"Phillip and the Eunuch" with Ps Shane Willard // 1 Aug 2021

(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) So right now it's my honor, as I

said, in Tasmania, I've been fighting with Shane

back and forward over the phone, trying to

convince him to stay in New Zealand, the

most beautiful promised land you could ever get

in that doesn't have lockdowns.

And so back and forward, back and forward,

and there was a bit of resistance there.

Anyway, he finally flew home and Pastor Jesse

and I went out and farewelled him at

the airport, caught a quick video clip of

him before he went.

And you're about to hear that, but listen,

the word of God, I don't know about

you, but this book is the foundational truth

that'll keep you through every storm.

That's why we can be so, so thankful

because of God's word.

So I'm thinking this way.

Incidentally, it's a real honor and a privilege

to have Pastor Barry and Naomi from Ramah

Church and all their, and a whole lot

of their people, and also people from Hamilton

and, and whoever else is here today, what

an honor to have you guys in the

house today.

And, but listen, we want to go to

the word and Pastor Shane, as you know,

is a man of the word.

And I want you to grab your Bibles

right now and I want you to stand

up with me and we're going to introduce

the word of God this morning.

Now I know that he's going to, Shane

has been a friend of this church for

years.

And I think we were the second church

in New Zealand to actually acknowledge there's a

call of God on this man and invite

him in here.

And he is bringing you today, and I

want you to grab it.

I know he's not here in person, but

I want you to believe by faith right

now that there's going to be a supernatural

impartation.

Okay.

Now I've, I've already listened to some of

the mess.

I don't want to hear it all because

it's otherwise I don't mind.

You wouldn't hurt to hear it four or

five times.

If you're watching online today, you are in

for a treat.

This is a prophetic revelation.

I believe to the churches and to our

church in specific, he's done this message specifically

for us.

And I want you to grab a hold

of what God's saying and speaking into your

spirit.

I believe we're in some of the greatest

days you could ever be alive where the

church shines, even though there's darkness covers the

earth, the church shines in this hour.

So I want you to get ready for

a great word.

And father, I speak over this auditorium right

now, and we declare over pastor Shane, as

he brings this word via video today, that

it would be powerful, that it would unlock

hearts, that it would bring fruit.

That would be overwhelming in Jesus name.

And I pray that right now, God, the

influence would go beyond these walls into our

cities, our towns, our schools.

And in Jesus name right now, I declare

over your life and over your spirit that

God would ignite his fire in your life

today through the word of God in Jesus

mighty name.

Lord, we give you all the praise, all

the honor and all the glory.

Now why don't you give pastor Shane a

huge hand clap and welcome as he comes

and brings the word today.

Thank you musicians.

Well, hello, my inspired church family, your friend,

Shane Willard here.

First of all, I want to say I'm

so sorry for not being able to be

with you in person.

I did everything I possibly could to work

that out, but I was clearly told I

had better get on the plane by Friday.

And so I'm going to have to do

that.

But here's what we've done.

I have recorded the message that I was

going to do on Sunday, and I'm telling

you, it's a prophetic word.

It's a now word.

If you're going to be a part of

what God is going to be doing in

the church going forward and be happy about

it, we have to get on board with

what we're talking about today.

I ask that you listen to it with

an open heart and an open mind and

allow the word to get into you and

determine how we're going to build the church

going forward.

I hope Jesus gets bigger.

The cross works better.

The resurrection is central and scriptures get bigger,

not smaller for you today.

Grace and peace, everybody.

Okay, so let's get into this.

I want to start with a story.

I owe my friend, Ben Staines, who is

the pastor of a great church called Generosity

Church in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales.

They have, I don't know, 10, 11, 12,

13 campuses or something throughout rural New South

Wales.

We were having a chat about the philosophy

of ministry of Generosity Church, because it is

amazing.

He told me this story, and it just

stuck.

I want to share it with you.

This is a story from the 1980s.

What happened was an American came to visit

Australia for the first time.

Now, the truth of it is that Americans

are enamored with Australian culture.

The Americans that I know who've never been

to Australia, when they want to come to

Australia, one of the first things they want

to see is the outback.

Now, this is largely due to the success

of a character named Crocodile Dundee.

Crocodile Dundee was a famous movie, and so

it sort of glorified the outback.

But I can tell you, as someone who

lives in Australia, you know what?

There's not that much to the outback.

Seriously, if you fly to Mount Isa, you

drive 10 miles out of town, there you

have it.

It's thousands of miles of that.

This particular American was just absolutely flabbergasted by

the size of certain things.

My pastor is an old cattleman, and his

cattle property from when he was a teenager

was 70 miles long by 30 miles wide.

Now, I realize to us as Americans, that

is like the state of Connecticut, right?

As your own personal property.

But that was his property in the outback,

and actually, it wasn't the biggest property out

there.

It was in the top 15, I think,

but it wasn't the biggest property out there.

And here's the thing.

They don't put fences around that whole property.

Why?

Because it takes a lot of money to

build a fence around something that big.

Ask Donald Trump how much it costs to

build a wall like that.

It's just not something that is just easily

done.

And so this American tourist asked the farmer,

man, how do you keep your cows from

wandering away if you don't have a fence

to keep them in?

And of course, there are strategic fences along

the way, but he said, look, you can't

fence in an entire property like this.

He said, so what you do is you

have a surveyor come in and you have

them dig wells down the middle of your

property and on strategic points in the property

that provide a water source.

And he said a cow will not vary

too far from the water source because they

know sort of inside that they'll die.

And he said, son, if you got proper

wells, you don't need all the fences.

Now that'll preach, which leads me to the

book of Acts.

The book of Acts and the gospels for

that matter, were transitional books from a fence

based ministry to a well based ministry.

The Old Testament was largely a fence based

ministry.

In the Old Testament, there were 613 fences,

613.

Jesus had two fence posts, love God and

love your neighbor as yourself.

Don't be people who write about the Bible,

be people who fulfill scripture by doing unto

others as you would have them do unto

you.

But that takes transition because there are people

who profiteer and find a fence based thing

more easing to the soul and actually, quite

frankly, more enriching.

So when Jesus was taking on this fence

based thing and turning it into a well

based thing, there was some opposition to that,

so much so that they had him killed

by the Romans.

And the book of Acts is the same.

The book of Acts were the followers of

Jesus who had a radical encounter with Christ

and a radical encounter with the Holy Spirit.

And actually the book of Acts is quite

a large book, but here's the book of

Acts in, I don't know, 30 seconds.

Ready?

Group of people had a radical encounter with

Christ, radical encounter with the Holy Spirit.

And then they did amazing things.

And then they got persecuted for doing the

amazing things.

And then they did amazing things.

And then they got persecuted for doing the

amazing things.

And then they did more amazing things.

And then they got persecuted for doing the

amazing things.

And then a guy named Stephen gets martyred

under the authority of a guy named Saul.

And then they did more amazing things and

got persecuted.

Then the guy named Saul gets converted and

he starts doing amazing things and changes his

name to Paul.

And then he got persecuted for doing those

amazing things.

Why?

Because when you are transitioning from one type

of thing to another, the people who found

comfort and peace and solace and enrichment from

the old way are going to resist you

when you're moving to the new way.

What happens in the book of Acts and

in the gospels is there's far less concern

about all the fences and much more concern

about who's thirsty, who wants it, who's passionate

about it.

That what we find in the gospels is

that God loves people more than the rules

and that we're called to fulfill scripture instead

of be right about it.

And so with that, I want to look

at a passage from Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Jesus told his followers that they would be

his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends

of the earth.

But we're already in Acts chapter 8 and

Acts 8 · chapter mention

they haven't went anywhere.

They're still in Jerusalem and Judea.

But because of some great persecution, namely the

martyring of a guy named Stephen, a guy

named Philip, one of Jesus's disciples, ventures out

into Samaria and some amazing things start happening.

So much so that people start offering him

money for the power they were seeing.

But then there's this amazing encounter in Acts

Acts 8 · chapter mention

chapter 8 with him and a guy called

the Ethiopian eunuch.

And I want to read this passage.

This is Acts chapter 8 verse 26.

Acts 8:26

Now an angel of the Lord said to

Philip, rise and go to the south to

the road that goes down from Jerusalem to

Gaza.

This was a desert place.

And he rose and went.

Oh, by the way, years ago, myself and

my friend Terry Kirk, we actually went to

this place and we saw where this actually

happened.

A historical guy named Aria took us there.

So I can actually visualize this very well.

This is a desert place.

And he rose and went.

And there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court

official of Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians,

who was in charge of all of her

treasure.

And he had come to Jerusalem to worship

and was returning seated in his chariot.

And he was reading the prophet Isaiah.

I have so many questions already.

Like why would a guy ride a horse

from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to worship?

Why out of the whole Bible is he

clutching a scroll from Isaiah?

Of all things, why Isaiah?

I've got questions.

And the spirit said to Philip, now go

over and join him on the chariot.

So Philip ran to him and heard him

reading Isaiah, the prophet.

And he said, do you even understand what

you're reading?

And he said, well, how could I?

Unless someone guides me.

In other words, I'm teachable here.

I think I'm the sort, but I don't

really know what all this is talking about.

And he invited Philip to come up and

sit with him.

And now the passage of the scripture that

he was reading was this.

Like a sheep, he was led to slaughter

and like a lamb before shears is silent.

So he opened not his mouth.

In his humiliation, justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation for his life

is taken away from the earth.

And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom

I ask you, does this prophet say these

things?

Is it about himself or someone else?

I want you to notice that the Ethiopian

dude, his theological concepts were elemental at best.

He's never heard the name Jesus.

Presumably he definitely is not sure if Isaiah

is talking about himself or something else, but

Isaiah is describing a God that's willing to

suffer with people.

And he's very, very curious.

So then Philip opened his mouth and beginning

with that scripture.

In other words, well, if that's where you

are, that's where we're starting.

But God always seems to meet people where

they think he is and then moves them.

It's a beautiful humility about how God deals

with people and told him the good news

about Jesus.

And as they were going along the road,

they came to some water and the eunuch

said, see, there's some water.

What's preventing me?

What's preventing me from being baptized?

And he commanded the chariot to stop.

And they both went down into the water,

Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

And when they came up out of the

water, the spirit Lord carried Philip away and

the eunuch saw him no more.

And he went on his way rejoicing.

I find that amazing.

Like the eunuch's hunger and thirst for the

things of Jesus was enough.

He didn't explain to him in times theology.

He didn't, he didn't explain to him numerology.

He didn't understand.

He didn't have to explain to him.

He didn't, he didn't sort of work out.

Now the whole Noah thing, that's actually literal,

not a poem, or that's a poem, not

literal.

He didn't, none of these things that we

can find ourselves distracted and really majoring on

actually, actually what happened is, is he explained

Jesus to him.

The guy wanted to be a part, he

baptized him.

And then there, there he went, there he

went.

But Philip found himself at Azotus and he

passed through.

And as he passed through, he preached the

gospel to all the towns that came to

Caesarea.

Now, as I read this passage, I have

questions.

I have lots of questions.

And so I want to explore those questions

with you today.

Like, for instance, is there too much information

in this passage?

You know, like why include the fact that

this guy's a eunuch several times?

Isn't that too much information?

If you were that guy, would you want

that shared about you?

Like, I can picture this Ethiopian guy in

heaven right now, sort of confronting Luke.

Like, what were you thinking, bro?

You had to tell the whole world that

one.

You didn't know that this letter would eventually,

you know, Shane Willard's going to read this

passage and honest, you know, he can't read

over that.

He's going to have to make something out

of that.

He's got to.

Like, would you want the whole world knowing

that you're missing part of your anatomy?

And why is that important?

And why include that in the story?

I want to know that.

I want to know why he's choosing to

worship in Jerusalem.

Why does an Ethiopian guy who's missing part

of his anatomy ride a horse to Jerusalem?

Why include all that?

Why not just call him the Ethiopian guy?

Or why not, I don't know, bury the

Ethiopian?

Like, why, why an Ethiopian eunuch?

And why is he riding a horse to

Jerusalem from Ethiopia?

That's a long way.

Why the scroll of Isaiah?

Out of all the scrolls, he's got this

thing from Isaiah and he's clutching it.

He's intrigued and he wants to know more

about it.

Why?

Isaiah was a prophet that was calling out

the way power was being corrupt and how

it was dealing with the poor.

This guy is like, what?

Why?

I'm interested in this.

Why?

How does the good news apply to an

Ethiopian who's missing part of his anatomy?

I want to know that.

I want to know, is there any reason

why I can't be baptized?

That was his question.

The answer is there was a lot of

reasons.

We'll talk about that in a second.

But the question I want to ask us

today is, is are we offense-based or

a well-based church?

What this passage confronts is that very question.

Are we still stuck in the fence-based

paradigm?

There's all these rules that determine if you're

worthy or not.

Or there's a well-based paradigm that if

we are creating meaningful experiences with God, that

you don't need all the fences defining in

and out, us and them, clean and unclean,

because they are drawn to the water source.

Now let's deal with these questions.

First, why is it included that this is

a eunuch?

And why is it such a big deal?

Well, we have to understand that in Philip's

day, this was a big deal.

Here is Deuteronomy chapter 23 verse 1.

Deuteronomy 23:1

No one who has been emasculated by crushing

or cutting, because that's somehow better, may enter

the assembly of the Lord.

In other words, if it was an accident

or four guys held you down and did

it to you, it doesn't matter.

God's not welcoming you.

And it keeps going.

No one born of a forbidden marriage nor

any of their descendants may enter the assembly

of the Lord, not even in the 10th

generation.

You know, I was born in 1976.

And in my lifetime, I heard a youth

pastor try to motivate teenagers to not have

premarital sex by using that passage.

And his point was, if you have premarital

sex and you mess up and somebody gets

pregnant, it's a shame, but they'll never be

welcome into heaven.

Because God clearly says, if they're born of

a forbidden union, first of all, that's hermeneutical

butchery.

That's first.

Second, these people then leave the church.

And then people said, oh, see, they rejected

Jesus.

No, they didn't.

They rejected the image of Jesus presented to

them.

And that particular image probably should have been

rejected.

You've got no eunuchs, no people born of

a forbidden marriage.

Then he goes, no Ammonite or Moabite or

any of their descendants may enter into the

assembly of the Lord, not even in the

10th generation.

So in the first three verses of Deuteronomy

23, you have more fences than in Jesus's

entire ministry.

The Old Testament had 613 of them.

Jesus had two fence posts.

And actually, Jesus himself is sort of very

confronting to two of those three.

There were certain questions around the circumstances of

Jesus's birth where they're not.

Absolutely.

If you check his genealogy, he's 128th Moabite.

So you have Jesus being confronting to these

fences, even as they're going along.

Nonetheless, this guy is a foreigner eunuch.

Can you see how the law would have

forbidden a foreigner eunuch?

Which leads to this question.

Why the prophet Isaiah?

What's so special about that guy?

Well, on the scroll, he was clutching.

Let me read you a part that didn't

get quoted in the book of Acts.

This is what it says.

This is Isaiah 56 verse three.

Let no foreigner who is bound to the

Lord who's bound to the Lord say the

Lord will surely exclude me from his people.

No foreigner, not even that.

What?

No foreigner.

And let no eunuch complain.

I'm only a dry tree for this is

what the Lord says to the eunuchs who

keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me

and hold fast to my covenant.

In other words, if the eunuchs want in,

they can be in to them.

I'll give within my temple and its walls

a memorial and a name better than the

sons and daughters.

I will give them an everlasting name that

will endure forever.

And the foreigners who bind themselves to the

Lord.

In other words, if the foreigners want in,

they can be in to love the name

of the Lord and to be his servants

and keep his Sabbaths without desecrating it and

who hold fast to my covenant.

These I will bring to my holy mountain

and give them joy in my house of

prayer.

Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted

on my altar for my house will be

called a house of prayer for all nations.

All?

Yes.

Even the Amalekites?

Amenites?

All.

All means all.

My house will be a house of prayer

for all nations.

The sovereign Lord declares, he who gathers the

exiles of Israel, I will gather still others

to them besides those already gathered.

So in this passage, you have an Ethiopian

eunuch.

He's a God fearer.

He would have been disqualified by the 613

fences and he's willing to travel days to

find the truth.

Philip was one of the original 12 who

grew up in an Orthodox village called Bethsaida.

He would have lived his whole life by

613 fences.

He would have been very confronted by this.

613 fences is what I've been taught my

whole life, but now I'm confronted by a

foreigner eunuch who wants it so bad.

Will I focus on the fence on the

person?

And you know, this event had amazing fruit

to it.

Today, 65% of Ethiopia identifies as Christians.

Here's the thing.

Ethiopian Christians are indigenous.

They're not moving there.

The Ethiopian church today traces their origins back

to this one unit.

In other words, you never know we're being

someone who's willing to fulfill scripture instead of

being right about one verse.

You never know what kind of long lasting

fruit that might lead to, maybe even for

a whole nation.

If Philip just wanted to be right about

one verse, Deuteronomy 23 is very clear.

No eunuch will be welcome into the presence

of God.

And while we're at it, the foreigners as

well.

And in this passage, you have a foreigner

eunuch who found this passage of hope in

a scroll of Isaiah and he's clutching it

and he's saying, is there any reason you

can think of where I'm not included in

this?

And because of Philip's radical encounter with the

risen Christ, three and a half years walking

with him, he was less concerned with the

fence and more concerned with this guy's thirst

for the wealth.

Let's say it this way, an entire book

about being surprised by how generous God is

with people who are thirsty.

That's the book of Acts.

Uncircumcised Gentiles being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Remember Peter's preaching this message and the Holy

Spirit fills the Gentiles.

It is just like he filled us.

And even Peter is surprised by this.

He's like shocked.

And the religious leaders like Peter, explain yourself,

bro.

God doesn't act like that.

Peter's like, I agree.

I'm with you, man.

You know, that's what I was taught my

whole life too.

God doesn't fill Gentiles.

But you know what?

Then I saw him do it.

And I'm just as flabbergasted as you.

But if God saw filled, call it saw

fit to fill them with the Holy Spirit,

just like he did us, who might argue?

Remember in Acts 4, it says they were

surprised because normal, ordinary, everyday, uneducated people were

being used mightily by God.

Why is that surprising?

Because that had never been done before.

In the fence-based structure, you had to

be really, really, really, really, really, really, really,

really worthy.

In the well-based structure that Jesus is

bringing in, you just had to want it,

man.

You just had to be thirsty.

You just had to desire it.

What a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful picture.

So let's apply this with some language.

What do we do?

And what does this mean for reimagining what

a Christ-centered community could be in our

world?

Because here's the truth.

In Christ-centered communities, you have people like

me and like yourself who want to take

the scriptures seriously.

And we do.

But we also want to take our call

to love the other person seriously.

And sometimes in navigating that, that creates tension.

And what we find in the Jesus story

is that God loves people more than the

rules and that we are called to fulfill

scripture instead of simply being right about one

verse in it.

We are called to treat others as we

would want to be treated ourselves.

So let's put some language around what we

find in this story and then wrestle with

what that means for our community.

I'd say this.

One, Jesus doesn't ask, are you worthy?

Jesus asks, are you thirsty?

And those are two different things.

The 613 fences, foreigner eunuchs.

Yeah.

Are you thirsty?

Are you thirsty?

Do you want it?

Do you want in on what God is

up to in our world?

See, thirst requires a certain set of things.

See, I'd say a lack of thirst equals

a lack of teachability.

The root word disciple just means a student,

someone who's teachable.

Like a lack of thirst is when we

lose our teachability.

I can tell you for me, I'd rather

have a group of 20 agnostic, curious, authentic

truth seekers who are asking great questions about

the nature of God and love and compassion

and how to serve our world better than

I'd want a church of 3000 Christians who

aren't teachable.

3000 people who think if I haven't thought

of it, it can't be true.

That would be hell to me.

A lack of thirst requires teachability.

I would say a lack of thirst, a

lack of thirst is a lack of teachability.

I would say a lack of thirst is

a lack of humility.

That part of being a Jesus person is

realizing that sometimes we have freedoms that other

people aren't ready for yet.

And a Jesus community says, you know what,

because we're asking who's thirsty instead of who

is worthy, I'm willing to submit my liberties

for the sake of somebody else and for

the sake of the whole thing going forward.

I'm willing not the Lord.

This is the whole chapter of Romans 14.

If you're okay eating food offered to idols,

but you know, it makes somebody else stumble.

It's not that you should quit eating the

food.

It's just don't do it in front of

them.

See a thirsty culture is a teachable culture.

A thirsty culture is a humble culture.

I would say a lack of thirst is

a lack of responsibility.

Way back in Genesis, even before sin entered

the story, human beings found part of their

purpose in taking responsibility for their world.

So the opposite of that would be blaming.

That once we start blaming others or blaming

our fathers or blaming our mothers or blaming

our leaders or blaming that, no, it is

not their fault.

At some point we have to take responsibility.

A thirsty culture is a teachable culture.

A thirsty culture is a humble culture.

People are willing to submit their liberty to

the higher moral ethic of love.

A thirsty culture is a responsible culture.

Ones that take responsibility for their actions.

I would say this, a lack of thirst

leads to ambivalence.

Actually, a thirsty culture is a passionate culture

about what we are up to and what

God is up to in our world saying

yes to the infinite possibilities that brings.

So what is the thirsty culture?

It's a teachable culture.

It's a humble culture.

It's a responsible culture.

And it's a passionate culture about the infinite

possibilities in our world.

Once we lose our teachability or our humility

or we blame or we become ambivalent, at

that point we've lost our thirst.

And here's the thing is once we lose

our thirst, we will tend to default back

to the worth question.

Are we keeping all the rules?

When actually, the better story is more profound

than that.

Let's say it this way.

The overuse of fences is not necessary if

there's a well stocked well.

There's 613 fences in the Old Testament.

Jesus had two fence posts.

By Acts 15, there was four.

Food sacrificed to idols, blood, meat of strangled

animals, and sexual immorality.

As they were journeying from a fence-based

ministry to a well-based ministry, they kept

losing their fences.

Which leads me to a few questions.

One, are we gravitating to the center regardless

of the fencing?

In other words, if your direction is heading

to the center anyway, it doesn't matter how

far away the fence is.

It doesn't matter how close you are to

the fence.

Like Christianity is that it's least compelling when

we're trying to get away with the most.

It's the least compelling.

For instance, there are some fences that are

really important, like don't kill each other.

But the truth of it is, is that

if you need the Bible to tell you

not to kill somebody, there is a far

more profound way to live.

I was watching a debate one time between

a Christian and an atheist, and the Christian

said, well, if you don't have the Bible,

what keeps you from raping and murdering everybody

you want?

The atheist said, nothing.

I've raped and murdered everybody I want.

That number just happens to be zero.

And if you need the Bible to keep

you from raping and murdering people, you're a

lunatic.

That's true.

The truth of it is, is that if

we're journeying to the well, the fence actually

doesn't matter as much.

Let's say it this way.

Are we more focused on direction instead of

distance?

A well-based ministry is more focused on

the direction of someone's shoulders instead of how

far they are from the well.

A fence-based ministry says, well, have you

done this?

Have you jumped over that?

Have you jumped over that?

Or how far are you from the well?

A well-based ministry says, well, no, no,

no, no.

They're heading the right direction.

Like I was doing a volunteer night at

a church only for team members, and some

of them were telling their God stories, you

know, in less than a minute.

And this guy gets up and says, he

says, he says, hello, everybody.

I'm an atheist.

And I thought, oh my goodness.

And he went, he went, but I'm, I

was a lonely atheist.

And they told me that I could come

here and belong without having to believe in

God.

And, you know, you guys have been the

kindest people.

You know, by the third week you had

me greeting on the door.

My job is to be kind to people

coming in and show them where the bathrooms

are.

He says, this church has an atheist door

greeter.

And he said, you know what, because of

your kindness, I want to tell you what

happened.

Tonight I made a decision to step back

and consider God might be real.

Well, the place erupted.

Why?

Because when an atheist is standing back going,

God might be real, that is a yes

worth celebrating.

Our job as a Christ-centered community is

not to put up barriers between that man

and the fence.

It is to open the fences to lead

people to the well.

It is to say, hey, we are here

to create meaningful experiences with God for you

and to facilitate your next yes.

And we are focused on the direction of

your shoulders, not the distance from it.

And when we facilitate everybody's next profound yes,

be it small or big, eventually we are

moving to the well.

Let's say it this way.

Fences matter less when we are focused on

moving towards the center.

Or we can say it another way.

In old communities, the whole village centered around

the well.

What if we built wells instead?