Talking Farming

Over the last five years, St John’s Methodist Church, Settle has found new ways to engage the farming community in conversation. They recently received their Eco-church Gold award* from A Rocha, a useful way of helping equip church congregations to focus on creation care as part of our worship and service.

As a rural market town located on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, it’s no surprise that the surrounding area is predominantly agricultural. The Settle Eco Group have been keen to engage with and listen to their wider community from the start, especially as ‘community & global engagement’ is one of the key areas of focus for the award.

Philip Taylor, church steward & Eco-group member at Settle, shares the journey so far and emphasizes how important it has been for the group to listen and engage with each local chapel in the circuit, especially those still fully integrated into their local agricultural community. So often we can read headlines, hear provocative news clips and assume binary opposing positions on issues where we actually have much more in common. Our local farmers can feel underappreciated when reading such clickbait headlines, when in fact our messaging around caring for creation & being good stewards are shared by, and are the main motivation of, family farmers. Finding common ground, listening to local concerns, engaging in robust conversations with grace, maintaining goodwill, are all practices demonstrating the Eco group’s commitment to becoming a beacon for creation care in the community.

After several years, this wider engagement resulted in St John’s hosting the third in their annual series of ‘Let’s talk…’ events. Let’s talk farming offered a fabulous line up of speakers and contributors – including local young farmers. An event for the whole community to come & learn about the challenges of farming & food production in the current climate. Grappling with the question ‘How can / should we value that which is local and which sustains so much of our rural economy?’

If your local church is exploring creation care, maybe you could engage sensitively and supportively with your wider community, including local food producers too. You never know where such listening & conversations may lead!

A final word from Philip: “A Rocha is an excellent organisation who help churches to 'walk the talk’ in a very prayerful way. I urge everyone to take a look at the Eco-church scheme and, at the very least, register with them.”

*To note: Eco-congregation is the equivalent scheme in Scotland

Sarah Hulme is the Rural mission & ministry officer for the Methodist Church who supports rural churches in their mission.