Growing a Garden Grows Faith

I think this is the way the church, a faith community, is supposed to work.  People started paying attention.  They paid attention to the needs of the community and they paid attention to the resources and gifts they had.  What should we do with the big open space by the church where the grass never really took off?  To be truthful, it is an eyesore, growing more weeds than anything else that have to be mowed down.  What about using the space for a garden and donating the food to the local food bank?

            

There were all kinds of reasons why that would not work.  How are we going to get water to the garden?  How are we going to get enough volunteers?  How are we going to pay for the materials to construct the garden beds?  What about a fence?  Those were all practical concerns, but the concern to do something was stronger (or perhaps the Spirit working in the community was stronger?!)

            

And so people donated money and showed up on a Sunday afternoon to build garden beds.  The engineers in the congregation figured out the watering system.  Even the Boy Scouts got involved, constructing more beds as part of an Eagle Scout project.  Lo and behold, we had a garden!  And people noticed; people driving by; people walking in the neighborhood; people throughout the community.  They noticed the church doing something!

            

We were living out faith in such a simple way – growing food for the hungry.  As the vegetables grew so did the faith of those who worked the soil and harvested the vegetables and took them to the food bank; so did the faith of the community seeing that we can make a difference.  Isn’t that what the church is all about?

Susan Candea, pastor

King of Glory Lutheran Church

 Loveland, CO