Inspired Message through Patriarch Vernon Darling
April 6, 2003 -- Auditorium in Independence, Missouri

This morning we were invited to come here to meet our Heavenly Father for His benediction. There has come to this servant of the Lord those spiritual indications that it is well that we have come together at this time. Our experience in coming here points to our need and our calling to be together, one body coming together under the principles of the Celestial Kingdom.

Our longing for God has to be a longing to prepare a place for Him in Zion. One of the truths of the gospel is that Zion will emerge. Only the person who seeks to bring forth and establish the cause of Zion, and walks in Zion's light, is aware of God in his experiences in life and understands Zion and lives for it.

We are called to be together under a shared sense of purpose and vision, not by our beliefs about specific behaviors. The call to purpose pulls us together but does not require that we shed our uniqueness. Zion does not ask its people to forfeit their freedom as a condition of belonging. Being clear about our purpose and vision will enhance the nature of our relationships within the Restoration Movement. Without a clear definition of common purpose our meetings serve only to increase our separation from each other.

We cannot exist without each other. We cannot get to a future that is worth inhabiting following separate paths. We have erected boundaries around us that have shut people out. Our fragmentation and separateness keeps us from being able to meet the needs of those who are hurting.

It is time when every person should have a voice in what we do and all have an opportunity to make decisions that affect the whole body. It is time to call a general assembly.