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 from 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, May 16, 2011

I Deny the Resurrection

And you do to, when...
 
"Insurrection" by Peter Rollins

 
 
In this incendiary new work, the controversial author and speaker Peter Rollins proclaims that the Christian faith is not primarily concerned with questions regarding life after death but with the possibility of life before death.
 
In order to unearth this truth, Rollins prescribes a radical and wholesale critique of contemporary Christianity that he calls pyro-theology. It is only as we submit our spiritual practices, religious rituals, and dogmatic affirmations to the flames of fearless interrogation that we come into contact with the reality that Christianity is in the business of transforming our world rather than offering a way of interpreting or escaping it. Belief in the Resurrection means but one thing: participation in an insurrection.
 
"In this book, Pete takes you to the edge of a cliff. And just when most writers would pull you back, he pushes you off. But after your initial panic, you realize that your fall is a form of flying. And it's thrilling."
 
- Rob Bell, author of Love Wins and Velvet Elvis
 
 
Resurrection: Rob Bell & Flannel Ministries
 
 
This is a clip from the Poets, Prophets and Preachers conference
that Peter Rollins spoke at with Rob Bell and Shane Hipps in
Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2009
 
 
 
 
"I Believe in the Insurrection"
 
 
 
 

Missional Communities

Yes, it really is that easy to start missional living right where you're at. Here are some testimonies that will inspire you and show how missional communities for Jesus are created by God through ordinary people. People who have a heart for others, who wish to disciple and proclaim Jesus as Savior and Lord, who are burdened to plant living fellowships and multiply workers to reap and harvest for the Kingdom of God. These may be as simple as creating new fellowships within your own church's outreach or as bright and new as starting a completely new fellowship where none exists.

Secondly, know that within your local community may be other emergent and evangelic Christian fellowships which might be helpful to your burden of raising and multiplying disciples for Christ - for you are not alone in this task of discipling. Moreover, you might share your burden to those sister fellowships who you have found to be like-minded with you in this same task of church growth and expansion; who may be able to offer mature Christian guidance and counsel while welcoming an infusion of "new blood" and "missionary energy" they may have lost many years ago.

Finally, pray for discernment in this task of being true teachers of the Word of God as you testify of Jesus with a broken heart for those of his sheep lost without a shepherd. The Internet has given God's people a powerful tool to help in searching and knowing the Scriptures, of discerning Christian groups and fellowships, of discovering who is a wolf and who is truly sent from God. Be wise and do the hard work of discernment.

Thus follows below missional links illustrating missional communities seeking Jesus in the very neighborhoods that they live and work. May these links prove inspirational and helpful to those gifted "missionairies" among us who are called to seek the lost, called to begin new fellowships where they are none, called to seek those who have been forgotten in the mainstreams of life. Bless you. Our prayers go with you. And to the rest of us, be mindful to know your spiritual gift and to use it for God's glory, whether of evangelising, pastoring/teaching, serving with hands and feet, encouraging, giving guidance, counseling, or the service of helps, seek to glorify God in all that he calls us to do. For each one of us are called to make disciples... and to this task will we commit ourselves to do.

- skinhead

* * * * * * * * * *
 

Missional Community:
Soma Communities | FILMS
Posted May 9th, 2011
 

Jeff Vanderstelt and his Missional Community at Soma Communities share their heart
for wanting to see Jesus glorified in their neighborhood and all of Tacoma.
 
 
* * * * * * * * * *
 
 
Alan Hirsch and Verge Network  summarize some of the things that they think makes the church missional in the video below. In essence, this will require newer missional communities where none now exist. Newer fellowships, newer church plants, into forgotten segments and streams of humanity living among us in our cities and suburbs, rural areas and towns.
 

 March 3, 2011
 
 
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Missional Community: Renovation Church | FILMS
Posted May 2nd, 2011
 

Leonce Crump and his Missional Community at Renovation Church talk about
the joys and challenges of planting a church in a diverse neighborhood in Atlanta.
 
 
 * * * * * * * * * *
 
 
7 Questions Series | RECAP
Posted April 29th, 2011
 
We spent the last few months with leading thinkers and practitioners to answer 7
of the most frequently asked questions about missional communities. All of the
folks we heard from were featured speakers at Exponential 2011: On The Verge.
 
 
 

Click the links below to join the conversation going on about Missional Community!
__________________________________________
 
 
 
Contributors: Neil Cole, Hugh Halter, Mike Breen, Alan Hirsch,
Felicity Dale, JR Woodward, & Jeff Vanderstelt
 
 
 
 
Contributors: Jeff Vanderstelt, Caesar Kalinowski, Hugh Halter, JR Woodward, & Matt Carter
 
 
 

 Contributors: Dave Ferguson & Hugh Halter
 
 
 
Question 4: How do you transition your small group to missional community?

 Contributors: Matt Smay, Dave Ferguson, & Hugh Halter
 
 
 
Question 5: How do you train missional community leaders?

 Contributors: JR Woodward, Jason Dukes, Dave Ferguson, Matt Carter, Reggie McNeal, Hugh Halter,  Lance Ford, & Rob Wegner
 
 
 
 
 Contributors: Rob Wegner, Hugh Halter, & Matt Carter
 
 
 
 
 Contributors: Rob Wegner, Hugh Halter, & Jo Saxton