Parish Farmers and Good Earth Farms

Exciting things are happening with church and gardening these days. Vineyard Central in Cincinnati has a Parish Farmer who shared some of his theology, philosophy, and food with us on Thursday. The next day Kelly, one of the Common Friars at Good Earth Farms in Athens, OH spoke to us. Here are some of the fascinating things they are doing and thinking

Aquaponics
Vineyard Central has just set up an aquaponics system. They will be growing lettuce and other plants in water in a small greenhouse attached to their garage. Inside the garage they have a stock tank in which tillapia will grow. The water circulates between the fish and plants. Fish waste provides the nutrition the plants need, and the plants clean the water for the fish. What a great system! (Thanks, God.)

Working at a Kingdom Pace
Several times from several people at this conference, I heard the phrase, "work at a kingdom pace." Just because society is moving incredibly quickly, it does not mean we must or should move that quickly. Maybe part of our call as Christians is to slow down--to interact with others in ways which give us a chance to look them in the eye, to spend time growing and making some of our own food instead of spending just a few minutes buying it prepared, to chose to take time off from the immediacy of technology. That's working and living at a kingdom pace.
The Common Friars are currently discerning how they should work. Is God calling them to tend their (relatively) small plot of land carefully and produce a (relatively) small amount of food, or would it be better if they had more land, worked quicker and produced more food? On first reaction, growing more food seems like the greater good. But if you add in the value of working at a kingdom pace, the choice isn't as clear.

Deep Thoughts From Working the Land
-"We're not called to be heroes. We're called to be saints."
-Growing your own food helps you accept your own limitation. Just like the food we grow isn't grocery store perfect, neither are we or our communities. When we learn to use the imperfect food we grow, it can help us learn to accept and work together in our imperfect communities. God uses us in our imperfections, and we use lettuce with a bug-eaten edge, or a slightly shriveled apple.
-"The end can't just be love. The means and the end must be love."
-"We're called to be a sign, not a solution."
-Look around and see what you have now. Then claim it as a gift. Most of us don't need more--we just need to see all that we have as gift and then treat it as a gift.