Spiritual Growth Through Gardening

First, an apology.  It's only the second day of Lent, and I didn't get a blog post.  In my defense, it was written on Thursday, but I was having issues getting it to format and post correctly, so I went to bed and posted it this morning.  Please forgive me.

My church recently purchased two properties behind our campus with the intent of eventually demolishing the houses and planting a community garden.  When this first of these properties became available to us at an almost unbelievable price, we considered purchasing it simply because of how inexpensive it was, with no real vision or purpose for the property.  While discussing the possibility of purchasing this land, our pastor read an article about community gardens, and while doing so developed a vision to see this property turned into our own community garden.  Now with a vision, we moved forward with the purchase.

While we had a vision for this newly acquired land adjacent to our boarders, we still didn’t have a firm plan as to how to move forward.  Very shortly after this, however, a new family came to our church with a passion and clear direction for a community garden.  God took a church with a vision for a garden, and a family with a plan for one, and married them together.  A few months later we were able to purchase the property next to the one we had already obtained, to give us two lots that we could develop.

While this project is still in its infancy (both houses are still standing) it is exciting to see how God is moving and how he has already moved in the project.  The thing that I am most excited about is the way that life transformation can come through a garden.

A community garden truly is a communal effort.  It will be built and maintained not only by members of the church, but also by people who live in the neighborhood around the garden.  The surrounding neighborhood is one of the poorest in one of the poorest areas in Columbus.  Almost all of the people who live on the street rent the houses they live in, and many of the houses are vacant and boarded up.  This is an area with very little hope, and gardening teaches hope.  When you plant something, it doesn’t appear the very next day, or even the day after.  Growth takes time, and you have to have hope that what you plant will eventually grow into a fruit of vegetable.  If you don’t have hope, you won’t take the steps necessary for growth.  You won’t pull the weeds, water the plant, or prune the branches.  If you have faith that what you planted will grow then you will put in the work necessary to aid in that process.  People who have no hope of ever improving their situation similarly won’t put in the work to make improvement happen.  If we can teach people hope, we can teach them to put in the necessary work to see their hope come to fruition.

The garden is an important motif throughout scripture.  Jesus even compares the spread of the gospel to a man who goes out to plant a garden.  Some of the seed he scatters is devoured by birds, some begins to grow but soon dies because it has no root structure, and some sprouts quickly but is choked out by weeds.  Some, however, falls on good soil where it grows and thrives, producing a harvest much greater than what was sown.  This is like the gospel where many will hear, and some will sprout up, but will quickly fall away because of the cares of the world or a lack of depth in their faith.  However, some will grow and thrive, and will even lead to a greater harvest as they take the message of the gospel that brought them life and share it with others.

 

Paul also speaks of spiritual growth in terms of a garden.  He talks about how some are called to plant seeds, some are called to water, but it is God’s Holy Spirit that causes growth.  We see this same principal at work in an actual garden.  We can plant a seed, water it, and do all of the necessary things for growth to happen, but we cannot make the plant grow.

Life is always seen as beginning in a garden in the Bible.  When God created man he placed him in a garden.  Jesus' resurrection happened in a tomb that was found in a garden.  Just as life appears anew in a garden every spring, new life in Christ comes through the garden.

I am excited to see the change that happens at my church and in my community in the coming months and years as we plant a garden together.