Confirmed speakers for this conference include: Fred Bahnson Fred is a writer and co-founder of Anathoth Community Garden Fred's talks: Friday Oct. 29: Lords, Priests, and Lovers or Three Ways to Become a Master Gardener If, according to Genesis, our human vocation is to “serve and preserve” the fertile soil, what roles are best suited for that task? Using stories from his time at Anathoth Community Garden, Bahnson will look at why each of us should reclaim our role as Lords (after taking a fresh look at the “dominion” language in Genesis), Priests (learning how to offer the gifts of the world to others and back to God), and Lovers (think charitas here more than eros), and how each of those roles can best be learned in a garden. Saturday Oct. 30: The 2050 Scenario—Peak Oil, Peak Food, Peak…Church? A tour of the future. The earth is changing before our eyes, and the BP oil spill is but a symptom of larger problems we increasingly face. Far from a depressing field-guide to the apocalypse, our tour will look realistically at those challenges, particularly food production and energy use, and then take a hopeful turn (the biblical kind of hope, which differs from naďve optimism) and ask what role the church must play in transitioning to a less oil-dependent future. Included with your ticket: free tour of incredible urban gardens from Havana to Brooklyn to Cedar Grove. Martin Price Martin is the former Director of Educational Concerns For Hunger Organization (ECHO) in Ft. Myers, FL. Martin's talks: Friday Oct. 29: Introduction to ECHO and their mission: ECHO (Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization) is a non-profit, inter-denominational Christian organization located on a demonstration farm in North Fort Myers, FL. ECHO exists for one major reason, to help those working internationally with the poor be more effective, especially in the area of agriculture! We do this in three ways: "Education and Training," "Innovative Options" and "Networking." ECHO's philosophy is that God has created a world that is rich with resources that can make life a blessing to all people. Mankind's study of creation and how to work with it has led to incredible improvements in our personal lives. But few of those benefits come to the poorest of the poor. That is because most benefits of science require that either we or our government pay for them. What would science (or other professions) look like if we approached it with the criterion that its benefits must be readily available to people who can pay nothing or very little for whatever we come up with? Saturday Oct. 30: Growing Food on Rooftops and Other Hard-to-Grow Places: There is a growing movement today of people interested in knowing more about where their food comes from and how they can be personally involved in urban agriculture as ministry —especially in settings where there are limited opportunities to garden in the soil. For 27 years, ECHO has worked on creative methods to garden where there is no soil, using primarily recycled materials and keeping costs to a level that makes the methods accessible to the extremely poor. We will survey these methods and discuss the creativity involved in finding these sort of growing solutions. Sean Gladding Sean is a member of the Communality community in Lexington, KY and author of the new book THE STORY OF GOD, THE STORY OF US. Watch a short video featuring Sean talking about food and salvation. Friday Oct. 29 (Evening Session): Topic: The Story of Creation Sean will do some storytelling and will invite us to participate in reflective exercises on the scriptural story in which we find ourselves. Claudio Oliver Claudio lives in Curitiba, Southern Brazil and has been working with urban poor, young people and communities for 25 years. In 2011, Claudio and others will be launching an International Learning Community based on spirituality, organic farming, dialogue and mentoring on a small farm. Watch a short video about some of Claudio's community and economic development work. Saturday Oct. 30 (Opening Session): Topic: TBA Ragan Sutterfield Ragan is a farmer/writer from Little Rock, Arkansas, and author of FARMING AS A SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE. Friday Oct. 29 (Opening Session): Humility: Spiritual Discipline for an Age of Pride: Humility is literally being close to the earth. It is the means of taking on our true nature as human beings, creatures created from the humus. Farming and gardening offer practices for developing humility by making us live in the truth that we are limited and dependent beings. Farming as a spiritual discipline was a key theme of the "God Speed the Plough" conference in 2008 and this talk will serve as a bridge between that conference and "A Rooted People." Workshop Leaders and Topics Mary Bowling / Josh Bowling (Indianapolis) - "Starting / Running a Food Cooperative" Mary and Josh are members of Englewood Christian Church, who are also on the board of the Indy Food Co-op. They will discuss their experiences launching a food co-op, and hopefully this workshop will include a visit to the newly opened co-op on E. 10th St. Angela Herrmann (Indianapolis, IN) - Topic: "Grow food ... create an ecosystem!" What does it take to produce food and fiber sustainably? How can biodiversity—in your back yard or on your farm—contribute to bountiful harvests? When is a weed not a weed? Find out how agroecology practices can turn your yard, community garden, or urban farm into a flourishing ecosystem that produces food. Angela is an Indianapolis-area advanced master gardener who spent the past summer in a Goshen College agroecology immersion program, studying and working on a farm. Herrmann is the former coordinator of environmental education and advocacy for one of the ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She has launched a community gardening resource for the city, http://www.indygrowsgardens.org/. Eddy Hopkins, et al ( Harvest Farm - Wellington, CO) - "Case Studies in Cross-Pollinating the Church and Agriculture" The now defunct Mercy Farms, and its present-day expression Harvest Farm – two communities of the same 100 acre plot of land – are experiments in Christian agrarianism. Mercy Farms was a commune for Christian fundamentalists that lasted for 16 years before it folded. Still operating after 20 years, Harvest Farm, part of the rescue mission movement, addresses homelessness through a residential addiction recovery program that includes farming. The story of these two communities helps inform imaginations fired by the cross-pollination of Church and agriculture. Their histories are anything but ideal, frequently inscrutable, and sometimes tragic. On the other hand, souls have been nurtured on that land, sometimes in spite of the plans of the souls living on it. This workshop seeks to sketch the stories of these two communities and draw some practical wisdom for the sake of those interested in such places. Ryan Koch (Seedleaf - Lexington, KY) - "Nourishing Communities Through Community Gardens" Seedleaf is a young non-profit organization in Lexington dedicated to nourishing communities by growing, cooking, sharing, and recycling food. Executive Director Ryan Koch will share from his experience of the many failures and a few successes Seedleaf has overseen in gardens over the past three years. He'll also show numerous photographs of children in gardens, as that seems to be a crowd-pleaser. Claudio Oliver (Curitiba, Brazil) - Topic: TBA Ragan Sutterfield (See bio above) - "Creating Urban Agronomic Universities" Catholic Worker Peter Maurin called for rural agricultural communities that would become centers of sanity in a world gone mad. Taking this idea as a starting place, we will explore how we might recover the skills necessary to live with greater local interdependence and escape the controlling forces of global capitalism. As an example, we will learn how to preserve food without freezing or canning. More workshop leaders and topics TBA... [ HOME ] [ ABOUT ] [ SPEAKERS ] [ HOSPITALITY ] [ SCHEDULE ] [ REGISTER ]