About SYNERFUSE

This Blog is for people, whether volunteer or clergy or assistant, who work with emerging generations (or are just wrestling with how to be faithful followers of Christ and participate in authentic Christ centered community).  It’s about wrestling with the Trinitarian God who is love in the context of a changing world with postmodern values.  The blod conssits of reflections on experiences and thoughts from relating to emerging generations.  There is a link to an Amazon store that lists recommended books on ministry to emerging generations by experts in the field.  These blogs and pages exists to create a conversation that enables those of us working with emerging generations to reflect on our ministry and seek to discern how we’re partnering with the Holy Spirit’s work of reconciliation to bring about the healing of lives and unity of God with humanity. 

Synerfuse is about a synergy between the work of the Holy Spirit and our lives that leads us into a deeper relationship with God.  A relationship where we become fused with God, one with Christ, in the context of our cultures and lived experiences.  Synerfuse is an attempt to create a conversation that challenges us to think through how we follow Jesus and minister in the world in which we live.  It’s an attempt to experiment, innovate, with new ideas that are connected to ancient thoughts and practices in the church. 

In 2 Corinthians 4: 10 we read that our bodies are to manifest, display, reflect, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Saint Clement when standing before the governer of Syria remarked that he carries the Jesus who was crucified in his bosom, in his heart, in his body.  In John 17 Jesus prays that we would be one with each other and the Father in Heaven as he and the Father are ONE.  To be one with God is an incredible thing to think that through Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we can have an intimate relationship with the God who created the universe and conquered death to bring us hope and new life. 

The God revealed to us in Jesus Christ is not an abstract idea or some impersonal force fatalistically directing the path of the world and our lives.  God is Trinitarian existing in the perfect union of three persons who are one.  They are one because their love for each other is totally self-giving and so this is a relational God who is love and is compelled by love to reach out and bring others into this incredible picture of community of the Three in One.  A God who is willing to cross the barriers of society and gap between life and death to have the Son, a person of the Trinity, be born of the Virgin Mary and so take on flesh and blood to be both human and God.  This is a God who takes risks and goes to the extreme to bring together the isolated and beaten parts of Creation into God self to transform the darkness into the light of life.  A God who enters into synergy with Creation by fusing God’s self with Creation so that we could choose to be united with God. 

There is a mystical reality at work in the Christian faith that our lives are not about creating programs and methods but relationships that lead to community where God is present.  Jesus said in Matthew 18:20 that where two or three gather in his name he is present there among them.  The presence of God happens within the context of community where the stuff of life is messy and screwed up but where there is the possibility of the impossible to love and forgiven and thereby reflect the reality of Christ’s death and resurrection in our lives. 

A healthy life will have a balance of meeting the bodies physical needs (i.e. rest, play, exercise, nutrition, shelter, etc.) and spiritual needs (i.e. prayer, worship, relationship, service to others, creativity etc.).  There is a dance between these two aspects of life that leads to a rhythm which harmonizes and energizes one’s journey.  This rhythm incorporates the personal side of the journey with it’s experiences, story, creativty and beliefs with the community side with it’s relationships, worship, values, and reflections.  These two parts of the journey, the personal and the communal are intertwined so that the categories in one or the other are interchangeable.  For example, there is creativity in one’s personal life that connects with the creativity of the community.    

There are two ways or means by which the communal side of the journey expresses itself; reflection and worship.  The communal life is deeply rooted in the stuff of life, the world that we experience bringing together our meta narrative, shared experiences and ideas to be challenged by the gospel story we encounter in our worship and to prophetically challenge the world out of the gospel story that shapes the communal life.  Worship and Reflection are intertwined in that the stuff of life reflected upon is done so out of an encounter and experience of the living God in worship that shapes the community to reflect Christ. 

REFLECTION is the place where the community uses it’s creativity in art, music, poetry, storytelling, etc. to prophetically speak to the world’s issues and questions while reflecting it’s perspective of the world.  It’s a place to creatively experiement and wrestle with what the Holy Spirit is doing and the teachings of Jesus in the context of local and global issues.  Reflection can be like worship but isn’t necessarily creating praise to God even though it can create space for the transcendence of God to be experienced.  It’s more about using creativity to express and reflect on what is happening in the world from the perspective of the community.

WORSHIP is about being shaped by a reality that transcends our lives, the reality of God that is mediated by the act of worship.  It opens the doors of Heaven to create a space where the community communes with one another in the presence of God transforming the life of the community to reflect the reality of Christ. 

The communal aspect of life that incorporates the transcendence of worship and the present reflection upon life lead to transformation; action upon the world and upon the person.  The personal journey is shaped and molded by the reality they encounter in worship and reflection as a community.  This reality of God in Christ transforms and heals the person as they live into a relationship with God through the presence of the Holy Spirit.  It also compels the person to go back into the world that they’ve been called out of to embody the reality of the death and resurrection of Christ.  This personal journey is shaped by three ways of relating to one another in community and the world. 

IMMERSIONis about digging deeper into ones life, soul, to recognize the image of God humanity has been created in and dwell in the presence of the God of love.  Through prayer, meditation, and communing in with others on the journey Immersion is about allowing oneself to let go of the gods and bond-ages of this world to be fused with God in Christ and relate to this God in love. 

CONNECTION crosses divides and barriers to create the possibility of relationships between people.  Relationships where the stuff of life is pondered and the stories of Jesus are reflected on in the context of our lived lives. 

IMPACTleads us back into the problems of the world.  Through Connection the life of Jesus connects with the life of the person wrestling with their experiences and who they are which leads us into the brokenness of the world and the destruction of sin and evil.  Impact brings us out of Immersion into the presence of God to be Christ in the presence of humanity’s ills and the world’s darkness by offering an alternative and pointing to the hope and love of Jesus.

Synerfuse is an attempt to connect what is happening in the world, in our lives, in the emergence of a new generation(s) with the Story of God.  If your interested in this conversation or have thoughts and questions e-mail me at Synerfuse@aol.com. 

In the grip of Christ,

Rodney