Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Monday, February 27, 2012

KKSM Skateboarder goes to "Thailand 2012 & Beyond"

 

Thailand 2012 & Beyond...


A quick update of what dave voetberg is planning
on doing in Thailand in 2012 & beyond.



Financial support - http://bit.ly/wVlBHa

Or make checks payable to:

Ripe For Harvest
c/o dave voetberg #361
P.O. Box 487
Monument, CO 80132

Dave Voetberg's website - http://bit.ly/eTvC9b

Family Connection  Foundation - http://bit.ly/wbcckS




My Last Full Day at Home

by Dave Voetberg
February 21, 2012

Today is officially my last full day in the U.S. before I disappear back into the heart of Thailand. It's been a refreshing 4-1/2 month "visit". I'm thankful to have had the opportunity & now am ready to get back. Nice to have last year's worth of experience in Thailand under my belt. Going back, I have a much better gauge now of what exactly I'm getting into. It'll be nice to not be as clueless this time around :)

I'm also very passionate about my going back this time around because of what this - & hopefully upcoming years - will contain as far as missions go. The ministry I've linked up with has me going to one of the poorest & most unreached areas with the gospel in all of Thailand. And I don't say that hoping to get sympathy. Rather, hopefully a reason for you to be excited for me. There's no reason to pity those who leave some of the familiar comforts of home to follow Christ in foreign places. Those who go, & are gauging their situation rightly, would call themselves privileged. The apostles "left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name." Christ puts purpose behind hardship/uncomfortability that is endured for His sake. I'll leave you with a quote from David Livingstone who, "gave his life to serve Christ in the exploration of Africa for the sake of the access of the gospel." He says:

"For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa....Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now & then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences & charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in & for us. I never made a sacrifice."

love you all...






Postmodernity's Challenge and the Radical Nature of Changing Educational Paradigms

Emergent Christianity is focused on postmodernity and beyond. Critical to its organizational behavior and collaborative thinking is its non-linear, creative, diverse, organic characteristics portraying vitality and adaptability to the social conditions and culturally dense environments surrounding the postmodern Church of the 21st Century. And crucial to the process of communicating the gospel of Jesus is how we would communicate this gospel to one another by allowing (i) a diversity of divergent opinion (pluralism); (ii) removing obstructive, out-of-date, utilitarian functions and ideologies that are no longer helpful to today's societies (deconstruction); and, (iii) creating adaptive social structures that can utilize all the differences within humanity without abstracting that same humanity into static cultural modes and inflexible methodologies (re-construction).

Lately educators from around the world have become actively engaged in re-thinking societal educational models which can be helpful not only to our public school systems, but to Emergent Christianity's interest in integrating the Church-at-large within multi-ethnic, socially diverse, local/regional populations with few, if any, integrative cores. To do this the Emergent Church has recognised that not only religious dogmas - but all societal dogmas, belief structures and behaviors - must come under a scrutiny, or critique, that can be at once beneficial, healthy, and distinctly normative to its surrounding populations. Nor should these changes be feared, prevented, assailed nor thrashed by respondents as these changes occur to the greater good of their local societal structures.

For this is the essence of adaptive behavior wherein societies and cultures must adapt together in order to thrive together in the 21st Century. An era that is bringing with it radically new changes of social comportment and diversity. Moreover, this has become a fundamental problem for the traditionally orthodox church refusing to adapt and change - as it can be for any misunderstanding element of society finding itself in similar positions of radically dense, and overwhelmingchange. Whether these elements be commercial, industrial, educational, medical, scientific, agrarian or vernacular organisations. All elements of society will be engaged in a fundamentally altering self-examination requiring adaptation, and assimilation, of rapid technological advancements, exponential biologic growth, diminishing earth resources, greater climate changes, massive urbanization, and a hundred other societal concerns and dilemmas. But success in large part must still rest with increased community support towards acquisition of fundamental, postmodern change; supportive revisioning of societal goals; enhanced collaborative engagement; and mass acceptance of greater societal interdependency and integration leading to a relinquishment of individualized goals.

In the videos below creativity educational expert Sir Ken Robinson will ask how this type of beneficial change might happen within education itself, and how it might be sustained.... And we might ask ourselves similar questions when applying these same principles to the postmodern, Emergent Church - both of the communities we live within, as well of those churches and fellowships floundering therein unprepared for (or unwilling to recognize) the resultant postmodern disruption and fundamental organisational re-configuration made necessary to continue to survive against the radical groundswell of change and proportionate needs of its beleaguered community. Most assuredly this will be a time when each segment of society might lend a hand to one another in mutual aide and support. Where differences can be resolved. And supportive engagement and appreciation can be enhanced.

R.E. Slater
February 27, 2012


*For further discussion of Emergent Christianity begin here in Relevancy22's latest installment -
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/02/some-are-good-writers-some-are-good.html








RSA Animate
Changing Educational Paradigms






Sir Ken Robinson
Changing Educational Paradigms
The full 1 hour discussion



Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson will ask how do we make
change happen in education and how do we make it last?








skr-quote

Sir Ken Robinson, PhD is an internationally recognized leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation. He is also one of the world’s leading speakers with a profound impact on audiences everywhere. The videos of his famous 2006 and 2010 talks to the prestigious TED Conference have been seen by an estimated 200 million people in over 150 countries.

He works with governments in Europe, Asia and the USA, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies and some of the world’s leading cultural organizations. In 1998, he led a national commission on creativity, education and the economy for the UK Government. All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (The Robinson Report) was published to wide acclaim in 1999. He was the central figure in developing a strategy for creative and economic development as part of the Peace Process in Northern Ireland, working with the ministers for training, education enterprise and culture. The resulting blueprint for change, Unlocking Creativity, was adopted by politicians of all parties and by business, education and cultural leaders across the Province. He was one of four international advisors to the Singapore Government for its strategy to become the creative hub of South East Asia.

For twelve years, he was professor of education at the University of Warwick in the UK and is now professor emeritus. He has received honorary degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design, Ringling College of Arts and Design, the Open University and the Central School of Speech and Drama, Birmingham City University and the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. He was been honored with the Athena Award of the Rhode Island School of Design for services to the arts and education; the Peabody Medal for contributions to the arts and culture in the United States, the LEGO Prize for international achievement in education, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the Royal Society of Arts for outstanding contributions to cultural relations between the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2005, he was named as one of Time/Fortune/CNN’s ‘Principal Voices’. In 2003, he received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts. He speaks to audiences throughout the world on the creative challenges facing business and education in the new global economies.

His book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything (Penguin/Viking 2009) is a New York Timesth anniversary edition of his classic work on creativity and innovation, (Capstone/Wiley). Sir Ken was born in Liverpool, UK, as one of seven children. He is married to Therese (Lady) Robinson. They have two children, James and Kate, and now live in Los Angeles, California.


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The element is the point at which natural talent meets personal passion. When people arrive at the element, they feel most themselves and most inspired and achieve at their highest levels. The Element draws on the stories of a wide range of people, from ex-Beatle Paul McCartney to Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons; from Meg Ryan to Gillian Lynne, who choreographed the Broadway productions of Cats and The Phantom of the Opera; and from writer Arianna Huffington to renowned physicist Richard Feynman and others, including business leaders and athletes. It explores the components of this new paradigm: The diversity of intelligence, the power of imagination and creativity, and the importance of commitment to our own capabilities.

With a wry sense of humor, Ken Robinson looks at the conditions that enable us to find ourselves in the element and those that stifle that possibility. He shows that age and occupation are no barrier, and that once we have found our path we can help others to do so as well. The Element shows the vital need to enhance creativity and innovation by thinking differently about human resources and imagination. It is also an essential strategy for transforming education, business, and communities to meet the challenges of living and succeeding in the twenty-first century.


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Sir Ken Robinson -  Out of our MindsThere is a paradox. As children, most of us think we are highly creative; as adults many of us think we are not. What changes as children grow up? Organizations across the globe are competing in a world that is changing faster than ever. They say they need people who can think creatively, who are flexible and quick to adapt. Too often they say they can't find them. Why not? In this provocative and inspiring book, Ken Robinson addresses three vital questions:
  • Why is it essential to promote creativity? Business leaders, politicians and educators emphasize the vital importance of promoting creativity andinnovation. Why does this matter so much?
  • What is the problem? Why do so many people think they're not creative? Young children are buzzing with ideas. What happens as we grow up and go through school to make us think we are not creative?
  • What can be done about it? What is creativity? What can companies, schools and organizations do to develop creativity and innovation in a deliberate and systematic way?
In this extensively revised and updated version of his bestselling classic, Out of Our Minds, Ken Robinson offers a groundbreaking approach to understanding creativity in education and in business. He argues that people and organizations everywhere are dealing with problems that originate in schools and universities and that many people leave education with no idea at all of their real creative abilities. Out of Our Minds is a passionate and powerful call for radically different approaches to leadership, teaching and professional development to help us all to meet the extraordinary challenges of living and working in the 21st century.