Another pole to worship at...

One of the biblical images that the Lord used in my life to launch out in church planting was the woman at the well in John 4.
A woman who had 5 husbands and the man she was currently with was not her husband. A single mom...a symbol for me of this generation's search for love, for acceptance. A symbol of the futility of truly filling that internal hunger that only the love of Jesus can truly fill. A thirst that can drive the Father's sons and daughters to unimaginable ways of quenching that thirst. Our streets are filled with the sins of this hunger. Our homes are growing more and more empty...thirsty. Our children are growing up without the support and protection God had designed and they are suffering because of it. What does our culture say in response to such things? The above picture is it's response...their poverty of heart and pocket become our opportunity to exploit. Our chance to build yet another altar to our all consuming lust...we've erected yet another asherah pole to pour out our seedy sinful actions upon.
Then there is this young girl or one like her... that I saw as I was prayer driving through the next poverty challenged part of town I feel the Lord is calling us to plant another church. She was standing on the street corner, holding a huge toddler in her little arms. She looked beautiful...a young girl trying to be a bigger girl. My window was opened at the stoplight, I smiled and said "Looks like you got your hands full". She smiled and said "yep, and I got another one just like him in daycare"...my light turned green and I tried to encourager her to keep being a good mom...and I drove off. But the Lord slammed my heart with the picture of her holding that child. It was a symbol of a battle raging in our neighborhoods...young women trying to raise families without dads.

In the 1960s, when black Americans were in the height of civil rights strife, 23 percent of black babies were born out of wedlock, a modest figure compared with 70 percent today. Children raised in fatherless homes are more likely to be delinquent, do poorly in school, have lower self-esteem, become chemical abusers, and reproduce the same family pattern in their own lives. In most cases, no matter how strong or diligent a mother may be, children have a subconscious knowledge of what is right and wrong in a family set up. Boys turn to their fathers for their sense of masculinity and manhood. If their dad isn't around, the streets and group aggression are the next best thing for most. (recent article)

I've been weeping for the Lord to raise up believers who will enter the towns of "samaria" and build relationships with the women at the wells. Bold christians that will brush aside the cultural barriers that separate us. Missional people who will cross the racial, generational, religious and cultural lines that keep us inside the safe little coffin churches we have created for our demise. That such a thirst will arise in us that we will be vomited out onto the highways and byways again...searching for our own drink. A drink that can only be really quenched in the self sacrificing mission of Jesus.