Cultivating Neighborhood: Identifying Best Practices for Launching a Christ-Centered Community Garden

Why have so many churches started community gardens over the past decade? Are they simply a fad? Or do community gardens somehow connect more deeply with the mission of the churches that launch them? What can churches and faith-based institutions interested in starting community gardens learn from those that have started their own gardens over the past decade? And what would it mean for a church to put Christ in the center of its community gardening efforts? In order to discern best practices for launching Christ-centered community gardens moving forward, Cultivating Neighborhood begins with a brief survey of the history of community gardens in the United States and builds a constructive theological framework for community gardening grounded in the practice of Christian hospitality. It continues with two case studies of church-sponsored community gardens and one case study of a community garden sponsored by a Christian college, all three of which were created between 2003 and 2011. The results of this research conclude with a new definition of Christ-centered community gardening and an outline of fifteen best practices for launching a Christ-centered community garden. ""If every church and school had a garden, how different this world might be Cultivating Neighborhood reminds us that caring for a garden provides somethving that cannot be purchased at the grocery store: the satisfaction of eating food tended by our own hands. Jesus is the new Adam, and we are invited to tend and protect the garden, this earth. Highly recommended "" –Nancy Sleeth, author of Almost Amish Bryan K. Langlands is a church planter, campus minister, and instructor in the Religion Department at Georgetown College in Georgetown, KY. He is the editor of William H. Willimon's book, A Will to Lead and the Grace to Follow: Letters on Leadership from a Peculiar Prophet (2011).