A Child from Minneapolis Unification Church Goes Witnessing

Inspired by his mother, six-year-old son of Hideo and Tomoko Taira, standing here with his friend, went out to witness and brought guests to the Minneapolis Family Church, seen in the background.

About three months ago, some Unificationists in Minneapolis got a sudden urge to meet certain times every week and go out together in pairs to witness using homemade flyers or questionnaires about the purpose of life and so on.

With the Minneapolis Family Church center only a few blocks away from the University of Minnesota (U of M), a few members would witness around the university and invite guests to the center. Inside the center, we set up a table with a laptop hooked up to a big screen and had videos of the Divine Principle, as taught by Philip Schanker, ready to be showed.

We have modified our tactics and started relying more on one-on-one explanations of the Divine Principle using the “Discovering the Divine Principle” PowerPoint presentation we had on DVD, and a few of us volunteered to always be on hand to teach. At first, very few people came.

One day, after the 6-year old son of Hideo and Tomoko Taira, had seen his mom talking to people outside the center, he went out there with a friend and within minutes he brought in a university medical student!

We thought, “If he can do it, we can do it too!” Eventually, a few people listened to what we had to teach, and some joined.

A big breakthrough in our outreach came in the Hispanic community, thanks to a couple of Hispanic guests and other members who started telling their family and friends and got the word out in their communities.

On August 31st and September 1st, we held a two-day Divine Principle seminar for Spanish speaking people, led by Nancy Makowski. Six people signed a Unification Church membership form at the end of the workshop after watching a video about Father’s course. Last Sunday, September 8th, three more

people signed membership after hearing the Parallels and the Conclusion. They’d been studying the Principle a little bit at a time for several weeks until then. Now we’re gathering up Spanish-speaking materials to make a separate Hispanic Sunday service.

Within minutes of working outside they brought in a university medical student!

The main condition that brought success here, in my opinion, was persistence — for the brothers and sisters who were going out witnessing not to get discouraged and not to quit. Also, other brothers and sisters arranged a group call for prayer support. It took weeks, maybe months, to get this little breakthrough, because at first most of the people we met didn’t make it. When teaching, I try to cover all the bases of possible accusations and objections that guests might later be exposed to.

A valuable lesson we learned is that a simple flyer to start discussions works anywhere anytime. Also, we need a place set up ahead of time to teach the Divine Principle. Then members need to start talking to people they meet and not get so discouraged that they quit. There are some real jewels out there who are ready to understand, apply and teach the Divine Principle. We just need to uncover them and help our Heavenly Parents to polish them up.