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| New leader for the Salvation Army in Sweden/Latvia - September 2
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 The General has appointed Lt Colonel Marie Willermark to be the Territorial Commander for Sweden/Latvia from the 1st of February 2011.
From TSA International Web-page:
Lt Colonel Willermark was commissioned as an officer in 1980 and has spent many years in divisional and national youth work. She served for three years in Denmark as a divisional commander (1996-1999), then for five years as a corps officer in Jönköping, before coming to Stockholm, Sweden, again as a divisional commander.
”The local corps work is really the heart of the Salvation Army and I try to find a suitable way of service there whatever my appointment is,” Lt Colonel Willermark said. ”During the last year of my appointment in Stockholm, I led a cell group in my local corps.”
Major Willermark is thankful for her appointment in Ukraine and feels blessed to be serving Christ and building his Kingdom in fellowship with the officers and soldiers in Ukraine. “The officers and soldiers here have an unique awareness of the local culture, needs, and how to relate to people in the language of both words and service”, she said.
“I also feel privileged to be able to contribute with my experience. I would like to encourage and equip leaders to have a passion for winning souls and be comfortable with the structure of the Salvation Army.
“Ukraine is a very interesting country. I find that it has several historical links with Sweden – the same national colours of blue and yellow, and Vikings from Scandinavia went up the Dnjepr in the 9th century, and perhaps a few Swedes were left behind when king Charles XII lost in the famous battle of Poltava in 1709.”
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| Salvation Army reports on human aid - August 26
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A good friend, just coming back from some weeks in the United states told about his impressions from strong growing Christian work in America. He also noted that it was so evident that GOD IS BACK, and referred to the book with the same name.
An article in New Your Times from last year presents the book:
Not all that long ago, the great minds of Europe predicted a future with little or no religion. Science would make us highly skeptical of miracles. Psychiatry would direct all of our awe and wonder inward. Changing roles for women would weaken the patriarchal structure that props up clerics. Whatever script for modernity one followed, it had God playing a bit role.
As we all know, it didn’t happen that way. Modernity arrived and improvised new starring roles for God. The Americans led the way by becoming both “the quintessentially modern country” and a very devout one, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge write in their new book, “God Is Back,” and most of the world has followed that model. In rich countries and poorer ones, democratic and undemocratic, primarily Islamic and primarily Christian — everywhere, basically, except Europe — devotion to God has remained surprisingly robust.
 “The very things that were supposed to destroy religion — democracy and markets, technology and reason — are combining to make it stronger,” write Micklethwait, editor in chief of The Economist, and Wooldridge, the magazine’s Washington bureau chief, who together have written previous books about globalization and American conservatism, two similarly sweeping topics.
Read more in New York Times>>
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A good friend sent me an e-mail with this article. Why don´t we hear this kind of speaches more often?:
Pilar Rahola is a Spanish politician, journalist and activist and member of the far left. Her articles are published in Spain and throughout some of the most important newspapers in Latin America .
"Why don't we see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London , Paris , Barcelona ?
Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship?
Why aren't there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection?
Why aren't there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs?
Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of Islamic dictatorship in Sudan ?
Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel ?
Why is there no outcry by the European left against Islamic fanaticism?
Why don't they defend Israel 's right to exist?
Read more>>
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| Teaching the Quadrilateral - august 6
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 If you are a member of The United Methodist Church you have probably heard of the Quadrilateral. It is some times called “John Wesley’s Quadrilateral,” despite the fact that John Wesley never used the word. The more accurate adjective to use is “Wesleyan.” This strange word is shorthand for the four ingredients used by people in The United Methodist Church when we study, teach, discuss, argue about, and interpret God and God’s action and involvement in the world, the church, and in our individual lives. The Wesleyan quadrilateral contains the four ingredients of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. All four of the ingredients are essential. God reveals God’s self to us through each one. And each contributes to our understanding and experience of who God is and how God has acted in the past is acting now and will act in the future. Understanding and teaching the quadrilateral is important because it is gives us a proven way of exploring, growing in, and living our faith in Jesus Christ.
Read the full article at Accountable Discipleship
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| Change your beliefs or get out - August 5
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Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed suit against Augusta State University Wednesday on behalf of a counseling student told that her Christian beliefs are unethical and incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession. The student, Jennifer Keeton, has been told to stop sharing her beliefs with others and that she must change her beliefs in order to graduate from the counseling program.
Augusta State ordered Keeton to undergo a re-education plan, in which she must attend “diversity sensitivity training,” complete additional remedial reading, and write papers to describe their impact on her beliefs. If she does not change her beliefs or agree to the plan, the university says it will expel her from the Counselor Education Program.
“A public university student shouldn’t be threatened with expulsion for being a Christian and refusing to publicly renounce her faith, but that’s exactly what’s happening here. Simply put, the university is imposing thought reform,” said ADF Senior Counsel David French. “Abandoning one’s own religious beliefs should not be a precondition at a public university for obtaining a degree. This type of leftist zero-tolerance policy is in place at far too many universities, and it must stop. Jennifer’s only crime was to have the beliefs that she does.”
Read more at Alliance Defense Fund
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| Doctrine, Spirit and Discipline - August 3
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It’s also fair to say that if The United Methodist Church is going to take seriously its mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, then we must wrestle with the need for discipline. I say this because we know from Scripture and tradition that disciples cannot be made apart from discipline. This is why John Wesley wrote the lines at the beginning of his tract, “Thoughts Upon Methodism” we have heard today:
“I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case, unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.”
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| Soupkitchen outside Parlament - July 27
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| Does Power Corrupt? - July 20
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One of the unfortunate byproducts of any society of humans is that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
In my media career I have had both the fortune and misfortune of dealing on an intimate basis with the powerful of many kinds - politicians, celebrities, popstars, movie stars, sporting heroes. I have seen firsthand the power (either perceived or real) corrupting over and over again.
It is rare to find an organisation which has not been effected by the powerful ones who seek to “settle old scores”, crush innovative non-conformists with a wet blanket of conservatism, take personal credit for the toil of others, unfairly practise nepotism, impede the advancement of outstanding young people and bully more junior staff, send nay-sayers to “Coventry” (or “Back of Beyond” as we say in Australia) or other equally cruel, selfish, non-edifying acts of destructive indulgence."
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A group from U.K. will spend a week in Latvia this summer helping with practically and spiritually. The Former Salvation Officer Fellowship is setting up the trip and several UK-corps are paricipating.
Several reports will be posted here on www.rupeba.se the coming week.
Here are the links to two of the firts reports:
Arrival...
The work has begun...
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On the web-page "Send the fire" you can find a modern version of William Booth´s "I´ll fight"-proclamation:
"I’LL FIGHT
-While guys and girls snort, swallow, sniff, shoot and smoke drugs like they do now, I’LL FIGHT
-While young punks swarm, curb stomp and bully others like they do now, I’LL FIGHT
-While kids, teens and young adults cut and self-injure as they do now, I’LL FIGHT
-While cliques are more concerned with their appearance and making money than caring for others, as they do now, I’LL FIGHT
-While adults physically, emotionally, verbally & sexually abuse youth, as they do now, I’LL FIGHT
-While sex is freely given away to boyfriends & girlfriends,
-While teens check out porn & young adults are sexually promiscuous,
-While getting drunk, partying and clubbing is a generation’s choice and source of fun, while there remains one young dark soul without the light of God, I’LL FIGHT… I’LL FIGHT to the very end!"
You can listen to William Booth´s original here.
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| The world is trying it's best to change the face of Christianiune
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I recieved a mail with a thougt-provoking article:
Are there dangers in being 'spiritual but not religious'?
"I'm spiritual but not religious."
It's a trendy phrase people often use to describe their belief that they don't need organized religion to live a life of faith.
But for Jesuit priest James Martin, the phrase also hints at something else: selfishness.
"Being spiritual but not religious can lead to complacency and self-centeredness," says Martin, an editor at America, a national Catholic magazine based in New York City. "If it's just you and God in your room, and a religious community makes no demands on you, why help the poor?"
Read more>>
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PASTORAL LETTERS FROM THE OFFICE OF THE GENERAL TO SALVATIONISTS ACROSS THE WORLD
This is the 19th in a series of Pastoral Letters from the General to every Salvationist across the world.
Read the letter>>
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| The New Atheism and the Christian Mind - June 3
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 In connection with the Cape Town Congress 2010, the Lausanne movement invites to a global conversation about different topics. Here is one of the papers. You are invited to take part in the conversation.
The New Atheism and the Christian Mind
God is a delusion – a ‘psychotic delinquent; invented by mad, deluded people.” So believes Dr. Richard Dawkins. On the BBC radio, speaking of God he said, “This infantile explanation belongs to an earlier, superstitious era in the history of humanity. We’ve outgrown it.” Dr. Dawkins believes that Christian belief is “a persistently false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence.” These are strong statements and they are public. The New Atheists, and those influenced by them are secular missionaries. They are sincere, they are motivated, and in many cases, they are passionate. The trickle down effect of their ideas, books, blogs and influence are seen in movies, TV, and are picked up anecdotally by any who need a convenient excuse to avoid what Socrates called “the examined life”. How to respond?
Read more>>
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Terry Camsey writes on Rubicon:
"When it came out, the Crest Book “Come Join Our Army’ by R.G. Moyles led me to contact the author. I was privileged later to enjoy some insightful conversations with him over the internet. In that book he points out that, towards the end of the late 1880’s and early 1890’s, Salvationists were becoming aware that the Army, as they had known it, was beginning to change. They were “now being asked to become as actively involved in charitable work as previously they were in red-hot revivalism.” And they were being popularized for that. Dr. Moyles suggests that they then became “less frequently hailed as soul-saving revivalists and more often as social reformers known less for their aggressive evangelism than for their good deeds.”
Comments >>
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From the SA international web-site
From FSAOF blogsite
From FSAOF website
Telgraph.co.uk:
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 Do you want to take part in a prayer chain for Latvia? Many things are happening in Latvia now. Both in the nation and in the Salvation Army. We need prayer support.
If you want to join in the prayer for Latvia, please send an e-mail with the text "Prayer for Latvia" to info@rupeba.se and we will put you on our sending-list for our monthly prayer letter. We need your prayer support!
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World Youth Convention 2010
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September 4
”I have chosen the way of truth; I have set my heart on your laws.”
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Ps 119:30 NIV)
Devotion:
All persons come, sooner or later, to a road crossing where they must choose which road to take. The crossing is that place or moment God chooses in which to reveal the person’s sin to them. This is the place that both holy persons as well as hypocrites choose their way. Those who choose truth and the way of holiness are those who acknowledge their need, confess their sin and bow to God praying to be made free. Those who become hypocrites are those who believe in self forgiveness and remain unchanged.
In the same way that Jesus had to choose meekness and holiness today’s disciples must choose the same road.
Prayer:
Lord, show me the way of holiness. I want to choose it today.
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