realize this relationship, we need family, like Adam and Eve and like this international blessing centering on True Parents and centering on Heavenly Parents. This is God’s purpose of creation. True Parents call this blessing for the sake of God. For the sake of Heavenly Parents, not just one man and one woman come together.

It’s not that simple. True Parents prepared this international blessing for the sake of God. To fulfill God’s purpose of creation – Blessed Central Families. You are the purpose of God’s creation. I am the purpose of God’s creation. That means you have God-like values. What is the teachings of our True Parents? You must be better than Jesus. You must be better than Heavenly Parent. This is God’s desire. This is a parent’s desire. My son and daughter are a lot better than me. Not just better– a lot better than me and my wife. My grandson is a lot better than his grandparents and a lot better than his parents.

Think about God and my parents and your parents. Before we think about our family situation, our church community situation, our nation situation, we need to first think about God’s sense, God’s ideal, God’s vision. That will make everything clear. Sometimes we struggle and suffer and we fight one another. But when we think first about God’s ideals, God’s visions, God’s purpose of creation, even for a second, or even ten minutes, then everything resolves. Everything will be normal. Normal means no struggling lifestyle. Normal means God-centered lifestyle.

We are always pursuing the spiritual life. We heard about Cheongpyeong ancestry workshops. Last month in New York and Washington D.C., I was very surprise about our family members responding. In New York, we prepared around 1200 tents in Belvedere. 1700 family members gathered together from the New York area. In Washington, the same thing happened. We have another one at the end of next month and at the beginning of November in Las Vegas for west coast and in Chicago for the Midwest. This spiritual experience really gives power to think about God first.

After all these events, international blessing and True Father’s 6^th year Seonghwa ceremony, we usually have a leadership conference. In the leadership conferences, I give some presentations. Many other leaders give presentations. However, this time True Mother said, “Go do a 3 day Cheongpyeong workshop.” And all the leaders did prayer conditions and went up the mountain, went to the tree of blessing and prayed deeply. True Mother said, “You need to be more equipped with spirituality.” Not just knowledge and not just understanding your external senses. You need internal senses to realize God’s vision, to realize God’s sense. Not just a secular way you can inspire people. You can be a good leader with a good spirit centering on Heavenly Parent and True Parents.

This was True Mother’s desire and we all participated to become more spiritual and sense Heavenly Parent and True Parents. Even though you and I have spent 50 or 60 years in the church life, sometimes we are concerned about the many worries around our burden and around us. Still we came together this fall because we believe in Heavenly Parent. We believe in spiritual life after our earthly lives.

We are facing so many worries and struggles. Not only politically, not only socially, not only economically. More than that we struggle and suffer about the lack of understanding spirituality. About God. About True Parents. These days we talk about God, about Jesus, but it’s not a popular topic in college. When we talk about Jesus to some people and talk about God’s vision, they walk passed you saying, “Oh, no thank you. I’m busy. Next class.”

I tried witnessing with CARP a few times on a campus in Las Vegas, on campus, but it’s not popular anymore. How can we say America is a God-blessed country? This is the reason True Father and True Mother came to America and awakened this country once again. God’s blessed country. We have many spiritual experiences in our 240 year history in this country. Spiritual leaders can change our social systems, our political systems and all kinds of community issues. No one can have clear answers to all of these problems. This is the reason God sent True Parents to America. We are upholding the True Family Value Award Banquet every month, every year and the ACLC Pastor’s breakfast meeting every month. We need to come together and hear God’s message. Not only Unificationists. Even established church pastors come together and pursue for the sake of rebuilding a family centering on God and True Parents we call a True Family.

I was in South America last month with True Mother. We had a big rally in Brazil and many international VIPs came. Political leaders as well as religious leaders. One Cardinal came from Argentina and the nation of Dominica, a Caribbean nation. I was sitting with the Cardinal and True Mother shared her ideals. “Do you know about Mother Mary’s mission?” True Mother shared her Mother Mary’s unfulfilled mission to the Cardinal. True Mother said the era of Catholicism is over. The Cardinal was like, “Oh…” He was patient. Then True Mother told him, “You need to study more about me. I’d like you to come to South Africa in the end of November.”

True Mother is going back to Africa for a meeting with political figures and religious leaders to talk straight, not gently, not kindly. If you are wrong she will bring you back to the right track. This is kindness. Once you’re on the wrong track, I will push or pull you to the right track, even if you suffer physically or spiritually, this is kindness. Transforming from the wrong things to the right things. This is kindness.

Even True Mother’s straight talk is kindness. Maybe the Cardinal felt it, Oh I didn’t know about this. The first time talking to Mother moon she mentions Mother Mary’s mission and that the era of Catholicism is over.

After we came back, Pennsylvania exposed about 300 Catholic Priests misused their leaderships to children and women. This is worldwide news. Leaderships hear this and even churches hear about this. Even when I was in Korea, one professor came from the University of Chicago and he was giving lectures on Christianity.

Once again, we must come back to resolve all these kind of things. This is our mission as Blessed Central Families. This is our responsibility as newly blessed couples. What is the teaching of True Parents? Sacrifice ourselves for others. We call it filial piety. Sons and daughters living for the sake of their parents. We call them good sons and good daughters. Why are patriots called patriots? They sacrifice their lives for the sake of their nation.

How can you be called a holy son or a holy daughter? I already gave you two tips. We should invest all our energy for the sake of the Kingdom of God on Earth and in Heaven. True Parents taught us we all must be holy sons and holy daughters who invest all their energy for the sake of the Kingdom of God on Earth and in Heaven. This is their teaching. This means we must be like Jesus, more than that we must live like God. Where can we hear about this kind of message? For 10 years True Father said, “You must be better than God.”

How can you share with the Christian professor? You must be better than God. This is amazing. We need this kind of teaching everywhere through the holy wedding. Blessed Central Families is God’s purpose of creation, not just Adam and Eve. God wants to see families and the Three Great Blessing. What are the Three Great Blessings? Perfected individual, perfected family, and perfected dominion over all things. What does Matthew share about in chapter 22 verses 37-38? “You shall love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and the first commandment. What does this really mean? Loving God with all your soul and mind means to give your life completely to God. The second commandment is love your neighbors as yourself. What does this mean? It tasks us to love others even at the cost of our lives. We have to invest our self in this way of life. We must invest our life centering vertically on Heavenly Parent, True Parents, and horizontally on our dear brothers and sisters. Then we can call that place love of God. We can call that place the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Once again thank you to the newly blessed couples and once again thank you for all the Chicago family members. You are still good Blessed Central Families and you’re upholding the spirit of True Parents and True Parents’ love and the True Family movement. Thank you and congratulation once again for this wonderful new church. It looks nice to me and you have so many Sunday school rooms and meeting rooms and I think you need more bright lighting.

Once again thank you and God bless you.

 

Prayer by Dr. Kim:

Good morning Heavenly Parent and our dear True Parents. Today we gather here at Chicago Family Church. A new church building, now a beautiful, wonderful home. For a long time Chicago changed locations several times within the last five years. After that, we finally found this new location in Schaumburg. Please bless this sanctuary and these family members. Let us grow God’s people and let us extend our Blessed Central Family and let us be fulfilled as Tribal Messiahs. Thank you and I bless all these things in the name of Ki Hoon Kim, a Bless Central Family, Aju.