barnhart wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 11:09 amI don't have a problem with Anabaptists farming but I suspect more thought could go into creating communities where that don't need that as an economic and cultural base.
I'm looking for examples of multi-generational communities of faithfulness to Christ that are not based on agriculture, fishing, hunting, etc. Quite a number of us are experimenting but we haven't found any good models yet. Once you are anyone else has it figured it out, we will be glad to have you all come share at our annual Church Planters Forum that is comprised of non-farmers.
1 x
A wee little man can’t say, I’m sorry. A big man owns his mistakes and apologizes.
A wee little man trusts himself and his own discernment. A big man is humble enough to know that he needs the counsel and input of others.
Having a completely nonagrarian church community probably needs to be modeled a little differently than the traditional ways church and community are practiced. I do not know how that should look, but I think in theory it should be possible. Some people like Ernie probably have a better idea. But an actual community interacting on a daily basis (more than 1 time per week) I believe is essential and nonnegotiable.
And more about the farming thing, I think we need to not stop gardening and practicing agrarian lifestyles, even if we don't live on a farm. Something is lost if we lose that natural connection to our food and sustenance.
barnhart wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 11:09 amI don't have a problem with Anabaptists farming but I suspect more thought could go into creating communities where that don't need that as an economic and cultural base.
I'm looking for examples of multi-generational communities of faithfulness to Christ that are not based on agriculture, fishing, hunting, etc. Quite a number of us are experimenting but we haven't found any good models yet. Once you are anyone else has it figured it out, we will be glad to have you all come share at our annual Church Planters Forum that is comprised of non-farmers.
The church where I was born was almost completely farmers but by the time I was a teenager it was down to two or maybe three where it has stayed until now. These are rational responses to macroeconomic trends, in that region farming has become an industrial pursuit, the few farms that remain are increasingly big and prohibitively expensive.
barnhart wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 11:09 amI don't have a problem with Anabaptists farming but I suspect more thought could go into creating communities where that don't need that as an economic and cultural base.
I'm looking for examples of multi-generational communities of faithfulness to Christ that are not based on agriculture, fishing, hunting, etc. Quite a number of us are experimenting but we haven't found any good models yet. Once you are anyone else has it figured it out, we will be glad to have you all come share at our annual Church Planters Forum that is comprised of non-farmers.
The church where I was born was almost completely farmers but by the time I was a teenager it was down to two or maybe three where it has stayed until now. These are rational responses to macroeconomic trends, in that region farming has become an industrial pursuit, the few farms that remain are increasingly big and prohibitively expensive.
So it had nothing to do with farmers not wanting to change their style of farming, the products they produce, not wanting to be tied down to a farm, or not being interested in switching to a kind of farming that required more manual labor?
0 x
A wee little man can’t say, I’m sorry. A big man owns his mistakes and apologizes.
A wee little man trusts himself and his own discernment. A big man is humble enough to know that he needs the counsel and input of others.
From the way some people talk, eventually the only worthwhile professions will be in sales, finance, real estate, and insurance. Everything else “isn’t profitable” and is a career with “no future”.
Particularly farming. Sometimes I wonder what some people eat.
barnhart wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 11:09 amI don't have a problem with Anabaptists farming but I suspect more thought could go into creating communities where that don't need that as an economic and cultural base.
I'm looking for examples of multi-generational communities of faithfulness to Christ that are not based on agriculture, fishing, hunting, etc. Quite a number of us are experimenting but we haven't found any good models yet. Once you are anyone else has it figured it out, we will be glad to have you all come share at our annual Church Planters Forum that is comprised of non-farmers.
The church where I was born was almost completely farmers but by the time I was a teenager it was down to two or maybe three where it has stayed until now. These are rational responses to macroeconomic trends, in that region farming has become an industrial pursuit, the few farms that remain are increasingly big and prohibitively expensive.
So basically it was the inability of the small farm operation to compete with the 'industrialized' approach of the super farms? (What I described as 'old world farming' in an earlier comment is basically 'subsistence farming'. My grandpa never got past that traditional attitude or way of life. Born in 1904, and passed away at 68 years of age.)
Ernie wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 4:53 pm
I'm looking for examples of multi-generational communities of faithfulness to Christ that are not based on agriculture, fishing, hunting, etc. Quite a number of us are experimenting but we haven't found any good models yet. Once you are anyone else has it figured it out, we will be glad to have you all come share at our annual Church Planters Forum that is comprised of non-farmers.
The church where I was born was almost completely farmers but by the time I was a teenager it was down to two or maybe three where it has stayed until now. These are rational responses to macroeconomic trends, in that region farming has become an industrial pursuit, the few farms that remain are increasingly big and prohibitively expensive.
So basically it was the inability of the small farm operation to compete with the 'industrialized' approach of the super farms? (What I described as 'old world farming' in an earlier comment is basically 'subsistence farming'. My grandpa never got past that traditional attitude or way of life. Born in 1904, and passed away at 68 years of age.)
Ernie wrote: ↑Sun Sep 27, 2026 4:53 pm
I'm looking for examples of multi-generational communities of faithfulness to Christ that are not based on agriculture, fishing, hunting, etc. Quite a number of us are experimenting but we haven't found any good models yet. Once you are anyone else has it figured it out, we will be glad to have you all come share at our annual Church Planters Forum that is comprised of non-farmers.
The church where I was born was almost completely farmers but by the time I was a teenager it was down to two or maybe three where it has stayed until now. These are rational responses to macroeconomic trends, in that region farming has become an industrial pursuit, the few farms that remain are increasingly big and prohibitively expensive.
So it had nothing to do with farmers not wanting to change their style of farming, the products they produce, not wanting to be tied down to a farm, or not being interested in switching to a kind of farming that required more manual labor?
There were "failed" farmers who truly wanted to carry on but eventually found other employment, often for the purpose of paying off farm debt. The one survivor has experimented with different types of high value, intense labor crops like vegetables, melons, greenhouses etc...
The community in Virginia I grew up in had a number of farmers. Almost none of those farms survived except one, which was successfully able to reimagine, along with some produce, as a sort or "tourist" operation for berry picking, corn mazes, etc...as the city grew up close to it.
I think in almost every case the farmers would have loved to have been able to continue farming (dairy) if they could have done so and made a living.
joshuabgood wrote: ↑Mon Sep 28, 2026 9:53 am
The community in Virginia I grew up in had a number of farmers. Almost none of those farms survived except one, which was successfully able to reimagine, along with some produce, as a sort or "tourist" operation for berry picking, corn mazes, etc...as the city grew up close to it.
I think in almost every case the farmers would have loved to have been able to continue farming (dairy) if they could have done so and made a living.
In Georgia there are less than 70 dairy farms in the entire state and they average over 1,200 milking cows. In South Carolina they are down to less than 30 dairy operations. Google seems to think there were between 1,000 and 1,200 in Georgia the year I was born.
If you want to bring back small scale ag in the rural south, I think it would require a lot government intervention, like reducing property tax to nearly nothing on land dedicated to small agriculture, reducing income tax to nearly nothing on agriculture goods, especially sold locally. Let local municipalities regulate food safety on goods produced and sold in their region.
