Farming Church – Cultivating the Growing Environment

by Rev. Mark E. Tidsworth, Founder and Team Leader

Near us, right in the middle of suburbia USA, is a family-owned farm. Forty years ago this farm was located way out in the country on a lovely, rolling landscape. Given its pleasant geography and proximity to town, subdivisions and new roads grew up around this farm. Now it’s like an agrarian oasis in the suburban landscape.

Each of our three children has worked on this farm when off from school in the summers. Their involvement has allowed a non-farmer like me to grow acquainted with farming life. I’m amazed by how many varied tasks go into cultivating the growing environment. This farming family is always busy, engaging in some activity which ultimately contributes to the likelihood of a good harvest. Clearly farming is a year-round cultivation process, much as it has been since the time of Jesus.

As recorded in the gospels, Jesus was fond of describing the kingdom of God with agrarian-based analogies. As he traveled across the countryside from village to village, he encountered people who lived close to the land. They understood truths and insights drawn from their everyday experiences of farming. In Mark’s gospel Jesus describes the growing process.

“The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.” —Mark 4:26-29, NRSV

Mark’s gospel contains some parables and stories not found in the others, though Mark was written first. This parable is different than many others, describing the growing process. I don’t remember encountering many sermons or Bible studies on this parable. It’s more a description of how growth occurs, rather than a call to action for us disciples. Yet, the insights embedded in this parable illustrate the nature of adaptive change. Let’s harvest them, informing our cultivation work.

Farmers cannot force growth.

Among the early disciples were zealots; disciples who believed violently overthrowing the Roman Empire would force God’s hand toward bringing the reign of God to earth (kingdom). Biblical scholar Henry Turlington describes this well. “The kingdom is unlike the fanatical spirit of the Zealot. You cannot force the kingdom; you can only live according to its ways and share your understanding of God’s rule. The final outcome is with God. His times and seasons are beyond us.” 1 This parable confronts the zealots, clearly communicating the kingdom of God comes in God’s good time. Just like we cannot force plants to yield the harvest, we cannot force the kingdom of God to come in its fullness.

Adaptive leaders recognize that the kingdom of God has a life of its own. We are ultimately not in control of how much the kingdom is actualized in this world. Ever tried making a spiritual experience happen? We cannot “work up” authentic, genuine encounters with God. Instead, God gives these holy interaction experiences in God’s timing. The very same is true when it comes to actualizing the kingdom of God in this world through churches. We are not in charge of the growth which comes through participating in God’s movement. There is a Lord of the Harvest; who is not us.

Farmers’ role in the growing process is to cultivate growing environments.

So instead of producing growth, farmers cultivate growing environments. We have a distinct and clear role, yet we don’t directly produce change. Adaptive change comes when the environment is cultivated toward growth readiness. Even beyond our cultivation efforts, change has a life of its own. Farmers focus on what they can control; preparing and cultivating the growing environment. Not being a farmer myself, I’m at a loss when it comes to describing the varied and numerous tasks involved in preparing the growing environment. What little I know tells me this is more than a full time job. Farmers are working year round to prepare their farms for planting, growing and harvesting.

This is the vision we want adaptive leaders to catch – a vision for cultivating the growing environment.

When the church is ready to engage adaptive change, great progress flows. When not enough cultivation is done to ready the congregational soil, the seed will lie fallow. The great majority of adaptive leaders’ work takes place before particular changes are introduced. Positioning, cultivating, and preparing are the work of the adaptive leader.

Farmers act on faith in the intrinsic growth impulse embedded in the seeds.

Ultimately, farming is a grand act of faith. Farmers make a living trusting in something they cannot control, the growth process. They can cultivate excellent growing environments, yet they cannot guarantee the seeds will grow into a fruitful harvest. Ultimately, the growth process has a life of its own. Farmers are people of great faith, believing in the promise of the natural world.

This too is the bottom-line for adaptive leaders – faith. Imagine the faith it takes to step back, recognizing and accepting that we are not directly in charge of our congregation’s results. How much faith does it take to focus on the environment, the context in which growth can happen, rather than the change itself? How in the world do we manage to step back, tending to other duties, while the seed germinates and grows? Most leaders who are interested in adaptive change are not low-initiative people. They are ready to engage the process; initiating change. Christian mystic Henri Nouwen helps us along with a statement in a volume aptly named, Seeds Of Hope. “People who wait have received a promise that allows them to wait. They have received something that is at work in them, like a seed that has started to grow. This is very important. We can only really wait if what we are waiting for has already begun for us. So waiting is never a movement from nothing to something. It is always a movement from something to something more.” 2

Those who wait have received a promise which allows and empowers them to wait. Cultivating change in congregations is an act of faith. We believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We trust in the gospel’s life-giving power. We believe God will bring mission-congruent change, remaining faithful with God’s work in the change process. We have received a promise which allows us to wait.

By now, you can see why this farming analogy is so congruent with the work of cultivating adaptive change. Seventy-five percent of the work of leading change occurs before particular changes are even suggested. The condition of the growing environment is directly connected to the likelihood of the seed’s growth. Congregational ecosystems which are ready for change are far more likely to engage and integrate mission-congruent changes. So let’s embrace our roles in leading change in congregations, cultivating the growing environment, farming church.

NOTE – For more on cultivating adaptive change in congregations, see Mark’s book, Farming Church, from Pinnacle Leadership Press.

Notes

1 Henry E. Turlington, Broadman Bible Commentary: Mark (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1969, p.303.

2 Henri Nouwen, Seeds Of Hope (New York: Image Books By Doubleday, second edition, 1997), p. 157.