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Church leaders need to recognize the potential for new ministry at the intersection of food, agriculture, and discipleship, says an Episcopal priest who has compiled the first comprehensive guide to the Christian food movement.
In this excerpt from the prologue of his new book, writer Fred Bahnson recounts his visits with four different faith communities -- Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal and Jewish -- to explore the connection between feeding the spirit and feeding the body.
In a backyard garden at D.C.’s Church of the Pilgrims, God’s promise, the Holy One’s movement of liberation, is alive and buzzing in the form of 40,000 fat, furry honeybees, says the church’s associate pastor.
Claudio Oliver among the chickens at Casa da Videira. Photo courtesy of Claudio Oliver
The co-author of a new book on reconciliation with the land reflects on a Brazilian community that models “abundant kingdom homesteading.”
In this excerpt from “Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating,” a Duke Divinity professor argues that our work as Christians is to develop into godly gardeners, who witness to the life-creating presence of God in the world.
Our Saviour Community Garden began as an effort to show that a parish with dwindling membership still had relevance in an older Dallas neighborhood. Eight years later, the church garden has yielded nearly 20 tons of organic produce for the needy, serving as a destination for gardeners and a model for other churches.
God often is presented as father, judge, potter, redeemer or companion. How would believers’ thinking and speaking be transformed if God was described as a gardener?
If the Earth is to continue to feed us, we must find better ways to “till it and keep it,” writes Fred Bahnson.
After a move to Southern California, to a village where every plant flourishes, Cathleen Falsani thinks -- no, believes -- this will be the year she will at last be a successful gardener.