WHAT IS NEWGENESIS ALL ABOUT?

So what's NEWGENESIS all about? Particularly that bit about "com-unity. To begin with, it's about how to find the "real thing" in the hodgepodge we call Christianity...and church...and how to live it out in a way that really makes sense, so much so that, once the "coversation" gets going, it will generate a hunger and thirst for the completion of the restoration of the Image of God in each of us - as we touch each other's lives in love. That's sort of the "what," but of course it has to go beyond that. It has to lead to the "how," (which is the hard part).

If you've ever been to India, no doubt you've seen the mess of  "spaghetti," that is the power grid: you look up at the top of any electrical pole, and it's nothing but a huge birds nest made of 240v wires. What really astounds me is that some people climb up those poles with a couple of wires they've stripped the ends from, and bent into hooks, then very carefully lay the ends across other bare wires, climb back down to wherever they want to use it...most of the time they manage to avoid getting fried by touching some stray part of that tangle. And, of course, nobody pays the electric bill.

I see that as an analogy of the condition of Christianity today, though I should add, pretty much ever since the legitimizing of Christianity by Constantine, but not least by way of the Reformation. I tell students in India about "Hodgepodgeism" (it communicates so much better than "syncretism"),  I recall hearing (in my pre-Christian days), some of my zealous relatives speaking in horror about how the antichrist was going to come and create a single, world-wide church. I wonder if they ever read John 17, or if they did, how they rationalized, "...that they may all be one, even as You, Father are in Me, and I in You, that they may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me." Hmmm...

But of course there is this problem, known as "the power of sin and death." (P/S+D), a.k.a. our "fallenness," by which we seem to screw up everything, not realizing that the power of death is at work in the tiniest of misunderstandings, to the worst of humanity's inhumanities. None of us escapes it. It is built in. It takes the place of God's original design of human beings: love - His image. We don't get it. Until we learn to love as Jesus loved, it ain't gonna change.

OK there's something else that's in this thing I've been thinking about called, "NEWGENESIS-A-GENERIC-CHRISTIAN-COM-UNITY.  I've have a feeling that non-generic Christianity - short for denominational Christianity - is on its way out. At first I thought of it in practical terms. Think about it: most denominational churches are spread here, there, and not everywhere. And many denominations are tied to a central authority that has little real contact with the individual churches. They often set the agendas for their satellite churches without a clue as to the nature, or needs, either of the local population or of the flocks that make up the congregations. Many times they hardly know the pastors who are struggling to meet all of the demands upon them. Bureaucracy undermines the best of visions.

How much better where the pastors in a local area, all laboring for the Lord, get together - regardless of their denominational ties, to pray for one another, encourage one another, and especially strategize together how they can cooperatively discern the nature and needs of the local population, and are able to support one another, encourage one another, and use their respective gifts and abilities together to demonstrate to people who do not know what Christianity is really about, the hope and help that is available in the context of a community of faith where each one is in the process of being transformed into the image (likeness) of Christ - learning to love as He loved. A community of local pastors who can function cooperatively instead of competitively and without all the guardedness that generates paranoia (he might steal my sheep), jealousy (how come he has such a big church, and I don't), can create a powerful demonstration of the reality of God.

Thus, the whole problem is inside. As the late Mr. Pogo Possum said, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Why is it we who carry the name of Christ (Christian), don't get it. Has anybody noticed the equation between "the image of God," (the original design), and Romans 8:29, where it says God's goal for us is "transformation (back) into the likeness (image) of His Son. Didn't He say, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father?"

Of course, I'll be the first to put my foot in my (James 1:25) mouth. My doing leaves much to be desired. And I know: talk is cheap.