People, a movement is underway. We are in the beginning stages of a food revolution and the church is upfront and center. Good.
I suggested a few days ago that God may have sent Jamie Oliver to the Southern Baptists. But it might be equally true that God sent the Southern Baptists to Jamie Oliver. Bloggers should be tracking this one and contributing their thoughts.
I said back in 2004:
“I believe that FOOD and cooking are as essential to emerging/organic church than what music was to contemporary/seeker church. I also predict that in the next few years, as emerging churches stop emerging and settle down into their calling, that we will see a resurrection of the church cookery books in the tradition of the Mennonite and Amish churches. Although these will be web based instead of print.” Andrew Jones, TallSkinnyKiwi, You Had Me At Halel, 2004
I believe this food revolution is a lot bigger than food and a lot older than Jamie’s visit. Those cookery books are being aggregated on the web right now and we are all adding to the knowledge base. But its more than cooking and more than food. Its about love. I hope to blog a lot more on this in the near future because I believe its important to God. Please join me and lets see a revolution in our kitchen, in our neighborhoods and in our own lives.
This revolution must keep it’s eye on the degradation of international trust. These seemingly unconnected movements may have the effects of increasing food prices or completely eradicating some staples in the modern diet. The solution I’ve been trying to preach in America is planting gardens of regional fruits and vegetables for both Church, home, and community use for when the poor are among us. Another solution I see, but cannot quite enact) is to build cooperatives with local farmers to buy products directly from their land; never more than we need, of course. We are not hoarding, we are preparing ourselves to be vessels of blessing to the world and the Church.
I believe the Amish approach to life would have been a lot more effective if they had not utilized such an Old Testament visage for their communities. It’s time for emergent churches to learn from their Amish brothers and sisters and start taking back cities.
Several years ago while we were attending a Vineyard Church, my wife and I gave some courses on healthy diet and eating. They went pretty well and we saw some lives changed, one specific case where a gentleman was able to turn around his borderline case of diabetes.
One of the biggest issues we found was that even though people wanted to make positive change, the rest of society around them (their jobs, family, culture, etc.) consistently derailed them. The church didn’t help much either. Even though they encouraged us with teaching the courses, many of the events still were centered around and featured unhealthy food.
One of the simplest and most important things we can do is to be a good example, supporting people who are trying to make a change. Being a witness through our actions, rather than telling them what to do. The more people who are able to be a good example, the better supported those who are trying to change will feel. As you say, it is about love.
Now that we do house church, our focus has changed somewhat. We continue to counsel people as the opportunities arise. We also have started a local buying-club in our community where we buy foods through a distributor. This enables households to reduce the costs of purchasing healthier foods by eliminating the middle man (the grocery store). In addition, we help to manage another local buying club that helps families to source foods from local farmers and producers.
We find that eating together, for worship, for life, for prophetic witness, is essential to our calling. Learning to cook cheap, vegetarian food, allows us to be responsible. Learning to cook food that tastes great allows us to be attractive 🙂