You know you may not consider yourself a green thumb and wonder how gardening has anything to do with a fitness lifestyle. After all the weight room, the group exercise studio and the church fitness class don’t look anything like a row of vegetables with garden tools. This conversation with Noah Sanders, founder of Redeeming The Dirt, will help you expand your view of great nutrition, vigorous exercise and how you can gain so much by doing gardening together with others. Listen to part 1 of our conversation and use the notes to guide you through it.
Gardening For Food, Fitness And Team Value – NOAH SANDERS – Part 1
1:30 Noah offers training programs unique for those in the United States at his farm in Alabama based off of the international Foundations For Farming program. He present 3 levels of training: Basic Gardening, Basic Homesteading and a Market Farming Class. Learn more about each and how they can help you advance from beginning gardener to being a producer of nutritious food who can lead others in skills and Christian fellowship.
5:20 Discover some of the players in today’s faith-centered gardening movement who have a heart for the poor and a desire to honor God through agriculture.
7:25 All kinds of churches are doing gardening as a way to more fully live out their faith practically in their communities. Learn about Pastor Craig Canfield from Eagles Nest Worship Center in Naples, Florida. He attended Noah’s conference and was so passionate he said he could, “taste the adrenaline”. They started their garden ministry in 2015. In 2021 under the leadership of Scott & Beth Sherman this ministry is growing stronger.
11:40 You can do a small scale garden ministry and be effective. In fact that’s exactly what Noah does. In today’s world it’s not size that astounds people. Current agriculture does size really well. The people who are getting the press are the ones who are making $100,000 dollars off of an acre without a tractor. It’s not about how much you do it’s about how well you do it. That’s what God blesses. Profit comes from faithfulness not acquisition.
14:20 Envision the possibilities: Community garden, farmers market – the possibilities and opportunities are endless. Hear about one pastor who resigned his post so he could intern at a farm and buy property especially to do garden ministry. It is a beautiful example of how to disciple people in ways beyond the typical church model.
16:00 Cast the vision to those in fitness that this is GOOD physical work for your body that is very fulfilling. Gardening has a physical side that is healthy for you and a nutritional side that is more affordable than buying at a store like]Whole Foods. There’s scientific evidence that when we’re connected with our food like this our bodies receive it better – digest it better.
18:30 Learn how you can garden both sustainably AND financially viable. In other words do what you will enjoy and do what makes sense for your market.
23:20 One gardening model is a FAMILY TEAM model rather than a corporate structure. That can include partnering with other families. Noah’s goal is to model what a family economy can handle. This model is for those who want to wake in the morning not to manage people but to simply manage a family.
25:10 A CHURCH TEAM model may be more like a small group Bible study group that has a demonstration garden and community training approach. This [should] lead to setting up and teaching a very just system. Sometimes in our desire to create good “community” there is no ownership of responsibilities or of product – the fruit of the labor. When you don’t have ownership you can’t have generosity. You can’t give away what doesn’t belong to you – either time or resources. When you don’t have a just system in place you can’t show mercy. So for the church team model it’s important to set up a just system not because we don’t want to help each other but because we DO want to help each other. This teaches the Bible model of going the extra mile.
27:45 Noah has some advice for those doing CrossFit and those who participate in Faith Rxd who may want to use gardening as a way to strengthen authentic community and unite and strengthen the fitness community to live for Christ. Gardening is a great way to Engage, Equip and Expand. You do gardening as a faith-centered lifestyle.
30:20 Gardening is a form of outreach and teaching others the ways of God. It can be more than just giving people skills it can help them to be more equipped in God. It’s not preachy it’s simply being continually faithful to gardening basics and doing the practical. It helps people transform their perspective.
35:15 There isn’t any specific formula for how to do this. See how gardening ministry is ultimately about relationship and having a heart for others. This is a tool to live out your faith, empower others to live out their faith and then to help them share that forward.
This conversation with Noah Sanders, founder of Redeeming The Dirt, was recorded to give you fresh insights into the potential of gardening ministry. Be sure to go to his website for his latest updates and to get your copy of his book, Born-Again Dirt. All of us here at Lifestyle Media Group want to help you redefine how you do faith so that you can make God central to every part of your daily lifestyle. Use the CONTACT US link for more information on gardening and to get personalized support in growing your own gardening ministry.
