Michael M. Rose
Michael is passionate about helping folks connect with the God-who-loves in healthy, thoughtful and life-giving ways; helping them to experience this love in personally transforming ways.
A thoughtful mystic, an accidental activist, and soul friend to many, Michael helps people connect to life in deeper ways, by helping them towards deeper living; to discover purpose, create meaning, and recognize and respond to the sacred in all of life.
Michael holds a Master's Degree in Ministry from St. Stephen’s University and has authored “Becoming Love: Avoiding Common Forms of Christian Insanity" along with hundreds of faith-inspired articles, some of which have been published and referenced by various blogs, leadership, and spiritual care websites. Michael is encouraging and equipping communities to be more responsive and embrace a divine love-centered, community valuing model that fosters deeper relationships with God, family, and others through healthy faith in real life. His experience in social service ministry ranges from developing a drop-in centre for youth and adults, working with people with addictions, to outreach activities to the financially challenged, young people at risk and the over-churched (spiritually abused).
“Values and ideals rooted deeply in the Love Paradigm will profoundly affect, inform and direct in the midst of any context.”
“Leadership doesn't occur in a vacuum, it manifests in a context. These contexts are as dynamic as the personalities, stakes, culture and information available.”
“Maybe if we focused on being light & less on the dark, we might actually see things change.”
“Love always precedes repentance. Divine love is a catalyst for our turning, our healing. Where fear & threat may gain our compliance, love captures our heart. It changes the heavy burden of the "have-to's" of imposed obedience to the "get-to's", a joyful response to the genuine love of God. It is in the security of this love we find Sabbath (rest).”
“Significance is discovered in the heart. It is here that it is cultivated and nurtured as it imparts meaning to everything you put your hand to. It spills forth from a life rooted in the source of significance itself - divine love. This takes what may appear as mundane, simple tasks and makes them pregnant with love-rooted-significance.”
“The picture of love and truth together is in Jesus. The challenge is to resist the temptation to think in terms of a mixture or recipe: 50% love and 50% truth. The historic creeds affirm Jesus as fully God AND fully human, and likewise with love and truth – Jesus is fully truth and fully love; any less and He ceases to be fully God, and for this reason love and truth must not be separated...”
“It is a terrible smudge on grace and unconditional love to think that God simply winks and smiles at our poor choices; that God must rubber stamp everything we do or else He is unloving. God loves us unconditionally regardless of our performance - good or bad. When God challenges us or corrects us He does not stop loving us. In the safety of His love we can receive correction and challenge without shame or feelings of rejection.”
“Unconditional love is not affirming another in every decision they make especially when those choices are unhealthy. Unconditional love will risk offending in the name of genuine concern. It will risk relationship for the ultimate well-being of the other. To indiscriminately affirm the unhealthy choices of others is not love at all but perhaps the worst kind of fraud.”