Famicon 2017 - Successful Tribal Messiahship - Testimonies from Couples

Miilhan Stephens, Vice President of FFWPU USA introduces the Successful Heavenly Tribal Messiahship panel, which was made up mainly of clergy actively pursuing Tribal Messiahship in their respective churches.

Famicon 2017 continued on April 4 with plenaries and breakout sessions on the themes of successful Tribal Messiahship, social impact, and national restoration. We heard testimony from two of our Tribal Messiah couples, Joe and Sun Willett and Dennis and Mayuri Hoffman, as well as from our elder brothers and sisters investing in the missions of the American Clergy Leadership Conference (ACLC), the International Association of Parliamentarians for Peace (IAPP), Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP) USA, Universal Peace Federation (UPF) USA, and the Sun Hak Peace Prize.

Rev. Mark Abernathy, Lead Pastor for Connect Point, shared his passion and love for practicing Tribal Messiahship as a lifestyle driving the point home that “we can do it and we will do it.”

Highlights of the day came for many during the spirited testimony of our ACLC brothers in the morning plenary session. Archbishop George Augustus Stallings, Jr., co-chair of ACLC, Rev. Bruce Grodner, ACLC executive director, Rev. Mark Abernathy, lead pastor at the Connect Point church of Atlanta, and Pastor T. L. Barrett, senior pastor of the Life Center COGIC Church, shared a synergistic message of the need for a deeper fraternity between Christians and Unificationists, the value of the Marriage Blessing, and the power of ministry founded on love and care.

Rev. Abernathy’s comments were particularly moving. After energizing the room by inviting us all to take selfies together and check in at IPEC on Facebook, Rev. Abernathy perceptively addressed challenges we face as a Unification movement while also expressing a profound hope inspired by his own experience of blessing his family and his congregation in Atlanta together with his wife, Edna.

Rev. Abernathy began his testimony by asking everyone to take a selfie and post it to their Facebook page letting the world proudly know we are at Famicon 2017 at IPEC in Las Vegas.

“The Bible says that we are written epistles going around all men. That means we are walking books and we are walking gods. If you haven’t already learned through the Divine Principle that we can become the messiah, that we can become what God desires us to be, know that we’re meant to be the anointed and appointed ones in our communities and our families. That’s what we’ve got to get stuck in our heads: that we can become one. I told my church about this the other day, talking about the Blessing—that we can and we will….

Rev. Bruce Grodner, Executive Director of ACLC USA, poetically illustrated the power of Tribal Messiahship when partnered with 2000-year investment God has made into Christianity and Christian and encouraged us all to reach out to our local clergy to harness that power.

“This has got to become lifestyle evangelism. We’ve got to make sharing the Blessing our life. We’ve got to share it everywhere we go….Our back pocket should have that little bottle of juice, that bottle of Holy Wine that we’re carrying around. As we begin to bless our community and to tell them how blessed they are, that God has favored them, that they’re the abundance…everything they touch will be blessed.” –Rev. Abernathy

A general excitement for Tribal Messiahship has been building since the first day of Famicon. During an evening of sports and fellowship at a local park, many of our Famicon attendees expressed gratitude to be here in Las Vegas, tapping into the insights and victories of our intrepid Tribal Messiah couples, the Willetts, the Hoffmans, and the Abernathys.

Joe and Sun Willett gave a powerful and serious message about having the desire to be a Tribal Messiah and challenged everyone to consider committing all their heart and soul to it.

“We’re excited to be here and this morning we had an incredible, amazing testimony about Tribal Messiahship. These testimonies were living testimonies that gave us so much information and strength and courage to be able to step into Tribal Messiahship. They showed that it’s a matter of mindset. If we have the mindset and we trust God and True Parents in that process, we can have tremendous results. I am excited about and I’m sure you will also be excited about if you hear those testimonies. We can all do it!” –Drissa Kone, Community Leader, Belvedere Family

“About Tribal Messiahship: I feel I could do it with some support from our church members. I know I have the support of my mom and our family. I also feel like I could show my friends about it and get them into it as well. Maybe we could start a youth tribal messiahship… with the community of the church, and maybe go witnessing and have workshops for younger high school kids, teaching them how to become tribal messiahs by looking at the examples of our elders.” – Sumerr Williams, Atlanta, GA

Dennis and Mayuri Hoffman shared their experience with Tribal Messiahship with a bubbling heart of excitement, expressing the sense of fulfillment and joy gained by investing into a lifestyle of sharing God’s Word and the Marriage Blessing.

“I would say overall I’ve had a really great experience, experiencing the love people have for God and the passion they have for trying to do God’s work. And they’re really trying to figure out not just what can the church do, but what can I do to advance the providence of restoration? I think that’s an important thing, and I’ve learned a lot here. I’m hoping I can bring the information that I’ve learned about Tribal Messiahship and the Blessing ministry back to my home community in Delaware and Philadelphia and teach them what I’ve learned. Thank you very much.” –Sunhyun Miller, Delaware