Wednesday, December 9, 2009 at 12:35PM The New York Times wrote a nice article on Will Allen and his organization, Growing Power, back in July. Check it out by clicking here. Again, this article provides a glimpse of what we hope Urban Farms will become one day.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 2:13PM For a vision of what Urban Farms could one day become in Memphis, check out this video of an organization called Growing Power, in Milwaukee WI. Will Allen the Founder and Executive Director of Growing Power was recently given a MacArthur Genius Award for his work in sustainable agriculture, using low cost hoop houses and aquaponic systems to raise fish and grow vegetables in the city. Watch this short video clip to get a better idea of where we are going.
Monday, November 30, 2009 at 11:04AM
Dear Friends,
Never in my life have I written a blog entry this long. My wife, Kim, said that I should shorten it because no one actually reads any more. Here is to hoping that she is wrong. I am writing this for a dual purpose: as a year end update and as a request for your support for a new project, called Urban Farms, that we are undertaking.
In October our church, Christ Community Church, celebrated its seven year anniversary. I tend to be very hard on myself and on those around me. I can be overly critical at times. Over the past seven years I have often felt like Kim and I were just spinning our wheels in urban ministry. How refreshing it was to step back and take an opportunity to give thanks to God for what he has done over the last seven years. We have seen our initial church of ten grow to five house churches serving 150 people. We have seen the commitment to incarnational ministry grow with over 30 families relocating to Binghampton for the purpose of living out their faith in Jesus Christ among the urban poor. We have also made a large commitment to starting churches and making disciples internationally, sending nine missionaries from our church to North Africa, India, and China for long term service. In September we also sent two families to Billings, Montana to live among the urban poor and to start a church there.
Unlike when we first begun seven years ago, our churches now reflect the demographics of our community. Two of our house churches have bilingual services in English and Swahili. We have many Burundi refugee families as a part of our church who are growing in their faith and in their leadership ability. Two of these families have started their own business together and are in the process of purchasing their own homes. We have seen more youth from our community participating in house church as well. They too have exhibited leadership potential and are growing in their faith. It is a tremendous blessing to be part of such a richly diverse church.
In the middle of this abundant blessing, Kim and I have experienced one of the most stressful years of our life. In February, we brought our second adopted child, Grace, home from Thailand. Apparently, she did not want to leave her beautiful tropical surroundings. She cried...or rather screamed...for three days straight. She was unconsolable. Thai women would stare at us and on a few occasions would take Grace into their arms. Immediately she would stop crying, which only increased our stress and feelings of inadequacy. I am happy to say that as this year comes to a close Grace has bonded with Kim, Caleb and I and has grown increasingly secure and confident. She is an incredible addition to our family.
We also moved to a new house in Binghampton this year. After living in an 800 square foot home for the past seven years, we were ready for more space to accommodate our growing family. We were able to build a new home with the help of the Binghampton Development Corporation last April. We can host house church in our home again, and Caleb has a big back yard where he can practice baseball, football, soccer, track and field...you get the picture don’t you.
Again with these blessings came great challenges. We said goodbye to neighbors that we had grown to love. We feel like we are starting over to establish relationships in our community. Our new neighborhood is much rougher than where we lived before. We are struggling to know how God wants us to respond to the recent drug trafficking that we have witnessed on our street. We are wrestling to know what it means “to love our enemies and to pray for those that are persecuting us.”
The increased stress has lead to increased health problems for both of us, resulting in severe headaches for Kim and stomach aches for me. Several months ago I told Kim that I was very interested in starting a garden in our back yard as a way for me to relax. I wanted to work on something where I would see tangible results. Urban ministry can be taxing, and this year particularly has taken its toll on Kim and I. Spiritual fruit comes slowly. My hope is that gardening will help me to reconnect with the symbolism of spiritual growth that is so abundant in the Bible, sowing and reaping a harvest, enjoying the fruit of labor.
As we started preparing for next year’s Spring garden, God began to reveal himself to us in a new way. Jeremiah 29:5-7 has always been a very important verse for our family, “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters...seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” It seems that God has helped us to live out this passage in a very literal way this year, building a new house, planting a garden, and adopting a daughter, all within the context of a hostile environment that does not always embrace our Christian values.
As I have taken steps toward building our garden, I have felt God leading me to garden not only for myself, but for the welfare of our community. In September Kim and I attended the Christian Community Development Conference in Cincinnati, OH. We heard stories from people all across the country who were developing urban gardens to improve food access in disadvantaged neighborhoods. At the closing plenary session, Shane Claiborne spoke about different models of redistribution, ways to share our resources with the poor, for the purpose of empowerment and promoting healthy communities. He shared the story of Will Allen, a former NBA player and recent MacArthur genius award winner, who started a three acre urban farm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to improve food access to the urban poor. Will has developed a method for growing vegetables and raising fish in a very small space using hoop houses constructed from plastic and aluminum. For a short video clip on his organization, and a vision of what we hope to accomplish one day, check out this youtube link.
So why am I telling you all of this? Hold on I am getting to it, but first one more story from our church. About a month ago our house church started discussing tithing and stewardship. In an attempt to better understand how God wants each of us to invest our resources in his kingdom, we decided to live out the parable of the talents from Matthew 25:14-30.
In the story, a nobel man gives three months salary (“a talent”) to each of his servants. He tells his servants to be faithful with his money while he is gone. He returns years later, having inherited a great kingdom. To those servants who were faithful with the money that was entrusted to them, the nobel man rewards them with greater responsibility in his kingdom. The servant who was a poor steward of the money is chastised for his disobedience.
As we thought about what God was teaching us through this story, we realized that we needed to be better stewards of God’s resources by blessing our community and bringing glory to God! In order to better understand our role as stewards of the blessings of God, we took $2500 from the church’s account and distributed $100 to each person in the house church. Each person was given 3-4 months to pray and ask God how to use the money that had been entrusted to us. In a couple of months we will all come back together to share our stories of stewardship.
In praying about what to do with the $100 that was entrusted to me, I have decided to use the money as “seed money” to start a small business that will eventually propagate urban gardens throughout the Binghampton neighborhood. Sound ambitious? I need your help to make this work. I have used my initial $100 to print 100 copies of this letter, to purchase stamps and self addressed stamped envelopes. I am sending this letter to you as an appeal for funding Urban Farms. We are trying to raise $10,000 to build a green house on a vacant lot that was recently loaned to us by the Binghampton Development Corporation. If you are interested in supporting us in this project, you can use the donate now button on the right side bar. Even a gift as small as two dollars will double our initial investment and will move us closer to our goal.
I really believe that this is not just a random idea, but is a vision born out of God’s love and concern for our community. This is not just a church project, but a part of God’s plan for our lives that has been unfolding throughout this past year. Ultimately this small business will be a tremendous blessing to our community and city. By starting several hoop houses in prominent places throughout Binghampton we hope to raise awareness of the benefits of urban farming, provide employment opportunities for community residents, improve the overall food delivery system in our neighborhood, and most importantly communicate God’s love in a tangible way to our neighbors.
So the “seed” has been planted. We hope that you will help us to bear much fruit by supporting us in this project.
