This weekend, our church bid farewell to another pillar of the community: a young woman, headed back to her roots in Colorado. Three weeks previously, she was preceded by another young family who moved to rural Scotland. Of course, it's sad for our church to lose such integral members -- and they will certainly be missed -- but then again, the church here has always found a way to persevere, and I'm really not the least bit worried about our ability to bounce back from these losses. If anything, it seems to me that these types of circumstances should be expected, considering that our church is quite international and largely made up of twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings: a transitory population if ever there was one.

One thing that I find quite unexpected, however, is a curious trend connecting (or contrasting) church planting and organic farming. Believe it or not: there have been at least four families (eight adults, plus eleven kids) that I know of who have transitioned from international, urban, church-planting in Amsterdam to local, rural, organic farming (at varying levels) in other parts of the world. That's something like a full quarter of those who have been a significant part of our church for a signficant period of time, and then eventually moved on! It seems like a disproportionate coincidence, doesn't it? So I've recently been wondering what really drives this phenomenon.

The conclusions that I've come to are that organic farming appeals to people who have been involved with our church in Amsterdam because (1) it's surprisingly similar, and (2) it's drastically different.

It's similar in that it's meaningful work, on-the-grond and down-to-earth, and it feels remarkably biblical (especially when you can combine it with interpersonal ministry, as a number of these families are doing). But it also seems like there's an appeal in its marked distinction from urban ministry -- because you can get out of the "concrete canyons" of central Amsterdam, you can see the sky and feel the dirt, and you can see tangible results from your labors which are not always so easy to come by when you're working with people's lives. I can especially relate with the appeal of this "tangible results" factor. Even though I've never particularly pined for the life of an organic farmer, I can understand why the attraction of working with natural dynamics more than interpersonal dynamics. Working with people is always messy and never finished. It's really difficult to look at one's ministry and be able to clearly discern the "results" of a day's work -- or a year's work, or whatever! Yes, there are little triumphs along the way: conversions, baptisms, weddings, and baby dedications... But these are still not "tangible" results in the same way that a vine-ripened butternut squash or a hand-picked raspberry jam is! I'm not complaining; I'm just noticing.

I don't know for sure if these are the reasons that there seems to be such a correlation between church planting and organic farming... but it's the best explanation I can come up with. For myself, I'm perfectly happy to "bloom where I'm planted." But I also wish my friends much success in their new endeavors... I just hope they might send me a jar of home-made, self-preserved raspberry jam sometime, by which to remember them.