New Beginnings Christian Community, Charlottesville,VA

New Beginnings Christian Community, Charlottesville,VA We are an In*******al church that welcomes everyone including, LGBTQ, addicts and ex-offenders

08/30/2026

FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK, 30 AUGUST 2026

The word “witness” has four core meanings (eyewitness, testifier, signatory, when used as a verb). Let’s look at the use of “witness” as a verb: “(t)o see something happen firsthand, or to serve as proof of an event.”—AI

As Christ-followers, we are called to witness to/give a firsthand account, of our encounter with Jesus the Christ. Like Paul of Tarsus, you and I can and must meet Jesus on our own Damascus Road. The awe Paul experienced is no less jarring for us, who are also “born out of time” (born after Jesus walked the earth, wrapped in flesh).

It is this core experience, meeting the Risen Lord for ourselves, which marks us as Christ-followers. We believe, because we have experienced a time when we were faced with the reality that “Christ is risen indeed!” How? We only know that, one day, we personally found ourselves facing, communicating with the One the Scriptures identify as Jesus, the Christ. The One Who died on The Cross. The One Who rose from the dead (just as Scripture and He said He would) and walked and talked among His disciples, passing the commandment to those who witnessed the truth of His life, to tell the story, and lead others to meet the Christ for themselves, and then, witness to others the truth of what Jesus promised and accomplished by “putting on flesh” to make the sacrifice necessary to redeem us from the penalty of sin (being out of relationship with GOD), death.

Each generation, each individual in each generation, must have an encounter with the Christ before we can serve as witnesses.

What did you see firsthand, that serves as your bedrock proof that Jesus Christ is alive, after being killed on Calvary, more than 2000 years ago? You and I can only serve as witnesses if we have met Jesus for ourselves.

I first encountered GOD as a little girl, as my Invisible Friend. I would feel GOD near, and talk with GOD, as GOD talked with me. I thought everyone experienced GOD this way. As a too dark African American girl in racist, classist, segregated Charlottesville, whose Mama was a divorced single mother, who I was supposed to be, what I was “allowed” to become, was very prescribed. I was nothing and nobody, according to white and Black people in the mid-fifties, when I was born. However, my three year old self asked GOD, the next time I felt GOD to be near, listening to me, ready to talk to me, “Who am I? What did You create me to do and become?”

I needed to know because the box my society had already put me in was pinching me, bruising me in ways that threatened to destroy me, even before I got started living my life. It was an emergency, you see. I needed to know if there was a way forward. I couldn’t go any further if what my society said of me was true—I was nothing and nobody.

As I look back, I see that GOD knew I’d have this particular emergency (existential crisis) that early in my life. That’s why GOD hovered so near; to catch me before I could fall. GOD’S answer then has carried me all the way from my three year old self to today. It will carry me all the way from earth to glory. I am a witness.

GOD told me that I am GOD’S precious daughter. I am who GOD says I am. I can do what GOD says I can do, go where I am sent, say what is true in front of everyone GOD asks me to. GOD said more, but, more of that another time. I am a witness.

My early encounters with GOD and then Jesus gave me everything I have ever
needed (and will ever need) to run my race, live out my life on this green earth. I AM GOD’S PRECIOUS DAUGHTER.
Jesus Christ died to set me free from whatever seeks to bind me, and you too. This is the Gospel truth. I live and breathe because this is so. I am a witness.

I am not the only one precious to GOD. You too are GOD’S precious child. THE GOOD NEWS IS FOR EVERYONE. I am a witness.

Blessings,
Pastor Brenda

08/23/2026

FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK, 23 AUGUST 2026

As I look back at the anniversary of 11-12 August 2017, I remember how many times I heard the refrain “this is not who we are!” The words set my teeth on edge, every single time.
It wasn’t true then and it’s not true today—that “this is not who we are,” in Charlottesville, in Virginia, in this country, in this world.

It is not all we are, but, it is exactly who America is each and every time our country betrays its creeds and touted founding principles. It is who we are each time a young African American man or woman is found, hung from a tree, some with their hands and feet tied, and police claim su***de and attempt to close the cases (“Independent civil rights organizations and media reports have documented at least seven to eight Black individuals found dead in hanging circumstances across the United States in 2026. Civil rights groups and grieving families have raised urgent questions regarding these incidents, noting that local authorities frequently and rapidly rule the deaths as su***des—often before comprehensive autopsies or independent investigations are completed ….
Reports from independent monitors and outlets like the Atlanta Black Star note at least seven confirmed public or reported cases involving Black individuals found hanging in 2026 alone. A broader tracking window starting from March 2025 counts upwards of 22 suspicious hanging deaths nationwide.—AI)

The choice to pick comfort over discomfort is very nearly universal for human beings. The point of “good religion” is to help us to understand our need to choose our own discomfort in the face of righting societal wrongs, pursuing justice. Comfort is not self-correcting. It must be corrected.

A cry for justice is always the result of unfair treatment of someone. Unfairness uncovered reveals patterns of one group receiving not just better treatment, but, more and better resources, at the expense of others who did not receive better treatment and more and better resources, usually over an extensive period of time. In fact, the unfairness is the result of a system put in place to ensure the outcome of comfort for one group and discomfort for others. After a while, those benefiting from an unequal system do not experience the inequality of the system and, most often, do not see an inequality that they themselves are not living through.

It can be that such beneficiaries may hear of and come to understand the difference between the benefits they experience and the consequences to those denied those same benefits.

Those who tried to maintain that the Charlottesville uncovered in our “summer of hate,” 2017, was “not who we are” either had their hearts broken and their minds changed, or, retreated deeper into their own zip code, where they were cocooned from a reality far different from their own—making the choice to remain comfortable. Comfort is not self-correcting. Forces outside of ourselves must come to bear to force a change inside ourselves.

As we live our lives, encountering the vagaries of existence, it is a recurring reality that we must make a choice—discomfort over comfort. The context is unerringly the same: what will we do in the face of injustice, cruelty, lying, cheating, stealing from the poor and giving to the rich? What are we willing to give up to right wrongs?

In Charlottesville, will we commit to housing the homeless, or, will we continue to build more housing for UVA students and a monied population, while choosing not to build for the poor and already homeless? Will we, as members of rich Charlottesville and Albemarle County, provide an equitable housing opportunity to fellow citizens living at the Encampment, or, will our concern remain the unsightliness of the area, rather than the injustice of fellow citizens living that way? Will we continue policies that purposely gentrify African American neighborhoods, or, will we commit to more fair practices, even if it means reparations to those whose lives and communities have historically paid for the comfort of groups other than their own?

When Deborah Baker held her book opening for “Charlottesville: An American Story” at the Jefferson School two years ago, one of the last questions asked was “what do we do? We don’t know what to do.” I waited a beat, waited for someone to answer the question. No one did. So, I did.

This isn’t rocket science. The truth is that we don’t want to answer because we know there is a real cost to answering truthfully: those who have been comfortable for so long must agree to be uncomfortable for the time it takes to dismantle inequality, injustice, greed, racism, classism, homophobia, xenophobia, and, the uncharitableness that has become the sad and dangerous characteristic of people who say they believe in GOD while, at the same time, denying that everyone is GOD’S child.

The truth is that it is uncomfortable to follow GOD. Why? Because GOD insists that we choose the discomfort of growing and letting go of what we insist is ours alone and opening the doors that allow “whosoever will” to enjoy the bounty of the this green earth, along with us.

If we practice long enough, intentionally enough, we can learn to share, no longer too uncomfortable to practice what we preach, to admit that this who we are, who we become when we fail to allow GOD to guide us through comfort to discomfort, straight into the Kingdom of GOD.

Blessings,
Pastor Brenda

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08/16/2026

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08/16/2026

FROM THE PASTOR’S
DESK, 16 AUGUST 2026

Human history shows repeated fault lines where the hubris native to our species rises to such levels that GOD decides to chastise us for our repeated failure to live as decent beings. My brothers and sisters, the Creation is groaning.

It is always so that any punishment GOD plans can be averted, if we will heed GOD’S warnings about the consequences of our continued disobedience. Until we do, the Earth groans.

GOD made us stewards of the Earth. That responsibility means that you and I can never think solely of ourselves and what we want. We must consciously plan how to use the earth’s resources by leaving something for the next seven generations. We must remember that we are not alone on the planet and must actively choose to share what is available with whomever needs to live and flourish, just the way we need to live and flourish. Unless we do, the Earth groans.

It is part of our creed as Americans, as Christ followers, to welcome the stranger, “for we were once strangers in a foreign land,” and. we too have been new to a place and needed to “rely on the goodness of strangers.” When we fail to remember where we came from, what we went through, the Earth and a growing number of the people, animals, fish and fauna groan, cry out to GOD for help that, despite our creeds, isn’t coming from us. And so, our collective prayer grows.

The world as we are currently experiencing it, does not recognize the sovereignty of GOD; does not require or respect basic human decency; calls a “lie the truth and truth a lie; and has done so for so long that various people all over the world, are crying out to GOD. GROANING.

See, what you don’t want is GOD hearing GOD’S people CRYING OUT FOR HELP. GROANING. GOD, Who always hears our cry for justice, release from oppression, an end to soul crushing cruelty; and the proliferation of a whole economic system built and maintained on the backs, blood, sweat and tears of the poor, has ALREADY heard our cries and is working out how GOD will answer our prayers, our GROANING.

When the people of GOD come together, groaning, asking GOD to fight for them, the whole of reality begins to change.

Behaviors that used to be tolerated are tolerated no more. The fifty year old French writer Gabriel Matzneff, groomed the 14 year old Vanessa Springora to become his s*x partner and wrote about her in his critically acclaimed novels to great success. Until she grew up and started speaking for herself). Until then, she groaned isolated. After she regained her voice she was not alone. Others were groaning with her. And French law changed to protect children and women from such abuse. She and they GROANED.

The person currently occupying the White House just welcomed to his Florida manor internationally known human s*x traffickers
and that act was not mentioned, as such, in our national news reports. The Earth is groaning with the knowledge of such deprived, unchecked power.

The New York Times reports that the person in the White House, “along with related terms like Melania and Mar-a-Lago, appears in more than 5,300 separate files with over 38,000 total references, in the Epstein files.-AI. All those thousands of Epstein’s et.al (and others) victims are still groaning. And because our society has not righted those wrongs, PEOPLE ARE GROANING. Evil collects and changes us, if we do not fight against it.

Members of Congress, the Senate and the Supreme Court, along with the appointed Secretaries of this Administration and staff members in each branch of our government, have us daily astonished at their lack of integrity, honesty, decency and commitment to serving GOD, the country and the people they were elected to serve. These same people are trading on the Stock Market with insider information, and investing in Crypto currency activity (all illegal under the Emoluments Clauses ((t)he Emoluments Clauses are anti-corruption rules in the U.S. Constitution that stop federal officeholders from taking gifts, payments, or titles from foreign states without permission from Congress, and prevent the president from receiving extra money from the U.S. government or individuals states.”—AI overview). SO MANY OF US ARE GROANING.

Dis-regulated environmental protections, voted into law, to keep our water, air and land safe, have resulted in such wholesale gutting of the workforce in those areas that we can’t pinpoint where pathogens in our food and water come from, and therefore how to stop the death and disease coming from them. AMERICA IS MAKING THE WORLD GROAN.

When we groan our prayers go up to GOD. Those prayers form a collective GROAN. That collective groan starts the countdown to GOD’S answer to those prayers to right the wrongs against the people, the earth, GOD’S very Creation.

It may not look like, feel like, taste like, feel like GOD is doing anything about our groanings, but, the date is already set for GOD’S answer to this epoch’s GROANING.

As Habakkuk prophesied—
“What’s God going to say to my questions? I’m braced for the worst. …
And then God answered: “Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision-message is a witness pointing to what’s coming. It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait! And it doesn’t lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It’s on its way. It will come right on time.—Habakkuk 2:1 a, 2-3 (The Message)

Yes, the Creation is groaning. And yes. GOD is answering as we wait.

Blessings,
Pastor Brenda

08/09/2026

FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK, 9 AUGUST 2026

We humans live in layered realities. We are part of a collective group, (humanity) with collective responsibilities, and, we live as single entities in our bodies. However, these single entities have, at least, three levels of consciousness and therefore, at least three perspectives on how to process being alive: the part of us that knows there’s Someone Who is greater than us (GOD, Who calls to our spirits); that we are thinking beings, who can make decisions above and beyond the inherited instinct of other species of animals (our mental and emotional selves); and our physical bodies, which holds us all together, while we experience all three states of being, at the same time.

The problem is that, in our separate bodies, we experience an aloneness that is not true.
Our perceptions clash. We feel alone, but in fact, we are never alone. We feel separate from our collective state (humans being) and often fail at being good humans because of this false sense of separation.

All human beings need the same things to survive and thrive—the right to food and water, to shelter and safety, to health and emotional and mental and spiritual growth.
Our false sense of separation from our shared humanity leads many of us to conclude that our welfare is more important than others. We then begin to believe that we can take what we need without regard for others (those who are in any way different from us). From there we can build a hierarchy of whose needs are most important and whose needs are least important—according to “our group.”

The lesson of pragma love (which wills the good of the other whether or not the other is someone we know, approve or appreciate) is that we can and must learn to love in an enduring, mature way, “founded on duty, reason, and long-term commitment.” We must form relationships with others. It is in relationships that we practice loving in an enduring and mature way. Such practice produces a spiritual alchemy in us. Such love melts the walls of perceived separation between us, the world and GOD—allowing us to enter into a new reality—the Kingdom of GOD.

Pragma love gives the lie to our most primal fear: that we are alone. That we came from nothing and will return to nothing.

I Corinthians 13-11-13 lays out the goal of love:
11 When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.” (The Message).

My brothers and sisters, TRUST STEADILY IN GOD, HOPE UNSWERVINGLY, LOVE EXTRAVAGANTLY.”

Follow the way of love. We are not alone. Never.

Blessings,
Pastor Brenda

08/02/2026

FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK, 2 AUGUST 2026

From ancient Greek we have inherited eight different words for eight forms of love.

Agape describes the unconditional, selfless love for everyone and everything that GOD has for humanity, the earth and the universe.

Eros is the passionate, romantic and physical desire between lovers.

Philia is what the Greek language defines as a “deep, platonic friendship built on mutual respect.”

Storge is the love grown in families between parents, children and others claiming kinship.

Ludus is the playful, uncommitted affection exhibited by flirting or teasing.

Mania is love that is obsessive and jealous and can border on madness.

Pragma is enduring, mature love “founded on duty, reason, and long-term commitment.”

Philautia is self-love that is rooted either in healthy self-esteem or in unhealthy narcissism.

Xenia is “an ancient Greek concept of hospitality, guest-friendship, and the sacred rule of treating strangers with generosity,” (a major theme in The Odyssey).

These loves are instructive for those of us engaged in working alongside GOD to build the Kingdom of GOD (“the active, sovereign reign and rule of GOD, is presented in the Bible as both a present spiritual reality and a future physical consummation (completion). AI

We cannot begin, carry out or complete this work without agape—GOD’S unconditional love for us and all that surrounds us. It is encountering this love that awakens our gratitude to GOD , and thus, our willingness to work for The Kingdom.

Eros is the love that begins families, producing the next generation. Families mirror the fundamental regenerative nature of love.

Philia, friendship, is foundational to all the other loves. We must first like each other, get to know one another, then, become friends, as the beginning of any relationship.

Storge is the love that families are supposed to grow up and together with. Parents co-create children between themselves and GOD, and, practice in smaller groups what is meant to be replicated in neighborhoods, communities, towns, cities, states, countries, all over the world.

In the middle of all the loves comes ludus,
the playful affection (flirting if there could be romantic involvement; teasing, if not) that is a launching ground for romance, platonic friendship and familial bonds.

Mania represents love gone wrong (or, perhaps more generously, mislabeled). Obsession isn’t love. Jealousy is a kind of fear, and, perfect love “castes out fear” because there is no room left for fear to grow in (notice that love that continues grows).

Pragma is, perhaps, the goal of living together as couples, families, neighbors, communities, churches, mosques, synagogues and any other societies human beings form to maintain relationships. Duty, reason and longtime commitment are the fruits of the love the Ancient Greeks called pragma. PRAGMA MEANS TO WILL THE GOOD OF THE OTHER.

Plilautia, either healthy self-love, or, unhealthy narcissism, illustrates how love can go wrong, when it is unbalanced, flowing in the wrong direction, or, not flowing at all. Love must flow, must have a recipient/receipients, must be genuine, healthy.

In every Abrahamic religion (“Abrahamic religions are monotheistic faiths that trace their spiritual origins back to the patriarch Abraham, primarily consisting of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam”—AI) hospitality is central. Desert dwellers know that xenia (hospitality) is both life giving and life preserving. Guest-friendship, “the sacred rule of treating strangers with generosity,” when not observed by dessert dwellers or human beings today, make the world unnecessarily dangerous and against what Jesus came to teach us.

So, what’s love got to do with it? Everything.

Blessings,
Pastor Brenda

Address

1130 East Market Street
Charlottesville, VA
22902

Opening Hours

Monday 1pm - 4pm
Tuesday 1pm - 7pm
Thursday 6pm - 8pm
Friday 1pm - 4pm
Saturday 10am - 2:15pm
Sunday 10am - 7pm

Telephone

+14342847130

Website

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