Relevancy22: Contemporary Process Christianity: Post-Evangelic Topics and Theology: YWAM's Witness from the Fields of Cambodia 2014

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

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

YWAM's Witness from the Fields of Cambodia 2014

SBS UofN Battambang 2013-2014

2014 YWAM School of Bible Studies, Battambang, Cambodia

Hey friends!

I finished my School of Biblical Studies! The nine-month school has walked me through the Bible five times, and has really challenged me in applying what God’s word says. This training has affected my approach to cross cultural ministry, and given me a foundation I feel much more confident leading people from.

The outreach locations for teaching the Bible study method are still undetermined because the communication trails are tricky to navigate over here with which churches can host us for a certain amount of time doing a specific ministry. I will keep you all in the loop as soon as I hear more of what the outreach will look like.

Street Musicians, Battambang, Cambodia

Here are two stories that happened the other day when I was studying my last book, Matthew:

Fruit!

One of the students from my Bible class that I’d been teaching accepted the Lord last week! I have six students now as a few of them have invited their friends to come. Two of them are not Christian so you can be praying their curiosity continues to develop!

In teaching 'Christian Values' they all love the person of Jesus, but still have a difficult time getting past their worldview of not needing a Savior. They believe the level of heaven they are assigned is based off of how good of a person they are in this life (merit-based salvation).

I believe the power of prayer, and the conviction of the Spirit is at work with what I’m seeing, so please continue to partner with me in this! There were five other students from the Youth Center that had accepted the Lord the same night my student had so it’s been encouraging to see some fruit. A great reminder of why I’m here!

2014 YWAM Students, Battambang, Cambodia

Seeds!

A small coffee shop that I’ve been going to for work always gives me plenty of opportunities to build relationships with the beggars that make their routes everyday. This past week a drunk man walked in with his hands in the pleading clasped position, so I asked the owner to cook up some chicken fried rice for him. They politely asked him to wait outside so I stopped studying the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, and took the God given opportunity to apply it.

He wreaked of beer so I told him the reason I was happy to buy him food but not give money was because I didn’t want him to buy more beer with it. Praise God my Khmer language is well enough for conversation, and I got to hear about this man’s life.

He had arthritis in both knees, and he actually lived in a village pretty far from the city where he took care of his grand kids with his wife who was sick because their parents had passed away. The man was in the city begging for money so he could bring back the money for his family. The fried rice took a long time to cook, thank the Lord, and I found out he had heard the gospel before, but hadn’t believed in Jesus. I relayed the Beatitudes to him, and shared how there are difficulties in this life that Jesus will one day take away. I shared how alcohol had affected my family and I, and he started crying!

I’ve never seen anybody from the older generation cry. He didn’t accept the Lord into his life, but he was ready for a change. After he got his rice we talked a little longer, then I asked if I could pray with him, and he consented. In saying goodbye I gave him a few dollars, and said, “I hope you spend this on your family, and not on beer. God bless you”. I plan on seeing this man again, and believe this next time I won’t smell beer on his breath.

Not ten minutes later a couple walked in that I had met before who were making their begging route. The couple is in their fifties, and the husband is blind. I had told them the gospel four months ago, and asked if the wife remembered my face. She said, “Yes”, and the blind husband remembered my voice! I repeated the fried rice process sitting with them outside, and kept going with the Beatitudes. Telling the blind man that he would see one day made him sit on the edge of his seat, and seeing how the wife was much warmer to hearing the hope of Christ was really encouraging for me.

Streets of Battambang, Cambodia

There’s something God’s doing in my heart with the poor in this city, and I’m excited to see how God will continue to develop it. When hearing a podcast back home the question was thrown out, “When do you feel like your closest to the Lord?”

I found my answer! There’s a sense of joy that I can’t express after having conversations like these that is undoubtedly from the Lord. It’s a great question to ask yourself as well. I think it reveals a bite size piece of purpose and duty that we were created for, and the congruency when we do it is very fulfilling. I was planting seeds of the gospel, but at the same time I feel something growing in my own heart.

I hope and pray you’re all being encouraged with seeing fruit where you’re investing your energy as well! “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Gal 6:9).

Ben

June 17, 2014