Posted 43 days ago
Planting Post-Conference Mustard Seeds
by Penny Carothers, Burnside Writers Collective
Earlier this month hundreds of people gathered in Seattle for the New Conspirators conference. Most of us had longings we did not know what to do with, and some, ideas for how to move forward. We came to learn, connect, and imagine new ways of engaging the challenges facing the church, the poor, and the planet. We listened as leaders and conspirators communicated their vision and activities for creating new expressions of discipleship, community, church, and mission. We took it all in, and at the end of the conference, imagined (or re-imagined) how we would go forth to be a difference and make a difference.
The following are three stories of how people have taken their mustard seed of an idea to begin to change their world.
Creating Urban Garden Plots in Austin, Texas
Steven Hebbard is a schoolteacher in Austin, Texas. But like all of us, he is so much more. Steven’s after-school persona seems at first like an oxymoron: he is an urban farmer-entrepreneur. For some time he has wanted to start an agriculturally-based community in the inner city. With this in mind, since the conference, he has been taking seriously Tom Sine’s encouragement to be led not by “what to do in the world,” but instead by the vision of the good life of God. Steven is seeking a vision of life that is big enough for the various cries of his heart—living in intentional community with fellow believers, connecting to the earth, his neighbors, and the poor, and having a place to teach others about God and the Faith.
Since early March many of the pieces of this vision have come together. The hand of God is all over it: an ace student did not get into any of the PhD programs he selected, so he and his wife will stay in Austin and help form the community, and Steven recently met two others who moved to Austin to do just this. This August, these five Jesus-loving, food-loving, lay student servants to the poor will be moving into the inner-city of East Austin. They are currently discussing next steps, including: what sort of prayer rhythm should we have? What should our purpose be? Where should we live? Soon, they will be starting a one-year test to see if this is what they are truly called to. And then, who knows where it will go from there?
In the meantime this group is looking into cultivating five abandoned plots in the neighborhood, making them into organic gardens. They can eat part of the produce and sell the rest at the Farmers Market, developing a kind of community co-op of local (urban), mostly organic farmers. They want to use the money from the food sales to throw block parties, host dinners, or help those in need.
Steven is also considering transforming his current garden into a chicken and fish farm, based on the idea presented in Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy. This would entail putting chicken coops on floating devices that are suspended above a fish pond. Apparently, the chicken poop is great food for the fish. The only real question is: who will eat the fish?
Any takers?
Connecting with the Homeless
Nancy Shadlock has been roaming for almost a year, trying to find her way. After quitting her job as a youth pastor, planting trees for a summer, and visiting Camden House in Camden, New Jersey, she ended up at The New Conspirators conference in her trusty car, which had been her home base for a while.
When Nancy came to the conference in Seattle last month she was accompanied by Isaiah 58, and particularly the verse that called her to spend herself on behalf of the hungry, poor and naked. She could not get it out of her head, but did not know what to do about it. Unwittingly, during the conference somebody else took care of it for her. In Seattle, she stayed with fellow conference attendees who lived a few blocks from the church where it took place. On Friday night, after a full day of learning and fellowship, she went back to find the house locked and dark, and no one responded to her knocks. After a few minutes, she gave up and found the hidden key to her car. She sat in it for half an hour and journaled on the day’s events (including her discussions with some cool homeless people), waiting for her hosts to arrive.
But they did not come home. Where we they? Inside? So she tried to break into the house—and still no luck. In the blowing cold, she walked back to the church to find the doors locked and the lights off there as well.
And that was it.
She lost it—just started bawling. But she sensed God telling her that He wanted her to experience the fullness of this feeling, to know what it feels like to have nowhere to go to get warm and no one to call for help. She called it a crazy helpless feeling that gave her a whole new appreciation for the homeless she did not want to help because she feels called to the poor “in spirit.”
Finally, after she had given up on her hosts ever arriving and was setting up her sleeping bag in the back of her car, they came home. And in a way, Nancy had been abandoned: they had forgotten their guest and gone to a pub to debrief.
This experience gave her more resolve than ever to truly reach out to the homeless she finds in her path. After leaving the conference her next stop was Vancouver. As she was taking a walk she came upon a homeless man asking for money. So she invited him to church. He said he might come later, so she gave him the address and invited him to dinner afterward.
And to Nancy’s surprise, he actually showed up. Nancy and her friends were able to hold a celebratory meal for this man, Travis, who was three-days sober and on his way to enroll in rehab.
This seemingly insignificant event—inviting a homeless man to church—led to a renewal of her faith. In her words: she now feels able to keep inviting homeless people out for coffee no matter how many times she is rejected, to keep looking for ways that God is at work and where she can help, to keep the faith that there are others out there who want to help as well, and that there is hope in this world and that God is still in control.
Living it out in the Suburbs
“What if you don’t find community at church?”
Melanie Goodnow related this question as she talked about her experience living and worshiping in a medium-sized church in a small suburb of Sacramento. The disappointment and desire that are expressed in this question were the motivation for Melanie and her husband Tom to dig deep into their relationships and begin to ask hard questions of their life and the lifestyles they saw around them.
For the last five years, the Goodnows have lived in Elk Grove, California, with their four kids. For about the length of time they have called this area home, the couple has been learning about intentional living and monastic communities, motivated by the desire to live a life that more accurately reflects their values and those of the Kingdom.
But it is not an easy row to hoe. They live in an area that is one of the hardest hit by the mortgage crisis and a significant number of their neighbors are mortgaged much beyond their means. Into this “bedroom community” Tom and Melanie are bringing their desires and questions about how to be in community, and in turn, challenging their neighbors and church members to consider alternatives to the lifestyles that have led to so much stress and heartache.
As home-schoolers, one of the things Tom and Melanie value is including their kids in spirituality and the daily life. Tied into a church-series that is using Rick Warren’s books to emphasize community, they are leading a group in which kids are an integral part of the gathering. They are asking some of the more challenging questions of their group, like, what does community mean? Does a small group like this, that meets once a week, really constitute community? In this way, they are exploring what it really means to invest in other’s lives.
Melanie is also working on developing a daily rhythm of prayer, work, and rest using the liturgical calendar. Some challenges to this are the obvious problem of her kids’ many needs, activities and “rhythms” taking over, but she is hoping to work through that by integrating liturgy and the church calendar into her kids’ curriculum. She will bring it home for them (and herself) by helping them to see and touch and feel the rhythms of grace that have brought life to so many throughout the centuries.
In their questioning, creating, and sharing with others, Tom and Melanie are bringing the Kingdom into the ‘burbs by choosing to live differently, and inviting others by their example.
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