BE 'THE BORG' ~ 3/14/08

Did you know that God can speak to His people through aliens on TV?  It’s true – just look at “The Borg.”

If you’re a Star Trek fan, you know that The Borg were a cybernetic organism made up of individual beings who shared a singular consciousness – they shared thoughts, information, motivations… they were many that made up one. The Borg were also a particularly serious threat to U.S.S. Enterprise and its mission to seek out new worlds in the name of science.  Why?  Because The Borg wanted to assimilate the entire crew into their “collective consciousness.”  “We are The Borg,” they would repeatedly say, “And we will assimilate you.”  No conditions on intelligence, no weight requirements, etiquette tests, or performance reviews, no standards whatsoever – if you were alive, you were “strongly encouraged”  to join them, and bzzzz…,whirr, pop! – you were plugged in.

So now that I’ve got you completely creeped out and you’re wondering what subliminal messages we’re actually feeding you through our video sermon each week, allow me to explain my point… Christianity is NOT “The Borg” – we don’t take vibrant individuals and make them all into cookie-cutter “Joe/ Jane Christian” – No!   Instead, we believe God created people unique, and that when Christ becomes part of your life, it’s like that uniquely different flavor of vanilla that is you suddenly gets a shot of tropical punch.  Over the course of your life, that BAM(!) of flavor gets mixed into every nook and cranny until you are more amazingly “you” than you could ever have been on your own.  In the area of personality, we Christians take issue with The Borg.  But in the area of “assimilation,” The Outpost needs to envy their efficiency.

To assimilate means “To absorb and integrate (people, ideas, or culture) into a wider society or culture (or church!).”  Like The Borg, one of the biggest threats to the health of The Outpost is to stop assimilating new people into our group.  I know even the thought that we would do this is insulting to most of us, and yet it’s just so easy to do without trying… 

The unconscious voice in our head whispers, “They talk too much.  They smell weird.  They make me feel uncomfortable.” Or from the other side of things -- “They’re dressed too nicely. They seem proud.  They don’t look friendly.”  So we give them a polite hello and vanish or we avoid them altogether, and retreat to the ones we already know.  No one gets invited to an iGroup… no one is invited to sit with a family…

So here’s my question as we approach this Sunday and Easter Sunday next weekend, where we will no doubt find ourselves face-to-face with newcomers – If Jesus had stayed where He was comfortable, would we smelly, strange, violent, filthy, proud, rabble of a people have been assimilated into God’s family?

Surrounded By Grace,

Josh