They are the Keepers
How a little plot of land joined some hobbyists together
On the corner of Honeysuckle and 750 a brick church building welcomes the surrounding neighborhoods up the concrete sidewalk and into its doors. It opens itself up for Sunday morning sermons, evening prayer nights, weekly classes, and youth group events as the members learn and grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. Yet that’s not all that grows here.
Just past the western door and over a small hedge of bushes a wire fence sections off the tilled dirt from the nicely cut grass around it. Pathways of mulch separate the area into rectangles. Some rectangles are filled with flowers while others boast the leaves of tomato plants, zucchini, or bushes that will soon grow heavy with green beans. The diversity within the grids exemplify its name—a community garden.
Many of us garden at home. We spend our springs preparing our beds, and our summers swatting gnats while we pull weeds in the sun. We do it because our passion pushes us towards the dirt between our fingers. As Keepers, we want to nurture and tend the earth the Lord has given, just as he told Adam and Eve. And while we can find so much joy, worship, and growth in our singular gardens at home—there is also something incredibly encouraging about joining together in this specific kind of play. We might be able to do this through gardening clubs, classes, or community events—or, like at my church, we might be able to do it through a community garden.
For the past few years this little plot of land has been sectioned off and offered to church and community members. In winter, sign-ups roll around and members put their name in for a 10 x 20 ft section in which they can plant and tend whatever kind of flowers of vegetables they like. In April, everyone joins in for a work day to prep the soil and work their plots together. These Keepers expectantly work the ground in hopes for the harvest and in the process provide a tangible picture of all that happens every week in the building a few feet away.
Each plot owner is responsible for their watering and their plants, but they are also an owner of the whole garden. They all make sure the hose is put up and make sure the path is clear of weeds. The only hard and fast rule is never to harvest or water another person’s plot without talking to the owner first. This rule prevents any mix ups, but it also keeps each member dependent on the other. Group text messages provide the opportunity to check in and request help for watering when out of town, keeping each member in a dance of give and take.
Over the years the garden plots have brought in church members and even a nearby neighbor as well who utilized the ground to grow a beautiful harvest. Novices to gardening have gotten to learn from more experienced gardeners with a Gardening 101 class and periodic “Meet me in the garden” times with the organizer, Lisa, in which she is able to offer help.
In my book, I talk a lot about the legitimacy of hobbies for their own sake. They need not serve utilitarian purposes to be a way we can worship God. We can simply receive the gifts of God with joy. All this I still believe, yet I’ve also found that those who love an activity and delight in the joy it gives them, also tend to want to find ways to steward that love in a way that would help others. We saw this mentality a few weeks ago, as I wrote about the RC airplane club who put on a fundraiser for the local hospital, and we can see it also in my church’s community garden. After all, we can do so much more when we do it together.
A large portion of my church’s garden is set apart for what’s called The Well Watered Garden1, a 20x35 ft section that grows produce for the purpose of donating its harvests to the community. Volunteers for this section of the garden sign up for water and weeding times in order to produce a good crop, all to give it away. During a bountiful harvest a couple years ago, they donated a total of 800 pounds of food to a local non-profit. Lisa’s passion for this project comes with her own history of food insecurity and her gratefulness towards churches, friends, and the community who helped her through those times. In her endeavor to start the community garden at our church and The Well Watered Garden, she’s found a love in the tending and has invited others to join along in the work, labor, and the delight.
I can’t help but look out at those little plots of land beside our church and see play as it was intended. These handful of volunteers and garden owners all hold different jobs in their vocation—a photographer, a homeschool teacher, a nurse, a real estate agent, and the list goes on and on. Yet in their spare time, they came to play in the dirt and tend and labor over a piece of it. Each little rectangle that makes up the grid is different, yet each, a part of something greater that brings God’s beauty and his grace into the world that’s aching for it.
If you want to learn more about the way God uses our favorite hobbies to draw us to him, I’d love for you to check out my new book!
This is actually a global organization that you can start a chapter through. They will provide the seeds/plants, and they allow opportunities for help for best practices as well as community through the other chapters nearby. While this isn’t the only way you can go about starting a community garden, you can check out information on this at the following website: https://www.wellwateredgardenproject.org/