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

Showing posts with label Missional Witness and Accommodation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Missional Witness and Accommodation. Show all posts

Monday, June 8, 2020

A Peace Child Brings Healing to the Nations


Marind people - Wikipedia
A Marind tribe sharing a southern border with the Sawi tribes of Papua, New Guinea

The Sawi, or Sawuy, are a tribal people of Western New Guinea, Indonesia. They were known to be cannibalistic headhunters as recently as the 1950s. They speak the Sawi language, which belongs to the Trans-New Guinea language family.
Sawi, or Sawuy, is a language of the Sawi people of the Trans–New Guinea phylum spoken in sago swamps in the southwestern parts of the Indonesian province of Papua. Of the neighboring languages, it is most closely related to the Awyu languages to the east.
Sawi is an inflecting language and uses both inflections of the stem and suffixes to indicate person, number, and tense.

Awyu-Dumut languages.svg








The Peace Child: A Night With Don Richardson
A peace child offering among the Sawi tribe of Papua, New Guinea

Journey into the Unknown

I remember reading Don Richardson's story of Peace Child either in my late teens or early twenties and thinking how wonderful his use of the cultural elements he lived within to communicate Jesus not by his own Western standards but by the tribe's own standards whom he had befriended.

Yet in another sense I also remembered how the Sawi tribe was "fattening him and his family up" with good fellowship and tribal affection as they were preparing Don, his wife, and youngest child Steve, for a rite of death. Though Don never mentions this in his journal the tension was evidently there by his recounts of what he was witnessing. The Sawi tribe he was living amongst were a Papua, New Guinea tribe of Indonesia well know for their cannibalism.

It was through a cannibalistic incident between the Sawi tribes where Richardson first saw a glimmer of how to share the deep relevance of Jesus to his machiavellian hosts which might bring a deep spiritual meaning to upsetting both the human soul and tribal practices of a culture devoted to premeditated murder upon one another. And it was through this biblical form of typology that opened blinded tribal eyes to see the atonement of Jesus between God and man.

But rather than ruin or spoil the import of Richard's story I'll leave it to the reader to pick up an old copy and re-explore through Don Richardson's missionary eyes the perils he and his family had entered into amid the discoveries they had made having survived their first Sawi encounters. Peace Child reads simply and quickly, but within the words of the page lies a deep sublimity providing a transitional context between people and tribes of unlike cultures looking to find common ground with one another.

Context

Which brings me to my last thought of the day. Context. If, like Don Richardson, we are seeking a way to share the gospel of God's love through Jesus in a meaningful way, it is by listening and learning from within whatever cultural context (of community context) we find ourselves in. This is where an evangelist or missionary, pastor or discipler, might begin. It will never be obvious at first but with time and insight it might become obvious.

The key to Richardson's insight was that he came to live and work within the Sawi tribes. When he did, he found God's insight into a deeply formative tradition held within the very cornerstone of the Sawi tribes. An identity heightened by lies and deception before killing of another human being. It was this very cornerstone of their tribal identity the Lord reveal to Don that he might use it's same evil to share God's love.

Had Richardson brought his own culture into the tribe he might never have exposed himself to its hazards and reality. Further, Richardson could have recited the "law and order" sections of the bible's Hebraic traditions and simply forced his own Christianized Western culture upon the Sawi. But by proceeding through love and fellowship he exposed himself to the very evil lying resident among the tribes of Papua needing redemption. If he had not done this, the gospel wouldn't have been anything more than window-dressing added to craven human behavior and customs.

Context? Context is everything. Isn't it?

R.E. Slater
June 8, 2020

* * * * * * * * * * * * *


Mind the translation gap – Hektoen International

Never The Same:
Celebrating 50 Years Since Peace Child

Pioneers USA
Dec 12, 2012

The Sawi were headhunters and cannibals when a young couple named Don and Carol Richardson arrived in their village carrying their seven-month-old boy Steve—and a message that would change the tribe forever. The year was 1962, and Steve—and later, three more children—spent their youth among the Sawi, learning the language and embracing the culture in ways that would shape the rest of their lives. Their story was immortalized in the best-selling book Peace Child and a feature film of the same name, inspiring a new generation to take the gospel to the remaining isolated tribes of the earth.


Fifty years later, Steve joins his father, Don, and two brothers, Shannon and Paul, to visit the Sawi village where they grew up. What is the state of the church they planted among the Sawi? Are the friends they played with still alive? Will anyone remember the mark their family left on the tribe? Journey with Steve as he travels to the swamps of Papua, Indonesia, to introduce you to the Sawi, and explore the impact of the gospel among a previously unreached people group.
Music Credits
  • "A Beautiful Tale" and "Revival" by Ryan Taubert © 2012 SHOUT! Music Publishing Courtesy of SHOUT! Music Australia
  • "O My Soul", "The Introductions" and "Moving Frames" by Adam Taylor, used with permission
  • "The Father's Heart" by Tony Anderson, used with permission
  • "The Ladder" by Drake Margolnick, used with permission


* * * * * * * * * * * * *


Never The Same: Celebrating 50 Years Since Peace Child



Missionary Visits Cannibal Tribe 50 Years Later


Moira Brown speaks to Don Richardson about his life's
work as a missionary and the impact it has had worldwide.

Don Richardson-Author / Conference Speaker

Books: "Peace Child" & "Eternity In their Hearts"

To Get Your Copy:


* * * * * * * * * * * * *


Amazon Link


DVD Link

In 1962, Don and Carol Richardson risked their lives to share the gospel with the Sawi people of New Guinea. Peace Child tells their unforgettable story of living among these headhunters and cannibals who valued treachery through "fattening" victims with friendship before the slaughter. God gave Don and Carol the key to the Sawi hearts via a redemptive analogy from their own mythology. The [Sawi's] "peace child" became the secret to unlocking a value system that existed through generations over centuries, possibly millenniums, of time. This analogy became a stepping-stone by which the gospel came into the Sawi culture and started both a spiritual and a social revolution from within. With an epilogue updating how the gospel has impacted the Sawi people, Peace Child will inspire a new generation of readers who need to hear this unforgettable story and the lessons it teaches us about communicating Christ in a meaningful way to those around us.


Monday, June 15, 2015

Rob Bell - Everything is Spiritual 2015 Tour, Podcasts, & Films



Over the years I have been writing here at Relevancy22 how we might reach out to both believers and non-believers alike who have been turned off by the church. Recently, Jeff Cook's new book on the non-churched "nones" and the formerly church-involved "dones" was published describing what it means to be "none" or "done" in the world of church refugees. In a word, we have a spiritual responsibility to both the "nones" and the "dones" to think how we, as the church, might reach out in missional witness or pastoral care to a turned off, skeptical crowd composed of both disbelieving skeptics and jaded Christian believers.

And this is what Rob Bell does best as he lifts up Jesus to the masses and not to the "somes" who espouse church dogmas over God's outreaching love having nothing to learn from discussions like these except to feel irritated and upset as if someone had raided the kitchen refrigerator and left nothing to eat. (Don't believe it? Just listen to contemporary media reports, the preachers on the airwaves speaking up against Rob's tour, or even postings on Facebook.)

Unfortunately we get too caught up about perceptions and labels when we should be concentrating on minding the open message of Jesus to the "nones and dones" of his generation against the "somes" of the temple refusing not only Jesus' destestable message but even Jesus Himself eventuating in His unjust judgment by the councils of man and incongruous death by crucifixion as God's unblemished Lamb.

And yet, unfortunately, this categorical description of the church's "gate keepers," however sincerely believed and followed by its congregants, is how many outside of today's churches perceive Christian assemblies - not as welcoming and embracing fellowships but as an insiders club requiring qualifying mindsets and approving actions.

However there are movements afoot working to break down this public perception by learning to discern and place good biblical doctrine outside of bad church dogmatics. "What's the difference," you ask? Dogma always leads out with legalistic judgment coupled with personal bias whereas doctrine leads out with loving judgment against personal bias. There is a difference. One is a closed system, the other open. One has a closed bible, the other has an open one. One sees self, the other sees Jesus.

So then, when we talk of everything being spiritual... it is. Not some things are spiritual. Nor those things I select because of my religious preferences. Or because of my religious feelings or beliefs. But all things are spiritual. Everything. To know that we are a part of a larger fellowship. A fellowship that spans the entire cosmos of the universe as well as our own very human assemblies here on this earth.

We are not alone. We are together as a brotherhood. And that brotherhood starts with those next to us who need to see God through Jesus and not through our closed-minded church beliefs however desperately we wish to cling to them as unnecessary anchors to the gospel of Christ.

Peace,

R.E. Slater
June 15, 2015


For more information go to Rob's website -



Everything is Spiritual Tour 2015 [1.27 min]



Everything is Spiritual [78 min]



With new discoveries right and left, more and more people are asking bigger and bigger questions about just what kind of world we’re living in and what that means for our hearts, our souls, and our spirits.

On the Everything Is Spiritual tour, Rob Bell does what he does best, making surprising connections between the universe you’re living in and the life you’re living, showing us how science and spirituality are long lost dance partners.

Wherever you’re coming from and whatever you’re wrestling with, let the Everything Is Spiritual tour experience inspire, provoke, challenge, and give you hope as we together explore and enjoy this beautiful, mysterious, and endlessly fascinating world we call home.


Everything is Spiritual 2015 Tour Schedule

6/24 Los Angeles, CA – The Regent TICKETS
6/25 Los Angeles, CA – The Regent TICKETS
7/6 San Diego, CA – Observatory North Park TICKETS
7/7 Phoenix, AZ – Orpheum Theatre TICKETS
7/9 Tulsa, OK – Brady Theatre TICKETS
7/10 Austin, TX – Paramount Theatre TICKETS
7/11 Dallas, TX – Majestic Theatre TICKETS
7/12 Houston, TX – Cullen Performance Hall TICKETS
7/14 New Orleans, LA – Civic Theatre TICKETS
7/15 Nashville, TN – Rocketown TICKETS
7/16 Atlanta, GA – The Tabernacle TICKETS
7/17 Miami Beach, FL – Fillmore at Miami Beach TICKETS
7/18 Jacksonville, FL – Terry Theatre at Times-Union TICKETS
7/20 Durham, NC – Carolina Theatre TICKETS
7/21 Richmond, VA – The National TICKETS
7/22 Silver Spring, MD – The Fillmore Silver Spring TICKETS
7/24 New York, NY – Town Hall TICKETS
7/25 Boston, MA – House of Blues TICKETS
7/27 Philadelphia, PA – Electric Factory TICKETS
7/28 Cleveland, OH – Masonic Auditorium TICKETS
7/29 Grand Rapids, MI – Intersection TICKETS
7/30 Milwaukee, WI – Pabst Theatre TICKETS
7/31 Indianapolis, IN – Egyptian Room at Old National Centre TICKETS
8/1 St. Louis, MO – Pageant TICKETS
8/2 Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall TICKETS
8/4 Denver, CO – Paramount Theatre TICKETS
8/5 Salt Lake City, UT – The Complex TICKETS
8/6 Boise, ID – The Egyptian Theatre TICKETS
8/7 Spokane, WA – Knitting Factory – Spokane TICKETS
8/9 Reno, NV – Knitting Factory – Reno TICKETS
8/10 San Francisco, CA – The Regency Ballroom TICKETS




The RobCast

The RobCast is a weekly podcast hosted by Rob Bell.


Subscribe to the RobCast through iTunes.
You can also listen to the RobCast at Podbean.
The RobCast RSS feed: http://robbell.podbean.com/feed/

Past Episodes





Films by Rob Bell

Short Films

Tour Films



Monday, May 7, 2012

The Gospel is neither Exclusive nor Excluding


How low does God set the bar so that the
Gospel may be heard by all who seek Him?


  • Who can receive the Gospel of Jesus?
  • What restrictions should the church place on the Gospel?
  • Who is the church willing to share the Gospel of Jesus with?
  • What happens when Christianity is embraced by other religions?


Hear Shane Hipps
Play


The download is also available from the Mars Hill Archives -




Shayne Hipps, Mars Hill, Grandville, MI
May 6, 2012



A drawing of an Angry Bird






Security outside of the Louvre Museum of Paris



Painting of the Mona Lisa inside the Louvre



Da Vinci's Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum, Paris, France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_lisa





A gardener trimming a bush

 

Acts 15

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Jerusalem Council

15 But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. 3 So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers.[a] 4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. 5 But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”

6 The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. 7 And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. 10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

12 And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. 13 After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. 14 Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. 15 And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,

16 “‘After this I will return,
and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen;
I will rebuild its ruins,
and I will restore it,
17 that the remnant[b] of mankind may seek the Lord,
and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things 18 known from of old.’

19 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, 20 but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. 21 For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”

The Council's Letter to Gentile Believers

22 Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, 23 with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers[c] who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. 24 Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you[d] with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, 25 it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 We have therefore sent 28 For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: 29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

30 So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. 31 And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. 32 And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words. 33 And after they had spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them.[e] 35 But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also.

Paul and Barnabas Separate

36 And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” 37 Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. 38 But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. 39 And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, 40 but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. 41 And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

Footnotes: 
  1. Acts 15:3 Or brothers and sisters; also verse 22
  2. Acts 15:17 Or rest
  3. Acts 15:23 Or brothers and sisters; also verses 32, 33, 36
  4. Acts 15:24 Some manuscripts some persons from us have troubled you
  5. Acts 15:33 Some manuscripts insert verse 34: But it seemed good to Silas to remain there