Now is the time for the flame of spiritual motherhood to be ignited in those called to be mothers of church.
Napoleon once said, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” World changing leaders and world changing movements must be mothered into being. A commercial tells us “There’s never been a better time in history to be a girl.” Likewise, there’s never been a more needful time to be a woman in the Christian church. Now is the time for women of faith to rise.
The Bible gives us many examples of women operating in faith who changed the direction of the human race. Throughout human history, the faith of women have given birth to not only men but movements. It has been said that women of faith conceive the seeds of the future. You might say each of these women conceived ideas upon which they acted and thus mothered into being movements that changed their world.
The Hebrew word for conceive, – yacham, means to become hot. Although Sarah’s cold womb was dead at 90, it got hot when God gave her the grace to conceive, as did mother Mary, and hundreds of other Christian women whose lives made a huge difference in the spiritual direction the world was heading in. And I believe God is asking the question today, “Where are the spiritual mothers of the church?” Indeed the Spirit of the Lord is searching near and far for women who will get hot – receive and embrace a passion for the mass salvation of the lost and a rejuvenation of the sons and daughters of the church of Jesus Christ. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said “The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men – from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms.”
When a Christian woman conceives a vision for the mission of the church, she becomes pregnant with the conviction, not merely that change needs to happen; but that it has to happen; it better happen; it’s gonna happen! She becomes pregnant with the spirit of repentance you might say, and may God help us, there will be no peace in her church or family until that conviction plays out and becomes expressed in obedient application.
In much the same way as physical pregnancy alters the inner wiring of a mother, so spiritual conception alters the spiritual makeup up of the women of a church. A vision of a wave of new spiritual children forces a spiritual mother to alter her responses and the priorities in her life, because for her, the stakes are no less than life and death. In other words, when a woman receives from the Lord a call to mother a movement, the idea or vision of that movement has the capability to hijack her previous priorities, causing her to now have what neurologists and brain scientists term “mommy brain.”
In fact, a woman can be triggered to develop a mothering brain without being physically pregnant. The triggering mechanism is called “Baby lust” which is the deep felt, intense need, hunger or ache – even craving – to give birth to something: in the physical – a baby; in the spiritual, a movement. The triggering mechanism for physical “Baby lust” can hit a woman hard right after she has cradled someone else’s warm soft, chubby newborn infant (puppy). And when a spiritual mother see’s for herself what her vision looks like in someone else’s ministry or church, she can become just as triggered to birth it in her own church because of the power it has to ignite her and make her a woman with a torch-like spirit.
There is something that really ignites a spiritual mother to strongly desire to give birth to the reality of souls being born into the Kingdom and baptized into the church and that is called “the quickening.” Now is not only time for igniting and getting hot spiritually, but with a vision for the masses to be saved through the mission of the church.
Peter Bertolero is a theologian and pastor of Legacy Christian Church (formerly Fresno Christian Growth Center) in Fresno, Calif.
