Engaging the Church to Reach a Hurting World

Lent is a time when we contemplate the death and resurrection of Christ. It is also springtime, when in the same way, we watch things come back to life. As a gardener, I see good analogies in the compost bin and the process of growing plants. What was gathered together at the end of the past growing season and seemingly dead is now alive—crawling with worms and ready to enrich the soil and bring forth new fruits and vegetables. 

Each day in my email, I get a Google web alert  listing online articles that include one or more of the following keywords—Episcopal, Anglican, Church, Relief, Development and even ERD (although “‘ERD’ is not the WORD”—we’ve moved away from using the acronym).  This time of the year, I’m getting articles about community gardens and even a few farms being planted on Episcopal Church land all over the United States:

• Abundant Table Farm Project, Oxnard, CA
http://theabundanttable.org/
• St. Thomas the Apostle, Dallas, TX
http://thedoubter.org/garden.html
• Melrose-Bluestone Farm, Brewster, NY
http://www.chssisters.org/melrose-bluestone-farm/
• All Saints Church, Chelmsford, MA
http://www.allsaintschelmsford.org/news/photos/vgarden/index.html
• Camp Stevens, Julian, CA
http://www.campstevens.org/about-us/organic-gardens
• St. Philip’s Church, Durham, NC
http://www.stphilipsdurham.org/pages/garden.htm
• Jericho Road Housing, New Orleans, LA http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_125779_ENG_HTM.htm

I’ve been plugging our new program for children in the United States, the Abundant Life Garden Project (www.er-d.org/children), to better understand God’s goodness and our global ministry of addressing root causes of hunger by helping people grow more nutritious food and in other ways.  We’ve been getting wonderful reports of U.S. congregations who are using the program in conjunction with their community garden efforts. 

One example is St. Andrew’s Episcopal in Pearland, Texas, which even got a local Lowe’s to donate a composter and materials to build raised garden beds. Jamie Martin Currie, the church’s Children's Minister, said, “I figured the 6th grade boys would enjoy sawing the wood, but I never imagined how much they would love planting! On Sunday, we used the water module to introduce the garden to the younger children. After they watered the plants, in order not to waste, they poured the leftover from their watering cans into the font for the baptism that day.”
 
I’m in Ghana for the next 10 days and I'm looking forward to seeing our programs promoting sustainable development in the Diocese of Tamale.  I will be with a group of Episcopalians led by the President of our House of Deputies, Canon Bonnie Anderson.  We're going to meet farmers  who with the help of the diocese are increasing the quantity and quality of their agricultural products:  maize, groundnuts (peanuts), soya beans, shea nuts, cow peas, goats, sheep, pigs and poultry, especially guinea fowl. 

Today, March 25, is the Feast of the Annunciation and appropriately, Canon Bonnie wrote today’s meditation in our 2011 Lenten devotional. She writes that, just as Gabriel brought a life-changing message to Mary, so it is our baptismal call to be “angels” of change and healing in the world. Partnering with the Church to help communities grow bigger and more nutritious crops is one way Episcopal Relief & Development is striving to fulfill the call.

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Brian Sellers-Petersen is Director of Church Engagement at Episcopal Relief & Development.

Photo: St. Andrews kids learn how many people around the world raise food to feed their families. Courtesy of Jamie Martin Currie.