God's House of Many Faces: The Church Plant.... plants!

So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building. (1 Cor. 3:7-9)

This summer, our church has taken on the responsibility of gardening a plot of land right in the middle of the neighborhood, in the community gardens that Jacob's Well has been gardening for the last few years. We will be taking responsibility for managing and lending out this garden space starting this fall.

It has been exciting to watch together as our tomatoes, potatoes, onions, squash, beets, carrots, corn, zucchini, chard, beans, and cucumbers sprout up. There are also plenty of blackberries to pick and eat! At a recent BBQ in the garden, the kids ran around asking what vegetable each plant was growing, and were delighted when they could sample them. We have loved being able to welcome avid gardeners from the neighborhood to come and help us out, and we've enjoyed hanging with our friends at the Servants Community, who live next door to one of the gardens. We've even made headway at driving out most the rats that have plagued these gardens in past summers.

There is a lot of hope in gardening, and a lot of richness in distributing and enjoying the flavor of food we've planted and watered and weeded and pulled with our own hands, on our own turf. Of course, it's God who's grown it for us, and we're grateful for the sun and the (little bit of) rain and the potential He put in those seeds. We look forward to more chances to connect with friends and neighbors over God's creation. Here's to many, many more harvests!