Authors
1. As a leader, you must not avoid difficult situations; rather, you should overcome any situation. If you cannot proactively master your environment, how can you accomplish Heaven's Will?
God's strategy is to have you go through trials, even to send you to prison, to raise you to stand so firmly that no one can bring you down. If you have experienced this in the past, thinking about your previous misery will enable you to endure present suffering and go forward.
In Hungnam labor camp, every year I was given an award as an exemplary worker. God had me go through that course to train me. With that in mind, I am now training you.
When suffering children ask for something from their parents, who cannot provide it, how miserable those parents must be. Thinking of God in that position, I have endured a course of pain and suffering; therefore I can handle any situation.
Suffering without any purpose has no value, but doing so for God's Will is more precious than any amount of gold. This is my asset.
That is why I never prepare my sermons. I have only to speak the truth from my life experience, and people cannot help but be moved. (016-344, 1966.10.14)
One's heart when preparing a sermon
2. As a leader, when you go out to witness, you should feel as though your flesh and bones are melting away. Then go to the pulpit and give a sermon with a prayerful heart, thinking, “Father! I am so unworthy and inadequate. Nevertheless, You have to rely on me to do this, and I am so sorry.” Do not be centered on yourself.
Consider that you are a member of God's special task force, dispatched with God's official endorsement to represent the True Parents and heaven and earth. Before giving a sermon, I spend more time praying for the members than for the sermon. I pray, “Father! I must lead these people and raise them.
What should I do? Should I go this way or that way?” After offering that devotion, I give a sermon as my heart leads me. If the heart is absent, there can be no life. The way through the valley of the heart is painful and miserable.
Thus, when looking for a teacher, do not seek a teacher of knowledge; rather, seek a teacher of the heart. The more you dig into the valley of the heart, the more you will find tears and the less you will find yourself.
The closer you get to your final destination, the larger God's Will and purpose will become and the smaller you will become. As long as you are becoming smaller and the Will is becoming larger, all problems can be resolved. (009-080, 1960.04.12)
3. You can call yourself a high priest only when you go through a process to become a sacrificial offering with the heart of a parent and the body of a servant. To become a high priest, you need to have a child who is willing to become a sacrifice.
If you do not have a child from your direct lineage who will do that, you should at least have a spiritual child. The worship service is the time to make offerings. It is when you report to God about your past and make atonement. Therefore, the death worship service is not a time when you can expect to be free.
(011-163, 1961.06.24)
4. How can you travel around, going here and there for twelve months of the year, and casually go up to the pulpit saying, “Brothers and sisters, let us sing hymns, " then speak about how Father is such and such, and then pray?
If you act like that, the heavenly nation will never be realized and people will never be resurrected. Look at a mother in labor when she is giving birth to her baby. Doesn't she go through so much pain, feeling as if she is about to burst, with her face contorted in so many ways?
If a mother goes through so much when giving birth to her physical baby, you have to be more serious than that to give birth to your spiritual children. When you leave the pulpit, you should be sweating and in tears. (075-177, 1975.01.02)
5. Spiritual leaders cannot do their work without having spiritual experiences. They should not prepare their sermons by reading books. Do you see God when you read books?
Is God in the midst of those books? No, He is not.
Because God dwells in a mysterious spiritual realm, you have to connect with Him through the Holy Spirit. Faith is most precious if it includes spiritual experiences.
Therefore, people who join the Unification Church usually have such spiritual experiences. They must have these experiences. These kinds of phenomena are very for the Will, Heaven will be with you. (076-151, 1975.02.02)
6. I have such a direct and close relationship with God, that I do not need to worry about preparing my sermons. You, too, need to train yourself to be like this. Occasionally, I have to meet and speak with famous people, even up to ten times I am a day. I must discuss a different topic each time, depending on the occasion.
But do I prepare my speech every time?
At such times, I am fully aware that I am an offering. I have no concept of “I” “me” or “mine, " I am in the position of a total offering. It is a very solemn position. It is a heavenly principle that people standing in front of an offering should bow their heads. God is present at the altar and exercises His dominion there.
You should think, “Before this altar today, I offer all my heartfelt passion, all my strength, and all my effort.” Then you open your mouth and speak with greater sincerity than ever before in your life. When you do, God will help you. An offering is made from a serious position. (060-348, 1972.08.18)
7. Do not think lightly about the sermon you are going to give on Sunday. Do not just say, “Where in the Bible shall I read from? What hymns shall we sing? Bring out the hymns! Bring out the Holy Songs!”
Base your sermons on your knowledge of people; use real-life experiences and relate them to comparable passages in the Bible. Give an interesting sermon that compares personal experiences with the content of the Bible.
Then listeners will be captivated. Since your sermon relates to them, they will like it. Do not attempt to prepare your sermon by reading books. Even books come from people. People themselves are the originators of books.
(046-285, 1971.08.17)
8. One memory continues to linger in my heart. When I was being taken to the labor camp in Hungnam, I had to trudge along a stream through a valley, chained to thieves. That memory is still so vivid. I cannot forget the time we walked along that winding path in the valley. It left a strong impression on me.
Those steps were heading toward a different world. I wondered, “In the future, what paths will I have to walk each day? After serving my time in prison, what will I need to do? What should I do during my prison life?”
It was going to be difficult, but I was ready to go there. That time was a good opportunity to come to a new realization about myself. That is why this memory stays with me. (030-152, 1970.03.21)
9. Once I worked on digging a tunnel at Hamhung. As I worked, I became so hungry that I could hardly lift my pickax, and so completely exhausted that I was on the verge of losing consciousness. After going on like that, you cannot imagine how happy I was when I heard, “Time for lunch!”
What a feeling at that moment when I threw the pickax on the ground and turned around to eat! I have countless stories like that in my life. I have been through indescribable suffering.
However, you need to understand that all those miserable situations did not destroy me; instead, they will shine throughout history. That is why I am saying you should keep going on, collecting stories that God can cherish as treasures.
When you open up and tell the people of the world the true stories of your sufferings and tribulations, in just ten minutes you can move them to wail in tears.
It will be far more effective than a one-hour sermon on another topic. Where can you find a sermon topic better than this? That is why I am telling you not to worry and, until you are thirty, go through as many hardships as possible.
(030-152, 1970.03.21)
10. When you give a sermon, do not just decide on the title and then get up to speak. The basic standard is that you should select the title in prayer. You cannot move people with a sermon based on a prepared title.
If you want to make people cry, you should shed tears in prayer before the sermon. When you pray, you should be thinking about all the kinds of people who might come that day. You should also be thinking about the situation in Korea and how to improve it. Then you will be able to foresee, “Today, these types of people will be coming.”
Bearing all this in mind and having prayed tearfully, when you come to the pulpit you will be able to move your audience to tears. If you have written a letter with tears, it can make the recipient cry. In the same way, you should become a motivating force in the position of the subject partner in heart.
Without doing that yourself, expecting others to shed tears is unreasonable. Therefore, when you go to the pulpit you should know that it is a court of judgment. If you are unable to improve despite your efforts, you need to repent.
If you are unable to inspire others in an hour-long sermon, you should repent for three hours. If you deliver a poor sermon and cannot inspire the people, you have to repent three times more than that. (160-195, 1969.05.12)
11. As a leader, you should listen carefully to your members when they share their situations. You need to take notes about their testimony and know how to use it as material that can be helpful for everyone.
If a member has moved your heart, make the lesson of their testimony the topic of the Sunday sermon. Pray about that topic and convey your inspiration to the members. Always live in attendance to Heaven. Your sermon should never be focused on yourself.
If you refer to books to prepare your sermon, Heaven will not work through you. Your sermon will fall flat. The seed of life comes from Heaven. It does not come from people or their knowledge.
That is why you must shed tears before you give a sermon. Only by shedding tears and taking the position of a parent can you bring the children to repentance.
To make others shed tears, you should first open the gate of tears. Your tears open the gate of their tears. Only if you open that gate can they finally shed tears. Only if you shed tears of repentance can the gate of repentance open for others.
(237-038, 1992.11.10)
12. Always think that you are indebted. A person who thinks this way is public-minded. This is because you have not taken full responsibility and others have had to, on your behalf. As you look around at the congregation, think, 'As I was unable to do the job right, my members are doing it for me.”
Up to now, I have been bearing the suffering that the entire Unification Church membership had to endure. But from now on, members will have to face all kinds of incidents, one by one, at all levels – the individual, family, tribe, nation, and even the world. I have been through a difficult course, but now all members throughout the world must face their challenges.
From this perspective, we share a common destiny. It is a serious matter that the spirit world is directly listening to the words of those who are guiding the members for a public purpose. This should not be taken lightly. It is the same for me. When something good happens to you, before talking about it or laughing with joy, first think of Heaven.
Likewise, when you face sorrow, first think of Heaven. When you face something sorrowful, if you can say, “I am suffering on behalf of Heaven, " you can bravely go beyond that sorrow. (237-039, 1992.11.10)
13. When you endure sorrow, you will surely be rewarded. While paying indemnity on Earth, if you shed tears of sorrow while truly being in the position of goodness, you will eventually shed tears of joy.
On a scale of one to ten, if you experience sorrow at the level of ten, the happiness that will eventually come to you will surpass that scale, to the level of one thousand. Because we have such experiences in our lives, we can continue our life of faith.
If after you endured sorrow to the level often you received joy only at the level of one, it would dissipate within a few days. But in following the path of Heaven, if you truly persevere through sorrow, true happiness beyond your imagination is bound to come.
If you do not have a chance to feel it or receive it, such joy will come to your wife, your children, or your ancestors. So do not do anything thoughtlessly. Live your life with the attitude of attending God at all times.
Always consult Him. When you feel frustrated, sit down and pray. Sleeping should not be the issue; working should not be the issue. Praying must become your way of life. (237-039, 1992.11.10)
A sermon reflecting your devotion
14. If possible, I try not to write out ray speeches. I normally speak without a script. If you speak from a script, Heaven may not be able to work fully. Hence, even if you write a script, you should not memorize what you write. You should not recite it line by line.
Only by speaking from your heart can you enter the realm of resonance with God. Then your mind and body can unite in the atmosphere of God's grace, in an environment where Heaven can relate to you. In such a state, you cannot have your opinions.
Sometimes I stand in the position of an object partner and sometimes in the position of a subject partner. If I stand as a subject when I should be in the object position, I ruin the atmosphere.
That is why I need to pray. When I appear at the podium with a heart of tears, I immediately know how to reach those at all levels, and what to talk about that day. (231-202, 1992.06.02)
15. After you have given a sermon, you should struggle with an unbearable feeling of shame. That is how you can develop. If you stand at the pulpit and give the same habitual sermons you have given for ten to twenty years, you will run dry. Do not just speak your words.
For ten to twenty years you may have based your sermons on your notebook, but you cannot generate life from that. That is why I tell you, do not speak your words but always cultivate new words, the Word of Heaven. Even if it includes content that others already know, you should always speak the Word of Heaven.
That is why you should forget about the script. Exercising this kind of spirituality is crucial. So when I get inspiration at midnight, or even at 3 o'clock or 4 a.m., how can I sleep? My sleepiness dissipates instantly.
Resonance, or stimulation from the spirit world, transcends sleep. It goes far beyond the world of sleep. (231-203, 1992.06.02)
16. When Unification Church leaders give sermons, you need to be motivated to invest all your heart and body. You have to move and inspire heaven and earth, audiences who are beyond the past, present, and future.
If you lose that motivation, you will end up just following current trends. You will become more and more secularized. Therefore, you should speak representing Heaven.
Further, do not conduct research in books for your Sunday sermon. Rather, select the title through deep prayer. When you pray to find the title, you should be moved as if you have regained your life In such a state, you should feel a sense of urgency, as if you are about to make a decisive proclamation that will determine the future of the nation, whether it rises or falls into ruin.
In other words, you must speak as if you are making your final proclamation at the execution ground. Speak as if it will determine success or failure. It is the same with prayer.
Have the seriousness of a criminal who is going to the gallows. When singing a hymn, although everyone knows the lyrics and the melody as well as you do, to move the hearts of people you should thoroughly understand what the hymn means. Then sing to convey its deep content.
Resonate like an echo! Sing with an expansive and resounding voice that touches people's hearts and changes their attitudes. You have to sing hymns like that to move the public. (286-053, 1997.07.23)
17. When giving a sermon or a lecture, you need to present something new. You have to stimulate your audience. Through prayer, you need to supplement what is lacking, even placing your life on the line to close the gap. Even when you are just walking along, have a mind to seek for something new.
For instance, do not just go to church, but have a heart to learn something new, to create a new atmosphere. Do not always take the direct route to church; try going a roundabout way. Although you may need to head south, try a route to the north. Why? It is to find a new path.
If you are not too excited about doing that, try rearranging the furniture in your home. After many months have passed, do not just leave things as they are; try to move things around. Then new ideas will come to you. We need to do things like that. Vary your prayers as well.
Depending on where you pray, whether in front of the pulpit or way in the back of the church, the feeling is different. The feeling is also different when you pray amid the congregation. Therefore, seek to make changes in the environment.
(030-127, 1970.03.21)
18. When giving a sermon, if you repeat the same one, the members will take notice and feel upset. Likewise, when you give lectures on the Divine Principle, people will be annoyed if you always lecture in the same old way.
It is because people feel the changes of the four seasons – spring, summer, autumn, and winter – depending on the season you are in. People are not always in a good mood just because it is morning. Even if they do not have any worries, there are days when they are unusually depressed.
Despite the bright sunlight and crisp weather, there are times when you may feel depressed. At those times, how can you uplift your spirit? If you do not find anything stimulating to change it, you might descend to a state of even greater despair.
Therefore, you have to either stimulate yourself from an opposite direction or find something stimulating and overcome your depression. You need to find ways to control your life every day. Otherwise, in the future, you will not be able to guide the numerous souls that are lost. (030-129, 1970.03.21)
19. We human beings were created through the Word, flesh, and spirit. Hence, we should first align with the Word, next cultivate our character, and then do spiritual work. That is the correct order.
If we put spiritual work first, we would have to pay great indemnity because the first stages were skipped. You should be moved by your sermon. You need to be moved by your lawyer. You should give the sermon in a state where you receive God's mercy and grace.
You can enter a state of grace by appealing to God about the pitiful situations of the people, who have to connect through someone like you to receive life and grace. To arrive at such a state of grace you must repent and, through suffering, seek the path of Heaven. In walking that path, you should not have any enemies. (011-278, 1962.01.01)
20. In giving a sermon, do not give your devotion to everyone at the same time. Do not think that you have the public in front of you and deliver the sermon to them. Rather, think that you are giving the sermon to one person.
If that one person receives grace and sheds tears, that grace will spread to the whole. Your church could not develop until now because you have been giving sermons that floated in the air, with no roots.
Since there is no base to absorb your sermons, there is no way for witnessing to be successful. To gain a foothold, a church leader should cultivate his foundation. When I give you a certain direction, the members will move only if the church leader sets the example by moving, even risking his or her life.
(042-159, 1971.03.04)
21. Everything in the world can be material for your sermons. If you suffered many ordeals, you can explain in your sermon what you did in those days. Therefore, a church leader should have experienced many difficulties.
He or she should have gone through a lot of life training. He or she needs to have experienced times as a poor laborer, a beggar, or a high official holding a position in the circles of authority.
Then, when you share your actual experiences in those circumstances, especially the trials you experienced while serving in a public position, people can feel them as very real. (160-196, 1969.05.12)
22. When giving a sermon or a lecture, rather than preparing for it by reading the Divine Principle many times, once you have reached a certain level of understanding of the Principle, you should be immersed in the Word.
That is, you should experience how profound that teaching is and what an incredible course of sacrifice I had to go through to discover it. If you can feel it, you are bound to shed tears.
Once you enter the realm of God's deep heart of restoration, you will discover the root of unspeakable situations. Without realizing it, you will be pulled into a fog through which you may have to tumble and struggle alone.
That is when you have to firmly secure your position as a subject partner representing God. From that point on, you can become a subject partner and God's work can begin. It does not happen without a foundation of cooperation from the spirit world.
If you are unable to enter that state, you must pray. You have to offer devotion for that to happen. (198-010, 1990.01.20)
23. When lecturing, unless you know the Principle thoroughly, you cannot have the foundation of heart to influence your audience. To have that heart, pray ahead of time, “Father, today I will lecture on this title.” Then, as you lecture with a prayerful heart, you need to feel the kind of heart that God would feel.
Discuss with God as you lecture, saying, “Whom do You want to resurrect today through your Word, as the object partner You need? If there is a person here whom You have long awaited to meet, I will do my utmost not to lose that person.”
If you think, “I'll just lecture as I have always done”, you can convey the content, but you cannot resurrect people. You can never revive them.
(068-098, 1973.07.23)
24. When you stand at the pulpit in front of the public, your heart must feel as though you are going to an execution. It should be similar to the heart of a man who stands before the judge in a court of law, solemnly waiting for him to render his verdict.
Therefore, when you stand at the pulpit, you are like a sacrificial offering, responsible for many people's lives. If you speak well you can save their lives, but if you utter a wrong word you could kill them.
To utter a wrong word is the same as a doctor who gives a wrong injection; it can take a life. Thus, standing at the pulpit is the most daunting position. Heaven is present in that position. (058-302, 1972.06.25)
25. When you lecture, do not think that you are just speaking the words of the Principle. You are telling my history and God's history. It means that ultimately you are speaking to inherit that history and become one with it.
If you lecture the Principle ten times, you will become ten times deeper. More than saving others, you are meant to become closer to God's history and my history.
That is, if you lecture ten times, each of those ten times brings your heart that much closer to God and me, and each of those ten times makes your heart that much deeper. The same goes for prayer: the more you pray, the more your heart will grow deep and wide.
You will become higher by the same degree. The higher you become, the more you will develop your heart, and the more you will be provided opportunities to grow in the oneness of your heart with God and with me.
Conveying the Word and teaching church members gives you such an opportunity. (157-254, 1967.04.10)
26. I used to pray until I had calluses on my knees. I would pray for more than twelve hours a day. I would bring up issues and then pray to resolve them, as if in a showdown with God. I had these experiences so often that it became like a habit.
As soon as I faced an issue, I would already know what the outcome would be. I could feel it. You should not give sermons by reading books. The spirit world, the original world, is not meant to be mobilized based on books.
The basic principle is that the spirit world is governed by love. Restoration refers to the perfection of character based on love. We are moved, and our character is engrafted to Heaven's side when love occupies the central position.
It does not happen by knowledge. Therefore, do not read books to find something to speak about. If you give a sermon that way, you cannot resurrect people.
(198-010, 1990.01.20)
27. You need to struggle to decide on the title of your sermon. It is a serious fight. If you decide on the title by going over a book one week before giving the sermon, Heaven cannot work through you. That has nothing to do with you. That is why it will never work.
Therefore, you should regard the process of selecting the title for your sermon as a life-or-death matter. When you stand at the pulpit, search among the audience for a person whom Heaven needs to separate from a life-or-death problem. You should know in advance who will come for this purpose.
If you get it right, the spirit world will be open to you. I never select the title of my sermon days in advance. I usually decide on the sermon title less than ten minutes before coming out to begin the service. I should feel resurrected by the content of my sermon first.
Only when I have that experience can I stand in a position of confidence. Thus, when I stand before the congregation, I will have secured my posture. Then I can begin to communicate with the congregation.
I cannot do so with everyone at once. At first, I connect to one or two people. If one person can be moved by that connection, everything can be turned around; then it expands to everyone in the congregation. (198-010, 1990.01.20)
Sermons that stir the heart
28. If you want to move an audience of hundreds of thousands of people, do not write a script. As a spiritual leader, you need inspiration. That is why your tears must never cease. You should be able to speak from a deep heart, such that tears burst forth without you even realizing it. Never lose that heart.
If you lose it, you cannot resurrect people. This is a serious matter. How serious have you been to save one life? Compare yourself to a doctor. When a surgeon goes to the operating table, a person's life is on the edge of his scalpel. You as a leader are responsible for many lives.
You should recognize that you who are dealing with many people's lives are in a position far more serious than the doctor who is handling just one person's life. I am not saying this just casually. If you are not that sincere, you are nothing but a swindler. (231-203, 1992.06.02)
29. Do not expect to move the congregation through your sermon. Rather, it is you who should be moved first. You need to be inspired by the content you are delivering. You should think that you are giving a sermon to yourself.
If you, as a person of high spirituality, are moved and inspired by your sermon, then the congregation will go wild, receiving amazing grace and inspiration. Therefore, giving the sermon serves to cultivate you, not others. It is for your growth, not for others.
Therefore, you should quote my words as much as possible. Even more than praying, you need to read the books of my sermons. Read a sermon that inspires you once, twice, three times, and then speak focused on its key points.
That would be better than studying for several weeks. The books of my sermons contain an enormous amount of material. My prayers, especially, have very pro-found content that you cannot access on your own. (198-012, 1990.01.20)
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 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. (065-296, 1973.03.04)
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,n 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. (054-177, 1972.03.24)
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. (029-190, 1970.02.28)
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 for more than eight hours every day. Lecture to even one new guest. (068-094, 1973.07.23)
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 wonderful experiences from page to page.
After you have had such experiences, try giving lectures while intoxicated with the Principle and see how the 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 develop. When they develop, new things will come into existence. That is a natural law. (030-130, 1970.03.21)
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. (096-331, 1978.02.13)
Sun Myung Moon