Life Aboveground: “Simplicity”
Wellspring Community Farm empowers women and children through growing and gardening
Across the Underground Network, hundreds of microchurches strive daily to live out their God-given callings. Although each is unique in its respective mission, every microchurch ministers in accordance with the 18 values that comprise the Underground Manifesto: Jesus, the Poor, the Lost, the Whole World, Culture and Ethnicity, Contextualization, Zeal and Contemplation, Simplicity, Sharing and Giving, Each Other, Kingdom Mission, Humility, Biblical Justice, Passion, Prayer and Dependence on God, Microchurches, the Bible, and Empowerment.
The “Life Aboveground” series explores individual microchurches and how they reflect these values in the current season.
This interview profiles Wellspring Community Farm, “a gathering place to encourage, seed, and develop a living, loving relationship with our Lord, particularly for women and girls through learning how to grow your own food and personal and spiritual development through devotion and dance.”
Sharing today’s story of Wellspring is director Jenise Carr.
In this current season, what is one of the 18 Underground Manifesto values you and your microchurch are living out?
Simplicity. By teaching others to grow their own food, we teach them to live abundantly out of the simple resources God has gifted us.
Why do you find this value important for your microchurch?
There is a long history of disease in my family, and for a while, I wrestled with what was making them sick, what was causing them to die. I then came across scripture in Leviticus and felt like God was telling me that food was the issue — we were not being healthy or obedient with what we were putting into our bodies. God gave us food designed to nourish our bodies and yet that’s not what we normally eat. Simplicity is taking the little resources God has given us and living out of them abundantly.
How have you practically fought for this value?
When I first had this revelation, I started volunteering at a community garden in Tampa. Although I’d never done much gardening in my life, I moved from volunteer to farmhand to manager very quickly. I loved the work but Jesus wasn’t at the core of what the community was doing. While the garden was very efficient, it operated in a specific way which didn’t allow me the full freedom to share the Gospel in the way I hoped to.
About a year and a half ago I connected with the Underground. They helped me launch Wellspring, a microchurch with the mission of teaching black women and kids in our community how to grow and prepare their own foods, while growing closer to Jesus and one another.
What are the challenges you have faced in fighting for this?
I have to walk the line of not telling people what to believe. Even the word “Jesus” has some baggage that turns people away. Also, understandably, people don’t want you to tell them how to eat. I just try to care for them and love them in the best way I can.
What that has recently happened in your microchurch is worth celebrating?
We recently did a program for kids from Ybor, teaching them some basics about gardening. In the beginning, they were not very engaged. But then I offered them the opportunity to taste a mint leaf for the first time. Their faces lit up and they instantly became excited. Gardening really engages the five senses and it was beautiful to get to see the kids experience that. As they experience gardening, they experience the change of what life could be like. That’s definitely worth celebrating.
Learn more about Wellspring Community Farm by contacting Jenise at embracethekitchen@gmail.com or listening to her podcast here.
