Great Commission in Community: What a Garden Can Teach Us About Mission

Question: How do gardening and agriculture fit into the mission?

Robin: We teach gardening workshops aimed at helping families grow sustainable food on small plots of land, minimizing inputs while maximizing output.

We focus on vegetable farming because that’s often the missing part of good nutrition. A lot of communities can source their carbohydrates and they can find protein in beans and other things. But getting vitamins and minerals from vegetables is really helpful for their immune system and preventing disease. Vegetable gardens can be an income source as well. 

We also teach composting—how we can turn waste sources into a way of renewing the soil, and also an alternative fertilizer. And we also teach how to build raised garden beds, which helps with the compact clay soil and makes growing vegetables easier in rainy and dry seasons.

Everyone gets an irrigation kit too, and we train them on how to install and care for it. We combine those things, as well as teachings in nutrition and pest management, so they really get a more holistic opportunity for them to learn sustainable gardening.

The Bible was written to an agrarian people. So we get to incorporate daily devotionals into each session—connecting everything they’re learning back to Scripture. So they’re able to hear the gospel while learning these new techniques.

Q: What role does community play in your work?

Robin: Community can be a hard thing to wrap our minds around in our context. Unto is an internationally focused ministry, but based in the U.S.—and that means we draw certain lines to make that possible, especially because we have limited resources.

But the incredible thing is that in my role—and in the work we do—we get to represent the radical nature of God’s heart for us in community. We get to see our furthest neighbors in the world as being in community with us. Many times I’m making plans and trusting God to show up—working with staff members I’ve never even met. And yet, because of the relationship we have in the body of Christ, I get to witness a level of trust and unity that many people never see. 

Q: Can you tell me about your next mission trip?   

Robin: So, Malawi is our summer mission project this year. We’re combining women’s health and agriculture, and bringing 19 students with us. 

Over the last five years, we’ve really shaped what these mission projects look like. Instead of just bringing students to do ministry, we want to create sustainability for the local ministry—Life Ministry Malawi (Cru’s local name there).

We’re part of a broader project called the “Tingathe Project” which means “sustainability and mission.” We get to support that strategy by doing agriculture workshops, women’s health clinics, JESUS film showings and campus evangelism. We’ll also partner up our U.S. students with Malawian students, and they’re going to be able to do ministry together in a lot of different contexts.

The challenges they face there are different from what we see in the U.S., and the ministry looks very different. But we have the same Father and we’re all focused on relationship with Him. That opens up doors for community that I wouldn’t have thought possible.

I have made great friendships and even fellowship with people in Malawi I’ve visited before, and getting to work with them again is such a blessing. When we shape community for a trip like this, we’re really focused on integrating two teams that are very culturally different and experience the world in different ways. But we center that integration around Christ.

That means we have to strip back a lot of things—our expectations, opinions, and assumptions—and bring them to the cross. We ask: What’s really important? What did we see in the early church—between Jews and Gentiles in the book of Acts? They put aside their differences and were called to be together.

So that’s what we try to model. We pair U.S. students with Malawian students and invite them into community with one another. It’s not always easy. Thankfully, language is a smaller barrier in this context than in others, but we still face challenges. There’s often awkwardness in conversations or uncertainty in how to interact across cultures. But thankfully, when we push through those moments, we find really genuine community.

Q: Do you see many people make decisions for Christ on these trips? 

Robin: Definitely— especially in this part of the world. There’s a strong influence from [one major religion], and there’s a lot of tribal religion as well. Witchcraft and similar practices are still common in some areas.

So we get the chance to share the gospel openly and be part of “win” strategies (outreach and evangelism). But we also spend a lot of time in the “build” strategy—building up those who are already part of the church or the body of Christ. Our workshops become this place where believers and church members are learning alongside people from the local community. 

There’s a common African proverb that says, “If your neighbor is hungry, then you are too.” If we’re not seeing transformation across the whole community, then what we’re doing can easily fizzle out or fall short of being a long-term solution.

So toward the end of each workshop, after offering them the hope of Christ, we get the opportunity to commission them—to train others, to share the good news and to replicate what they’ve learned. Whether it’s the abundance of crops they begin to experience, or the abundance of God’s love in their life, we encourage them to pass that on so both can spread throughout their communities.

Q: Do you think there’s a place for that kind of ministry in the United States too? Or for everyday people? 

Robin: I think it can be easier sometimes to seek out that kind of radical community when you’re signing up for a trip, right? Or when you’re out of your normal context.

But for me personally—and from what I’ve heard from the Lord—it’s really important that we very intentionally seek out relationships and seek out people who are not like ourselves, so we can form community that’s more in line with God’s design and image for us.

When we push the boundaries—instead of just hanging out with people we get along with, or people who share our same interests and perspectives—we get the opportunity to live in a kind of community where we’re walking through pain points, realizing that some of the things we hold dear may not actually be as close to God’s heart as they are to ours. 

So yeah, I think there’s a lot of opportunity for that. I’m really thankful that my experience with Cru movements across the U.S. is that there is a lot of opportunity to be in community with people who don’t think like me or look like me.

Q: Do you mean with Christians or also people who don’t follow Jesus? 

Robin: I was thinking more in the context of believers, but I think there’s a huge amount of opportunity with non-believers too.

It’s our human nature to find the easy path—to form easy friendships. But when we’re seeking to share Christ, we’re also called to genuinely connect with people who might be harder to navigate relationships with.

Q: How do you see the community garden as part of your mission work, and how could others do something similar in their own communities? 

Robin: I see the community garden and the vast amount of potential that it has for ministry. And I also see the ways we haven’t always done it well.

One of the ways we experience community through the garden—which I think is really applicable to anyone seeking community in a neighborhood—is that the community garden is a neighborhood of gardeners, right?

It’s not like we’re all focused on the exact same mission, but we’re doing the same practice. And so that creates a lot of opportunity for sharing knowledge and sharing resources.

For example, the other week, one of the gardeners was ordering sweet potato slips—which are used to propagate or grow sweet potatoes—and he volunteered, “Anybody that wants to order with me, let’s do it.”

Those moments of connection—small, ordinary things—become opportunities to build community.

I think in [American] culture, we’ve lost that neighborhood mindset. We’re losing the idea that our physical location matters—that where we live impacts our ability to be in community together. And that shift has benefits, sure, but also huge downsides.

The more you engage with and see yourself in a neighborhood of people, the more you’ll recognize opportunities to serve others—but also to receive from others too. That’s the beauty of neighborhood life.

If we only see ministry as “going on mission”—as going somewhere else—we can fall into this trap of always pouring out, and never actually coexisting with others.

Another big piece is the idea of serving together.

The more time we spend in the garden—weeding together, working together—we’re naturally bumping into each other. We’re out there sweating in the heat or running for cover in the rain.

Those shared experiences—just physically being present and working side-by-side—they build real community.

I think that’s where you find both neighborhood and community and the opportunities to build them.