From the air, parts of the Midwest look like a quilt of green circles stitched into brown soil. Each one marks where a machine turns, drawing perfect patterns of life into the land. Inside those circles, crops flourish; beyond them, the earth withers.
Six years ago, I borrowed an image from Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber that has stayed with me — and perhaps with some of you as well. It’s the image of crop circles, not the mysterious flattened ones that spark conspiracy theories, but the living, green ones we see from the air — those lush circles carved into the patchwork of farm fields across the Midwest.
They exist because of a system invented in the 1940s by a farmer named Frank Zybach, who developed what’s called center-pivot irrigation. The water source stands at the center, turning on its axis and spraying in a perfect circle. Every seed within that circle can thrive, but those beyond it struggle and fade. From above, you see life in circles — bright green within, brown at the edges.
Nadia used this as a metaphor for the church — and it convicted me deeply. Because the church, too often, imitates that same pattern. We build our systems of belonging around human pivots — power, tradition, doctrine, politics — and those within our circles flourish. But those who fall outside our reach, who live in the corners of our care, are left thirsty.
I still remember how excited I was to share this idea. But, at the time, I thought inclusion was about the size of the circle. And I wanted us to make the circle bigger, stretching it wider, bringing more people in. But now I see that the issue isn’t the circle’s size. Instead, it’s the system itself.
Today, in our fractured public life, it’s easy to mistake sameness for belonging. Some faith communities have drawn their circles so tight that only those who think or vote alike fit inside. Loyalty to a politician or party becomes a proxy for belonging.
In other words, churches often form similar circles where insiders flourish within our care, while others stay outside, unseen and untouched. We justify these circles in many ways: politics, purity, preference.
In the age of algorithms and artificial belonging — where our social feeds and even our faith networks are curated to keep us comfortable — this image challenges us again. So maybe the question for us is not, “How big is our circle?” but “Where are the corners we’ve ignored where thirsty people have been excluded?”
If you’ve ever gone too long without a drink of water, you know what desperation feels like. Your mouth dries, your head spins, your strength fades. Every cell in your body cries out for connection to the source of life. Belonging is like that — a need so basic we cannot survive without it. Loneliness has been called an epidemic, one that quietly steals health and hope from millions.
Psychologists and physicians alike warn that isolation can be as deadly as smoking or obesity, increasing the risk of heart disease, depression, and premature death. Experts tell us that our nation is “suffering from a crisis of disconnection.”
And yet, our social and religious structures often make it harder, not easier, to belong. Churches that once served as safe harbors for the weary and wounded now risk becoming exclusive clubs for the like-minded and socially comfortable. The wealthy and well-connected are ushered to the front row, while those who are struggling, questioning, or simply different are left standing outside the circle — thirsty.
Fortunately, God doesn’t irrigate by pivot. God sends rain — generous, unpredictable, and inclusive. And rain doesn’t obey human geometry. Rain reaches corners, fence lines, forgotten fields. Rain reveals a God whose love cannot be mechanized, controlled, or contained. The church that draws circles ends up worshiping its own irrigation system. But the church that learns to live by rain becomes a place of resurrection for all who are parched and waiting.
Jesus crosses the boundaries we create and pours living water into the dry places. The Gospel of John tells a story of one such person, living in a corner unreached and excluded by established religion. John tells us that she was a Samaritan woman who came to draw water at noon, when the sun scorched the earth and no one else was around.
We aren’t told her name, only that she was tired, alone, and likely weighed down by whispered judgments. Tradition paints her as immoral, but a more compassionate look suggests there might be something more tragic. She was likely a woman shaped by circumstances, by systems that let her down, and by a community that decided she didn’t belong.
And then Jesus showed up.
He met her at the well — not in the temple, not in the crowd, but in her cornered isolation. Jesus didn’t start by listing her sins; He first asked for a drink. It’s a small act, but a profound reversal: a Jewish man asking a Samaritan woman for help was unheard of and considered improper. But in His request, Jesus restored her dignity by validating her worth. Jesus then offered her “living water,” not just to quench her thirst, but to remind her she was still part of God’s story.
She had been unseen, unheard, uninvited. But Jesus saw her and heard her. And then Jesus invited her to know that she belongs to His kingdom.
This story is about more than one woman’s redemption. This story reveals God’s heart for those left out and left behind. Jesus invites us to insert our names and join Him at the well of living water.
The water I will give them will become in them a spring that will provide life-giving water and give them eternal life.
John 4:5-30
She is the foreigner, afraid that they too will be brutalized, arrested, and sent away without due process. She is the person who doesn’t fit the image that others have locked in their mind of who is acceptable. The woman at the well is every person whose accent, appearance, past, or pain has made them unwelcome. She is every outcast told they are beyond the reach of grace. She is every person living outside the circle, where systems fail her.
When we remember that Jesus first revealed his identity as Messiah not to a disciple or a priest, but to this woman — a foreigner, a woman of questionable standing, and a theological outsider — we glimpse the radical belonging of God’s kingdom. If the church is a circle of irrigation, the woman at the well lived far outside its reach. But Jesus brought the rain to her.
Imagine a church that no longer guards its circle but lives by the rhythm of rain. Imagine a community where belonging isn’t earned by conformity but received as a gift. A church where every corner of the field is nourished by grace. A community where life isn’t measured by who’s inside or outside the system, but by how far grace can flow.
Picture a landscape where every thirsty soul — every person who has felt unseen, unheard, or uninvited — is drenched in love that doesn’t discriminate or stop at human boundaries. Where our walls no longer keep people out, but help hold the water in.
When the rain falls, no corner is dry. No one is too far gone, too different, or too complicated to be nourished by God’s love.
The woman at the well ran back to her village after encountering Jesus. The same people who had shunned her now heard the good news through her voice.
What changed? The woman they avoided became the one who carried the message of life. When she met Jesus, she didn’t just find belonging — she became belonging.
That is the vision of a rain-fed church: a place where those who once stood at the margins become messengers of mercy. People who don’t ration grace but release it freely. A fellowship that remembers its purpose — not to control the flow of God’s love, but to ensure no one dies of thirst.
In a world choking on loneliness, this kind of belonging is revolutionary. It heals bodies, mends hearts, and revives communities. Because when we live by rain, we learn that God’s kingdom doesn’t grow in perfect circles — it spreads like water across dry ground, finding every low place, every crack, every forgotten field.
Becoming a Rain-Fed People
Belonging begins when we notice who isn’t at the well. When we pay attention to the corners of our own communities — the people who don’t make it onto our invitation lists, our friend circles, our church committees.
The next step is simple but profound: see them. Look for those whose lives have been parched by rejection or neglect. Ask questions that open a conversation. Listen before you label. Invite before you evaluate.
As a community, we can choose to bring the source of living water closer to the edges — to shift our energy, compassion, and resources toward those who need them most. That’s how irrigation becomes rain.
Each act of welcome — each moment we refuse to draw a smaller circle — is a drop of grace that ripples outward. A smile across a dividing line. A table set for someone who’s never been asked to sit. A prayer lifted for someone who’s been told they don’t belong.
The rain will fall. It always does. The question is: will we stand under it — together?
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This is a reminder that we publish a weekly newsletter called the Circuit Rider. You can request this publication by email by sending a request to FlintAsburyUMC@gmail.com, or let us know when you send a message through our website. We post an archive of past editions on our website under Connect – choose Newsletters.
Pastor Tommy
Our companion book for this series is Marilynne Robinson. Gilead. NY: Picador, 2004.