National Work
As a demonstration farm in a wider network of similar ministries, Plainsong plays a unique role in growing a movement integrating ecology, justice, health and discipleship.
Plainsong Nationally
On the national level, Plainsong works to identify, encourage, equip and connect practitioners engaged in Christian outdoor food, farm and environmental education. Through telling stories from the movement, creating online and in-person learning cohorts for practitioners, and developing curricula and resources, we aim to grow this field.
As an ecumenical ministry, we provide resources and create learning communities for Christians of all affiliations. We partner with organizations of other traditions to create interfaith learning opportunities and initiatives. In the Episcopal Church, where we are formally affiliated, we are a denominational resource for congregations and leaders seeking to grow ministries at the intersection of food, equity, ecology and faith. We advocate for the wiser use of church owned land to preserve biodiversity and sequester carbon in a warming world.
2015
Plainsong publishes the first version of the Christian food movement guide and collaborates with Wake Forest Divinity School on the Food, Health & Ecological Well-Being Program’s Re:Generate Fellowship and Summer Gathering.
2016
Our Executive Director speaks at Harvard Divinity School’s “The Spirit of Sustainable Agriculture” conference.
2017
Honore Farm & Mill, a California ministry shifting Christian practice toward greater health for Creation through growing heirloom wheat for communion bread, chooses us as the second site for their program.
2018
Plainsong collaborates with Greenhorns to create a meeting for both land access professionals (who work to provide land to new or beginning farmers) and religious leaders who steward land for God’s work.
Plainsong is included in the Duke World Food Policy Council’s gathering for leading Food & Faith practitioners nationally, is profiled on the BBC World Service’s Heart & Soul program, and receives national news coverage in Civil Eats and Reuters.
2019
The first cohort of the young adult program includes participants and leaders who move to the farm from Massachusetts, California, North Carolina and Ohio.
2020
Plainsong pilots the Ministry Innovators Cohort program for church leaders to set action learning goals for the land they tend. Clergy and church members from twelve states come to the farm for in-person learning and connection before the pandemic begins.
2023
Plainsong collaborates with the Interfaith Sustainable Food Collaborative, Presbyterian Hunger Program and Rural Advancement Foundation International to create FaithLands Network.