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

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

A "Day of Thanksgiving," announced by the "All Africa Purpose Driven Church Congress," August 6-10, 2015, Kigali, Rwanda


(PHOTO: SADDLEBACK CHURCH/SCOTT TOKAR) Pastor Rick Warren announces plans for the All Africa Purpose Driven Church Congress
to be held Aug. 6-10, 2015. Warren made the announcement during a press conference held in Kigali, Rwanda, Aug. 11, 2014.

Rick Warren in Rwanda Announces Plans to Host All 54 African Nations at Purpose Driven Church Congress
http://www.christianpost.com/news/rick-warren-in-rwanda-announces-plans-to-host-all-54-african-nations-at-purpose-driven-church-congress-124718/

by Alex Murashko, Christian Post Reporter
August 13, 2014|8:12 am

Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, and author of The Purpose Driven Life, announced plans earlier this week at a press conference in Kigali, Rwanda, to host an unprecedented gathering of pastors and church leaders from all 54 African nations in conjunction with a national day of Thanksgiving next year.

The All Africa Purpose Driven Church Congress, which is planned for August 6-10, 2015, will be held during Rwanda Shima Imana, a relatively new celebration in Rwanda, a "Day of Thanksgiving" to celebrate reconciliation and gratitude on the anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.

The conference will be the first of five annual continent-wide conferences to take place by 2020, with the second planned to be held in Latin America in 2016, organizers said.

"I have been to Rwanda many times but this is by far my most important trip," said Warren. "This week I am bringing over 100 leaders from 30 African nations as well as Russia, China, India and the U.S. I want them to see what is happening in this country and to see the growth, development and progress that has been made in both this nation and its churches as we prepare for the 2015 gathering."

(PHOTO: SADDLEBACK CHURCH) President of Rwanda, His Excellency Paul Kagame,(R) joined Pastor Rick Warren Saturday evening for
Kwibuka 20, a special service at Saddleback Church to honor the victims of the Rwandan genocide 20 years later and celebrate the
partnership and efforts of The PEACE Plan in Rwanda over the past 10 years, April 26, 2014.

Warren explained how the idea for The PEACE Plan was birthed in 2003 while he was speaking in South Africa, but two years later following a call from His Excellency Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, it became a reality as the country became the first Purpose Driven nation.

"I have been working with and watching the churches of Rwanda for nearly 10 years, and I believe now is the time for them to be a model to the world," Warren said. "It would be just like God to take a small nation like Rwanda on which the world turned its back 20 years ago in its greatest need and use it for God and for good."

Warren emphasized that as leadership training begins this week in Rwanda and continues in 2015 with the continent-wide gathering, it will emphasize reconciliation, with Rwandan leaders sharing their stories of forgiveness and healing following the 1994 genocide, which took the lives of 1 million Rwandans and left 1 million children orphaned over the course of 100 days.

"I believe the secret to Middle East peace is in Rwanda," said Warren. "World leaders should be studying Rwanda. This should be the model."

The 12 pastors who serve on the Rwanda PEACE Plan Board of Directors joined Warren for today's press conference along with eight of more than 25 leaders that serve as Master Trainers for PEACE.

"These men, whether you realize it or not, are world leaders," Warren said. "What they are doing with churches in Rwanda is being watched by churches all around the world."

The PEACE Plan works worldwide to Promote reconciliation, Equip servant leaders, Assist the poor, Care for the sick,and Educate the next generation, through a massive effort to mobilize millions of Christians to combat the five global evil giants of spiritual emptiness, self-centered leadership, extreme poverty, pandemic disease and illiteracy/education, according to church officials. Since its founding, Saddleback has sent over 23,000 members to implement The PEACE Plan in all 197 nations of the world.

"Most nations are validated by their strength in exports; Rwanda can become famous for exporting leadership," Warren said. "Rwanda should be the leadership and innovation capital of the continent of Africa. That is why I am calling leaders from across the continent to come to Rwanda next year to learn. The strength of Rwanda is not in the ground; it's in the people."

Through The PEACE Plan in Rwanda, Saddleback Church has worked together with the public, private and faith sectors of the nation – what it calls the three-legged stool of churches, government and businesses – to help lower the poverty rate, empty orphanages, provide healthcare, train pastors and provide education.

"What makes The PEACE Plan unique is that it is done by local churches, in local churches, in the community," said Warren. "I could take you to 10 million villages around the world where the only thing there is the church. The church is the biggest organization on the planet and has most potential to do good if mobilized."

Over 3,200 pastors have completed a three-year intensive training in the purpose-driven PEACE Plan. These churches now offer everything from micro-savings clubs to preschools to programs training farmers how to double their crops on the same amount of land.

The media site AllAfrica.com reports that Rwanda Shima Imana is a national Christian Thanksgiving Day and was "inaugurated in 2012, by Peace Plan, a brainchild of Pastor Warren, with a presence in most Christian churches in Rwanda."

"It is a day when believers come together to thank God for the progress made in the country and the Church so far," according to AllAfrica.

The 3rd annual Thanksgiving crusade is this Sunday (Aug. 17), at the Amahoro stadium. Warren is a member of the Rwanda Presidential Advisory Council and would like to see Rwanda Shima Imana a public holiday, "just as [Thanksgiving] is in some other countries, including the US, Japan, and the Netherlands," reports All Africa.

"It is my prayer that this day becomes a national holiday just as it is in some parts of the world," Warren said. "Twenty years after the Genocide, we are now a new Rwanda. We have seen the country develop and have nothing to hold against God, other than celebrating what He has done for our country."


For more information about Saddleback's work in Rwanda or The PEACE Plan, visit http://www.saddleback.com or http://www.thepeaceplan.com. For additional information about Rwanda Shima Imana, visithttp://www.shimaimana.rw.



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