Update Tuesday - Guerrilla Gardening

Our crew from Fairlawn Baptist, WV

We had no agenda, no plan and no intention of organizing an ongoing initiative.  The reality is that I had a mission team in, I had some extra time to fill and I drove by a vacant property in my neighbourhood overrun by weeds.  I asked the team if they would mind helping to clean it up.  As it turns out, it was one of the cheapest things we have ever done and it garnered us some of the most positive attention we have ever received.  The neighbours really responded with gratitude to the simple effort and it lead to some great conversations even with the owner of the property.  That was last summer, and now this summer, each time we have a team I aim to do a bit of Guerrilla Gardening, where we find a piece of property that could use some attention, and clean it up a bit.  We have also begun to try and spruce things up further by planting some plants.  It is nothing earth shattering, and we are just taking small steps but for some reason it really resonates with many in our city. In the end, it is funny the things that surprise you, the things that have the greatest impact and lead to the best conversations.  I would never have thought that weeding a vacant lot would end up being one the the most cost effective and noticeable things we could do in the community, the biggest bang for the buck.  Bang for the buck, however, is not the only reason, nor perhaps the key reason, to do Guerrilla Gardening. 

Ask me why I love being involved in Guerrilla Gardening and my answer goes a bit deeper than low cost, high impact.  The reason I love to do it, is for the picture that it leaves.  For me, our efforts are about creating a visual symbol, or a 3D parabolic image.  Guerrilla Gardening is about finding a spot that is abandoned or has not been cared for and investing a little bit of TLC.  Thus, we are taking something that was once designed with care, purpose and often beauty, that has become overrun, infected and abandoned and reinvesting in order to remove that which has overrun, re-establish some beauty and return it to purpose.  To me, this is a picture of the Gospel.   God, through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus, provides a means by which the sin that has come to overrun his beloved creation since the Fall, might be dealt with and beauty and purpose might be restored.  This is true both on a personal and individual level for all those who come to faith, as well as for the redemption of all creation that finds its ultimate fulfillment in the new heaven and new earth.  Each time we restore an abandoned planter I am thinking about what God has done for me in Jesus, and  I am thinking about the hope of a future where all things are made new and made right.  Granted, when someone drives by one of the lots that we have worked in, they certainly don't come to an understanding of the gospel out of the blue.   People do, however, seem to respond.  Maybe it is that there is an inherent recognition and hunger that leads us to respond to ideas and images of redemption when we see them.  Whatever the case, people take notice and we have the opportunity to express our hope in the final restoration of all things.   If we are intentional and always ready to share a reason for our hope, maybe we can help to connect the dots for people. 

The AFTER shot