I was saved out of the hippie movement,and all of the entrapment's of it, into the Jesus People movement. There was a day when Salvation happened all around us, every single day. It was a rare day, when someone was not saved. We baptized once a month in the nearby river..[ Russian River ]..and often had 20-30 confessors of faith.

We carried, and read our bibles everywhere, and wore them out. When people got saved, there was nothing in between them and God. The Holy Spirit entered them visibly, and they became radiant with a holy glow, and they smiled with joy and love toward one another. They had really been born again from above the second time.

The depravity in us before our salvation was no less, for sure, than those today, nor the wounds of sin among us no less severe than today. We were a sick mess, and after being born again, we were healed and delivered of our sicknesses.

Issues like this were trivial, and very common...with most all of us coming out of free love ideas that was founded on immorality as a life-style. There were lots and lots of single mothers in our church.

Almost every one, over the years, got married off, and went on as happy Christian moms. I guess what I'm saying, is that we never worried about figuring it out; We just did it in a very normal and common fashion; loved our brothers and sisters...and in a worshipping church...we all got healed up. God provided, it seemed, for everyone.

Back then, there were "Sisters houses", where perhaps 3 or 4 sisters lived , and some with children. Everybody got a job...and paid rent, and chipped in with the kids. I adapted a family of five boys, and one girl, living with their single mother.

I was single, and had a good job, working with my hands. I cared for those boys, took them fishing at the Ocean, took them out about every weekend, and provided extra's for them, in everyday needs. This went on for several years. I never thought twice about it, or that I was doing some special deed..I wanted to.

Today, these men now, still have respect for me..and made it through into manhood without too much craziness. It was always a joy for me to be there.

This was born out of Community. The Church [ local community [ always precedes the Meeting. Otherwise, you have a dysfunctional Body; usually wrapped up into the divisions of a Priest/pulpit ---Pew/congregation type mindset, and never, ever develop a family, a functioning many membered body, that edifies itself in love.

Life flows through this body that meets house to house, and breaks bread together, devoid of the ecclesiastical control , or respect that the religious live by. I have written in my Bible, that RELIGION KILLS!...and the solution to matters like these will never come to us in the current Clergy/Laity model, as neither will Revival...no matter how much you preach about it.

A healed Church, which is what we are talking about here, is one where Faith works by love, and my experiences in this church that brought life all came from a natural flow of loving one another with Christ Jesus in our midst as Lord....not a program or a defining system of ministry.

One day God will pour Himself upon us again, those who really want Him, and we will become a body again, of equal brothers and sisters, unto the very least of the brethren, and again issues like the single mom ministry will just fall in place, naturally, because they are loved, and worth it.....and no man or woman will ever be judged after their old nature or sins...but as New Creatures! Hallelujah!

I agree with everything BrotherTom said. It was well said.

Single mothers are one of the most neglected and condemned group of people out there. They do it tough, and they do it tough under the judgemental, ill-informed glare of a lot of on lookers, who of course never offer any help. Single mothers are also one of societies favourite scapegoats. The large majority of single mothers are victims of unloving, abusive, faithless and selfish men. These are just the facts. How ever they became single mothers is beside the point anyway. They are women alone trying to raise children alone....the hardest job in the world. MOST are struggling financially and are worn out emotionally and physically. Their children are often disadvantaged in many ways, through no fault of the mother's. As someone said, most of these children are FATHERLESS, even if there is a 'father' still living somewhere, but otherwise absent. A lot of single mothers also have little, and sometimes NO family support. They desperately need the body of Christ's love and support.

It can be very hard for a single mother to even walk into a smaller church because they are often judged and condemned right off the bat.

Please brothers and sisters, reach out to and love single mothers and their children. They are dying inside sometimes.

As for the no widow over sixty being added to the list. This needs to be taken into context. It was a different culture back then. Highly unlikely any woman unmarried with children was living alone in a house. Families, extended families lived together. Also brothers and brothers in laws would step in and take care of the mother now raising her children alone. It was just commonplace for families to take care of their own women in those situations. It would of been a disgrace not to. I also agree with what another poster said....the church would not of told women who may of needed support to go look after themselves if they were under sixty....they would of helped and supported financially and emotionally, while encouraging remarriage (under the appropriate biblical allowance). They would of helped a brother/sister in need, how much more a single mother?

BrotherTom, I wish with all my heart other christians lived like you described it, in this day and age, as the norm. That is true christian community and my heart has often ached that it seems rare these days. If only believers still loved and cared like a real FAMILY. It was great reading about how it was back then. It sounded amazing.

One more thing I think it is important that other believers keep in mind. Single mothers are keepers of the home too. God wants them home with their children, available and not run ragged trying to work an outside job and have little to no time left for the children. A lot of christian single mothers want to homeschool as well. We need to support single mothers to be able to stay at home and raise their children and be keepers of their home.

p.s I am very glad someone mentioned abortion. It has long bothered me how the christian community fight so hard against abortion but then seem to do so little for the single mom. I find that incredibly hypocritcal and so do I believe, the unbelieving world.

_________________
Diane

Many of us who have been adopted and cherished by a loving God have forgotten what it was like to be an lonely, forgotten orphan.

Pilgrim

Sister, let me be your servant.
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace to let you
Be my servant, too.

I will weep when you are weeping,
When you laugh I'll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow,
'til we see this journey through.

I will hold the Christ light for you
In the night of your fears.
I will hold my hand out for you,
Speak the peace you long to hear.

_________________
Diane

“In that day seven women will take hold of one man
And say, “We will eat our food and provide our own clothes;
Only let us be called by your name.
TAKE AWAY OUR DISGRACE.” Isaiah 4:1

When ministering to single mothers, I believe we would do well to understand some of the driving forces which may have put them in their predicament. Today’s rise in promiscuity among young females is, at least in part, driven by the girl’s need for fatherly love, which she may have missed in her own formative years. The girl enters adolescence with a huge unmet need. With the influence of media, peers, and other cultural forces, she comes to believe her sense of value and identity is found in a man to whom she can surrender her body sexually. But the male is not fit to fill her true needs, and so they can’t form a stable relationship. She just keeps seeking more “love”. If she can have a man, she thinks, maybe he can take away her disgrace – her sense of shame and emptiness.

This social predicament is not that different from what Isaiah 4 describes - where men were lost through war. We see that loss through other means, certainly the sexual/industrial revolution and rise in feminism. We have a shortage of men who are men. This is a serious cultural crisis: fathers who are absent, emotionally disengaged, and weak in authority.

When single mothers enter our churches, it’s possibility that they have huge needs for healthy stable male relationships. Here’s where a church can minister, in the context of careful, clear emotional boundaries.

I believe good preaching on the Fatherhood of God can help a congregation, as well as single mothers see how God himself can meet the real God-given need for fatherly intimacy. We see plenty Christological focus, and even a focus on the Spirit, but the Father gets noticeably marginalized. Yet God discloses himself to his people as their Father.

A living, dynamic encounter with God the FATHER (as RELATIONAL deity) through Christ, would be far more effective in changing our young females than superficial behavior modification. It would ultimately help solve the modesty issue – by freeing girls from the need to use their bodies as sexual targets for males. What they really crave - in the depth of their souls is God himself.

God: Our dear loving Father:

“Our Father, who art in heaven……”
“…your Father knows what you need”
“your heavenly Father will also forgive you”
“your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
“in the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.”


Diane

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Diane

notlongnow wrote:How ever they became single mothers is beside the point anyway. They are women alone trying to raise children alone....the hardest job in the world.
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I just have to disagree with what you said here. I was a single mom for awhile when i was still in high school, although eventually my boyfriend(baby's dad) and I did get married later on. Having been a single mom I see it from both sides of this issue. Of course some do need help but to play them off as victims as if they just ended up being a single mom by accident is to extreme the other way. OF course their those who end up as single parent because of an unwanted divorce, or the loss of a spouse but there are many many young woman out there who do not see fornication as a sin and pregnancy results. It is good that some do not continue on in their sin by aborting the child I do agree with you there. I think we need to teach and share how important it is to wait for marriage with young people of both sexes. GODS plan is the best way and if more was being taught about waiting and being faithful for what GOD has for you then there would not be so many young woman finding themselves in this situation.(there would still be some but far less then now) I think that is where the church should and needs to begin. OF course there is need for love to be extended to all believers in the body no matter what their situations are. I do think we need to be very careful that we don't lift single mothers up to sainthood though and go to far to the other extreme either. Its a fine line but one that can be walked if those in the body are willing to help in physical ways as well as teach truth about GODS plan for families...

God bless
mary

Edited fro added thought: IT actually really does matter how a single mom got to be where she is, it matters because that will be a real guide in how best to share with and support her future with her children and help her in her walk with CHRIST. Give support and love but don't with hold GODS truth from the many are where they are as a result of willful rebellion.(just my thoughts as someone who was once there and glad for those who spoke HIS truth to me in love)

" IT actually really does matter how a single mom got to be where she is, it matters because that will be a real guide in how best to share with and support her future with her children and help her in her walk with CHRIST."

"Give support and love but don't with hold GODS truth from the many are where they are as a result of willful rebellion"....MaryJane

There are several moral qualifications that all Christians must adhere to, to be in good standing with the Lord, and His body.


"Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.

But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.

For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?".....and, the widow's moral list:

1 Timothy 5:9-11
King James Version (KJV)

Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man.

Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints' feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work.

But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry;"

If a single mother does not possess a heart toward holiness, and complete Lordship unto Jesus, she is none of ours....

I am surprised no one has taken up on the Fatherhood of God theme. Certainly in some situations I would have received objections something like this:

1) The Father is the Old Testament idea of God – as a harsh disciplinarian father, and always looking down from above at what you do, and is always ready to punish you. Father God is distanced and unaffectionate. We are now in the age of Grace and Jesus provides a kinder more forgiven image of God in people's minds.

2) The church for centuries, through its own ecclesial rulers, has portrayed the Father image as a distant domineering, controlling presence - lacking mercy and warmth. That image gets transferred to God.

3) Single mothers may have experienced abusive or negligent fathers, and that father image will rise to their minds when we refer to God as Father. Better to call him Mother for their sake, or simply “Creator”.

-------------------
To be honest, I did not expect to see those objections raised on SI. Still, surely the need to the restore the Fatherhood of God – especially in light of a single mother’s core spiritual/psychological need – deserves a spot in our agenda. Jesus came to restore us to the Father in RELATIONSHIP – to our Abba-Daddy. Isn’t it important to emphasize a child-like dependency on Him – in a parent-child relationship – as foundational to growing up into maturity?

When sinners encounter the REAL Father God, through Christ, and through God's people involved in their lives, then any distorted images would flee. Don't you think?

What does the Fatherhood of God mean to you, yourself? That's the image of God you and I would portray to these young mothers.

“But you did not receive a spirit of fear, but the Spirit of SONSHIP, and by him we cry, “Abba, Father”. Rom. 8:15




Diane

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Diane