A couple of blogs ago I wrote about they ways of being church outside the church that I don’t think get enough attention. One of these is community gardens. Many of our churches host community gardens. And my family happens to have two different plots at two different churches.
We love it! It often results in a toddler head to toe in mud and a continual struggle to keep her out of neighbouring plots, but without a back yard we would have no other opportunity to teach our daughter about the garden, or eat a million organic tomatoes every year!
I have also seen how these community gardens foster a greater community. We have garden neighbours who are growing things from their birth countries that I have never seen before (sometimes we even get to taste them!). There are many plots run by people from the nearby retirement home (another great ministry outside the church) who delight in entertaining our daughter. And we get to learn gardening skills from people who have been gardening much longer than us!
Even more surprisingly, we often run into people from campus or work who have no church affiliation whatsoever, who delight in this church program. And our daughter gets to witness it all. Neighbours, local food, the outdoors, good clean dirt, and time as a family. And it is good.
We love it! It often results in a toddler head to toe in mud and a continual struggle to keep her out of neighbouring plots, but without a back yard we would have no other opportunity to teach our daughter about the garden, or eat a million organic tomatoes every year!
I have also seen how these community gardens foster a greater community. We have garden neighbours who are growing things from their birth countries that I have never seen before (sometimes we even get to taste them!). There are many plots run by people from the nearby retirement home (another great ministry outside the church) who delight in entertaining our daughter. And we get to learn gardening skills from people who have been gardening much longer than us!
Even more surprisingly, we often run into people from campus or work who have no church affiliation whatsoever, who delight in this church program. And our daughter gets to witness it all. Neighbours, local food, the outdoors, good clean dirt, and time as a family. And it is good.
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