Podcasts about koinonia farm

Special guests Rev. Ashley Guthas and Kirk Lyman-Barner join from Georgia, where they are part of a historic church and community, the home church of President Jimmy Carter, birthplace of Koinonia Farm and Habitat for Humanity.  We discuss the complexities of pastoring a church in politically divided times.  Outro song by Common Hymnal: https://commonhymnal.com/ Help sustain the work of RLC: www.redletterchristians.org/donate/ To check out what RLC is up to, please visit us www.redletterchristians.org  Follow us on Twitter: @RedLetterXians Instagram: @RedLetterXians Follow Shane on Instagram: @shane.claiborne Twitter: @ShaneClaiborne  

Guest sermon by Mark Fraley

Anton och Sofia besöker platsen där Dorothy Day nästan blev skjuten - Koinonia Farm! Bren Dubay, direktor för Koinonia Farm, en kommunitet där rasism och lärjungaskap en gång häftigt kolliderade med varandra, gästar oss i podden. Bren har jobbat inom teaterns värld men är nu med och leder en pekannötsodlande gemenskap i sydvästra Georgia. Dessutom, Anton introducerar Amish-Hippieskalan och Sofia tycker inte om nya saker. --- Gilla oss på ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Följ oss på ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ och på ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Skriv till oss på ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠atenochjerusalem@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Stöd oss på ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Words written by Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farm, a pacifist interracial Christian community in Georgia, taken from a Plough book, The Inconvenient Gospel.

Andy Loving is the founder of Just Money Advisors, a financial advising firm that specializes in working with clients who have strong interests in socially responsible and ecologically sustainable investing. This conversation delves into the complicated role that money plays in our lives and how spiritual values can inspire us to use money and investing as tools for bringing about the more beautiful world that our hearts know is possible. RESOURCES AND LINKS: Donate to support the Earth & Spirit Center and this podcast: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/donate/ Visit the Earth & Spirit Center homepage: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/ Just Money Advisors Inc.: https://www.justmoneyadvisors.com/ Hope Credit Union: https://hopecu.org/ Faith and Money Network: https://faithandmoneynetwork.org/ Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC: https://inwardoutward.org/ Koinonia Farm: https://www.koinoniafarm.org/

Joanne Tramel's first sermon of the year highlights great Christians of history. For 2023, that figure is Clarence Jordan (1912-1969). Jordan made it his life's purpose to fight against economic and racial inequality using his Koinonia Farm in Georgia, though terrorized by local white supremacists. His Cotton Patch Gospels provided modern retelling of the Bible and the later use of the farm for affordable housing paved the way for the founding of Habitat for Humanity.

Today, Danny talks with Dr. Frederick L. Downing, scholar and editor of a new book for Plough Books called The Inconvenient Gospel. The book is a collection of writings by Clarence Jordan, founder of the famous Koinonia Farm in Georgia. Downing was a pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement and ran into vitriolic opposition from his fellow Southern Christians. Downing discusses how Jordan's theology and activism was years ahead of his time and how mainstream Christianity has finally come around to his thinking on these issues. More on the book as well as purchasing options, can be found here: https://www.plough.com/en/topics/community/intentional-community/inconvenient-gospel Follow Danny Anderson's writing and podcasting at https://untaking.substack.com/

In this episode, I interview Joshua Hearne from the Grace and Main Fellowship, an intentional and ecumenical Christian community located in Danville, Virginia. We discuss what it means to be a community for the poor and marginalized, rather than being a community that merely serves the poor and marginalized. We also talk about community life, organic growth, Asset Based Community Development, urban farming, and hospitality. The History of the Community The Grace and Main fellowship started as a bible study group in Danville, Virginia. It was very simple; just five people meeting once a week to discuss Scripture. They had no real intention of doing anything more than that. Over time, however, the members started eating with one another, praying together, and generally spending time together. They started to discuss the possibility of reshaping their lives around a more radical commitment to the Gospel. As Joshua put it, they eventually stopped and said “Maybe this isn’t a Bible Study like we thought it was! Maybe God is trying to do something more here…Maybe we’re one of those intentional community things we’ve heard about…Or maybe we could be one, anyway.” From this small beginning, the community has grown and evolved and changed over time. But the members are still eating, praying, and working with one another, and are still committed to living life in solidarity with the marginalized. Ecumenism in The Grace and Main Fellowship The Grace and Main Fellowship is an ecumenical community. Joshua said that in one sense, that’s just a statement of fact; the community has included members from many different Christian backgrounds. At the same time, it is also an aspirational statement. The community is united by some basic commitments and tries to focus on that unity regardless of the diversity of thought on other subjects. It is important to keep in mind that when Christ portrayed the Last Judgement, he didn’t describe it as a theology quiz! Instead, he described the judgment as being focused on a basic question: how did you treat the least of these? While searching for the truth is important, it is even more important to seek unity with fellow Christians and to give one’s life to Jesus without reservations. A Spectrum of Participation There is a wide spectrum of commitment among those who participate in the Grace and Main Fellowship. At the center, there are those who have discerned membership as a vocational way of life, and who have committed to sharing resources and leading an intentionally simple way of life. At the other end of the spectrum are those who occasionally drop in for events. Between these two extremes, there is a whole range of different commitment levels. These levels are fluid; they can change over time, depending on individual availability. This forms a porous barrier between the “inside” and the “outside”. Such a porous barrier can help to keep a community healthy and integrated into the wider local community. Commitments and Formative Influences Despite this range of participation, the core members do share a set of commitments; they hold the Apostle Creed as a basic statement of belief and are committed to non-violence, solidarity with the marginalized, sharing life, and practicing radical hospitality. Some of the most important formative influences for Grace and Main are the Catholic Worker movement and the writings of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, Koinonia Farm, Rutba House, the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Asset Based Community Development. A Shared Life The core members of the community live in a network of houses, all within walking distance of one another. Some of these houses are owned by the community, others by individual members, and others are rented by the community. The community also maintains a common fund to make sure that all the members have a place to stay and enough to eat. Core members are expected to donate to this fund in a sacrificial way. The members of Grace and Main are committed to practicing radical hospitality, opening their homes and lives to others. They open their homes to others for meals and community building, and take in those who need a place to stay. They try to provide true hospitality; not just a bedroom, but a family for those who need one. Christian Hospitality Joshua said that hospitality is sometimes seen as merely providing physical shelter. Too often, institutions “care for” the poor by providing for their material needs, but in a cold and mechanical way. Dorothy Day condemned this kind of bureaucratic “charity”. On the other hand, hospitality is sometimes seen as a sort of exaggerated politeness; but neither of these things represents true hospitality. Hospitality happens whenever we open ourselves to another and provide a place for them: in our lives, our thoughts, our prayers, but also in and among our possessions. It is taking what God has given to us and making it available to others who need it. In the deepest sense, hospitality is a commitment to sharing life with others. It is a way of life grounded in the Sermon on the Mount: an expression of fully loving God and neighbor. Such love entails pursuing the good of the other, rather than attempting to cast the other into our own mold. This is difficult, overwhelming, and heartbreaking, and yet very good. To truly practice hospitality, we need to exercise solidarity. We can’t love the poor without living with them in solidarity. Asset Based Community Development Practitioners of Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) have a particular approach to community renewal. Too often, when an individual or institution sets out to renew a neighborhood, they focus on the negatives, what the neighborhood does not have. But this is a mistake. If you focus on negatives, you will be focusing on a void, on something that is not there. This void will not provide a firm foundation, and so whatever is built will fail. Instead, the ABCD model focuses on the positive. What does the neighborhood have? Who are the people of the neighborhood? What do the people care about? What are they already doing? Then, one should build on that, on what is working. Negatives are more obvious; we’re all more likely to complain about what is going wrong than to give thanks for what is going well! By focusing on the positives, you will eventually address the negatives, but in an organic way that may not look anything like what you initially envisioned. The Urban Farm The Grace and Main Fellowship maintain a large community garden. Like many of their other projects, it started very simply. They were planting gardens in their own yards, and other people in the neighborhood were interested. So they ended up planting gardens for others, and these gardeners started sharing the produce. The neighborhood started to come together around this network of gardens. Eventually, a local organization offered the group the use of an acre and a half of vacant land. It had been being used as an illegal construction waste dump. But the community cleared away the junk, cut down trees, and built garden beds. Half of the space is maintained by the whole group, and half is divided up into plots for individual gardeners. Their tool library was started by a man who had experienced homelessness and addiction. He had worked as a carpenter before he fell on hard times; after the community helped him get his life back on track they helped him to get some tools and find work. Working with these tools was so beneficial for him that he wanted to make them available to others. He opened their first tool library in an old shed that he had slept in while he was homeless. Now they’ve moved the tool library into a much larger building, and they offer a wide range of tools. People can borrow them to improve their houses and the neighborhood or use them to make some money. A Community of and for the Marginalized There is all the difference in the world between being a community that serves the poor and being a community of and for the poor and marginalized. Joshua said that Grace and Main would not continue to exist if it was merely a community that “cared for” the poor. By now, half the community members have direct experience with poverty; the formerly marginalized become leaders within the community. Joshua explained that it isn’t just that his friend Bruce needs a place to stay; rather, it is that he needs Bruce in his life! Being able to receive something back from the marginalized is important, or the relationship becomes one-sided and patronizing. Be a Cilantro Plant! Every community will be different. Those trying to form a new community shouldn’t try to replicate existing ones. Large, long-lasting and highly structured communities tend to receive all the attention, but small informal communities are always more numerous. You don’t have to change the world; maybe that is not your calling! As Joshua said, God created all sorts of plants. There are redwoods, which are huge and impressive and long-lived; and everyone wants to be a redwood! But God also made rose bushes—and cilantro plants. You should be happy to be a cilantro plant if that’s what God is calling you to be! This highlights one of the inherent tensions of the Happy Are You Poor project. We’re trying to provide inspiration for those seeking community. By necessity, however, we have to focus on communities that are organized and formalized enough to have a web presence. Just because I have to focus on the more formal communities shouldn’t obscure the importance of informal, organic community among neighbors and friends! For more about The Grace and Main Fellowship, visit their website. Header photo: the Grace and Main neighborhood, by Joshua Hearne

Order works by Clarence Jordan from Koinonia Farm. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

There are a lot of families out there who are thankful for the work that Habitat is doing to get people into safe decent and affordable homes, and it made me think, who do we thank for coming up with Habitat? Most people think Jimmy Carter started Habitat for Humanity, but it was actually Millard and Linda Fuller. But where did the Fuller’s get the idea for Habitat? That answer is, at a place called Koinonia Farms in Americus, Georgia. Koinonia is a place that doesn’t get talked about much in Habitat’s history, so today I am going to dive into the history of the place that gave birth to the idea of Habitat for Humanity, Koinonia Farms. It will be a short episode, just think of it as a bite-sized holiday treat!

The death of George Floyd recorded and watched by hundreds of millions provides the occasion for a discussion of the church as the One new human being.  The church has too often been unfaithful to the oneness vision.  The crisis in the church is a crisis of faith.  We just do not get what Jesus did for “US.”  “Still the most segregated hour in American life” means we need a new “come to Jesus” season of life.  Let's all of “us” tell the story again and begin again!

Amanda Moore shares her journey with chronic illness, helps us with what to say and what NOT to say, and educates us on inspiration porn. Asking questions is a kindness! Guest Plugs * Email Amanda Moore amanda@koinoniafarm.org * The Mighty https://themighty.com/ Show Notes * Briars in the Cotton Patch https://www.briarsdocumentary.com/ * Koinonia Farm http://koinoniafarm.org or https://youtu.be/GXjL5J3toHY * Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/what-is-eds/ * Everything Happens with Kate Bowler https://katebowler.com/podcasts/ * Jameela Jamil https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3553139/ * Inspiration Porn with Stella Young at TEDxSydney 2014 https://youtu.be/SxrS7-I_sMQ * Zebras – https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/why-the-zebra/ * For Memes and such – Amanda Moore Facebook page https://m.facebook.com/amanda.moore.336 * How to avoid using ableist language http://deareverybody.hollandbloorview.ca/resources/tips-and-tools/how-to-avoid-using-ableist-language/ * Ableism – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ableism Support the Podcast – https://wdtatpodcast.com/support-the-podcast/ Leave us a voicemail! https://www.speakpipe.com/wdtatpodcast Email your feedback to wdtatpodcast@gmail.com Follow us: Facebook –https://www.facebook.com/wdtatpodcast Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/wdtatpodcast/ Twitter – https://twitter.com/wdtatpodcast

Sometimes our activity for positive change in the world makes a visible leap and other times the impact of our work takes a seemingly long time to show any results. As Loeb points out, “You draw hope from the knowledge that whatever it is that you do, something unexpected is going to happen. And, it often happens at the periphery of your vision.”Tags: Paul Rogat Loeb, Paul Loeb, Vaclav Havel, Velvet Revolution, Keystone Pipeline, Rosa Parks, Raymond Parks, Dr. Benjamin Spock, Anti-Nuclear Proliferation, grassroots movements, Clarence Jordan, Koinonia Farm, Tiananmen Square, Tank man, Tolstoy, David Roberts, Grist Magazine, Climate Change, hope, optimism, renewable energy, Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington State, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Dan Savage, Gay Rights Movement, getting out the vote, Walter Wink, Jesus and Alinsky, Bible stories, Turn the other cheek, nonviolent resistance, minimum wage, bike lanes, Cuiritiba Brazil, Bill McKibben, Peace/Nonviolence

Sometimes our activity for positive change in the world makes a visible leap and other times the impact of our work takes a seemingly long time to show any results. As Loeb points out, “You draw hope from the knowledge that whatever it is that you do, something unexpected is going to happen. And, it often happens at the periphery of your vision.”Tags: Paul Rogat Loeb, Paul Loeb, Vaclav Havel, Velvet Revolution, Keystone Pipeline, Rosa Parks, Raymond Parks, Dr. Benjamin Spock, Anti-Nuclear Proliferation, grassroots movements, Clarence Jordan, Koinonia Farm, Tiananmen Square, Tank man, Tolstoy, David Roberts, Grist Magazine, Climate Change, hope, optimism, renewable energy, Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington State, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Dan Savage, Gay Rights Movement, getting out the vote, Walter Wink, Jesus and Alinsky, Bible stories, Turn the other cheek, nonviolent resistance, minimum wage, bike lanes, Cuiritiba Brazil, Bill McKibben, Peace/Nonviolence

Ep 31: When a family takes a Sabbatical We’re back from summer break and chatty as ever. Drew reflects on his family’s sabbatical at Koinonia Farm in rural Georgia and how it changed him as a parent and a person. Whitney talks summer highlights, and we both get greedy with our Person, Place, or Thing recs. -- Koinonia Farm: https://www.koinoniafarm.org/ -- Briars in the Cotton Patch: http://www.briarsdocumentary.com/ -- Whitney’s things: Boogie Wipes (http://www.boogiewipes.com/) and On Being with John O’Donohue (https://onbeing.org/programs/john-odonohue-the-inner-landscape-of-beauty/) -- Drew’s people: former President Jimmy Carter and Vanessa Glushefski (https://www.facebook.com/VoteVanessaG/) Just a Phase is produced by Whitney Crispell. Theme music is “Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix)” by spinningmerkaba, and used under a Creative Commons license. Find us online at http://justaphasepodcast.tumblr.com or @justaphasepodcast

In this week’s show we interviewed Amanda Moore from Koinonia Farms Community. Founded in 1942 by Clarence and Florence Jordan and Martin and Mabel England, this Christian community emphasized the sharing of resources. Koinonia has been in the forefront of Black and White relations providing equal wages to workers from any race and sharing meals without segregating racial groups as early as the 1940s. Their commitment to racial equality, pacifism, and economic sharing brought an organized boycott and ongoing persecution from the Ku Klux Klan in the 1950s. Through nonviolence they resisted the attacks and were able to thrive and place their focus on the poor quality of local housing. They began a project to build decent, affordable homes for their neighbors, a ministry that evolved into Habitat for Humanity International. This ministry was established by Millard and Linda Fuller, former Koinonia members. Koinonia has been instrumental in the founding of other organizations, such as Jubilee Partners (a community that welcomes refugees from war-torn countries), and many others that work for social justice. Other sister organizations include Open Door and Riverplace. In 2008, they re-committed to farming as a way of life. In they switched their income sharing system to a non-profit one creating problems of sustainability. Amanda shared about their several transitions which affected the number of members they have. We also spoke about how this faith-based community has stayed alive. Our conversation addressed their interest in the environment, activism in both social and economic justice and their support for gender equality. Amanda spoke about their community traditions and the seven covenants members partake of such as their spring covenant ceremony. Currently Koinonia grows a variety of natural produce, pecans, grass-fed beef, and other livestock. This Christian intentional community seeks to embody peacemaking, sustainability, and radical sharing as they strive to be an alternative to materialism, militarism and racism.

Having just come from Koinonia Farm and gleaned from conversations there that, among some in the New Monasticism movement, there is a growing interest in connecting more deeply with the classic monastic tradition, I was eager to bring “old-school” monastics into the conversation. Here I speak with Cistercian monk Michael Lautieri, OCSO, current vocation director […]

“I don’t know whether you’ve ever walked over a piece of ground that could almost cry out to you and say, ‘Heal me, heal me!’ I don’t know whether you feel the closeness to the soil that I do. But when you fill in those old gullies and terrace the fields and you begin to feel […]

In this second half of my conversation with Bren Dubay, we speak of the rich tapestry of relations Koinonia Farm now enjoys, with communities already mentioned in the previous episode (Jubilee Partners, Reba Place Fellowship, Church of the Servant King) as well as with the Bruderhof, an early 20th century addition to the Anabaptist communal family […]

Koinonia Farm in Americus, Georgia, was founded in 1942 by Clarence and Florence Jordan and Martin and Mabel England, with the intention of being a “demonstration plot for the Kingdom of God” and helping the region’s poor, struggling farming families. Foremost among the biblical values they sought to embody were economic sharing among themselves and […]

Community member Ellie Castle tells the story of how Clarence Jordan started Koinonia Farm. Please excuse the crazy static in the first few minutes, it goes away, I promise. The post MikeyPod 68 | Ellie Castle Tells The Story Of Koinonia Farm appeared first on MikeyPod.

Community member Ellie Castle tells the story of how Clarence Jordan started Koinonia Farm. Please excuse the crazy static in the first few minutes, it goes away, I promise. The post MikeyPod 68 | Ellie Castle Tells The Story Of Koinonia Farm appeared first on MikeyPod.

It’s official… I am moving to Georgia in early September to be a community intern at Koinonia Farm. A number of people have asked me what was going on and [...] Continue reading → The post MikeyPod 58 | Executive Director of Koinonia Farm Bren Dubay appeared first on MikeyPod.

It’s official… I am moving to Georgia in early September to be a community intern at Koinonia Farm. A number of people have asked me what was going on and [...] Continue reading → The post MikeyPod 58 | Executive Director of Koinonia Farm Bren Dubay appeared first on MikeyPod.