We extend an invitation for others to join us in the life of our community to share in these shaping practices of Christian formation. Like the world in which we live, the Christian life is often seen as fragmented and disjointed, separating body and soul; calling and the earth; creation and community; church and mission; work and worship; beauty and truth; Scripture and ordinary life. We invite interested individuals into the life of this place in an attempt to live together a biblical way of life that is integrally connected and whole that we might be made whole, and offer a path to wholeness to the world.
We aim to serve our local church and community through the work of our farm. Through the food we grow and harvest, the communal life of our farm, our practices of life together, and acts of service we hope to build and nurture a culture that breathes New Creation vitality into our rural community.
Why does your community exist?
Our community exists for the sake of the world. By our commitment to embody certain practices through our individual and communal discipline, we seek to be formative agents in re-orienting the spatial and temporal character of our broader community in more human-scale terms. We seek to change how people relate to each other and to God in time and space. We are devoted to the human connections between neighbors, and devoted to simpler living that is more appropriate to our creature-ness. We do this in a manner that invites our busy and distracted and isolated world to participate with us. We trust our Lord when he teaches that new creation comes through sacrificial servanthood and suffering. So we deliberately take a road that the world sees as being foolish and difficult, trusting that this calling will bear fruit in the world in a vitalized community. We are committed to do what most people can’t do, and to do it in such a way that enables them to learn how, join in as they are able, and share in the labor and joy that is found in a thriving Christ-like community.
We begin with our guests, our farm customers, and the small towns of our local community. We are not a cloistered, utopian, insular Christian community. We are members of our local towns and churches. We engage our customers and guests on our farm and by going into the space that we have been called to.
Who can be involved?
We welcome anyone to be involved in our project. You can donate to our project through the avenues listed on the donate page. But we also welcome enthusiastic involvement of other kinds. It is our pleasure to talk about and hear about ideas and suggestions from others.
We plan on creating opportunities for people to come participate in our community through retreats and other events. So keep checking back for those opportunities.
Our CSA offers membership in the immediate area. There is a limit to how many CSA members we can serve, but it is our reasonable hope that we will be able to add to that number as the year progresses.
Membership in the community will be open to anyone who is willing and able to commit to following the Rule of Life, which includes a Nicene quality confession of Christian faith, and baptism.
It is the goal of our community to have the character and means to receive guests as Christ, because He will say, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me" (Mt. 25:35). This includes farm customers and CSA members, groups visiting and getting tours, as well as more formal guests of the community.
You say you worship together, what does that look like?
We gather twice daily for worship together as a community. Our daily liturgy is based on a God-given renewal pattern found throughout the Bible, seen in creation and even in the life of Christ. We begin in the evening with confession and submission. We do this to show that our physical participation in the day matches the reality of the spiritual renewal we have in Christ. Resurrection comes with the new day waking. The work day is framed by the ascension reign of Christ and the calling we have in Union with him to walk in faith by Pentecost power. Our daily liturgy is particularly formative as it defines what we are already doing naturally by virtue of our created-ness by the work of our Creator and Redeemer in sanctifying us in worship.
Also, by virtue of our created-ness, we practice the discipline of praying aloud and reading Scripture aloud. We trust that it is imperative that we move our lungs, our throat, our tongue, our lips, our face, our arms, our hands as well as our hearts and minds. We speak aloud our prayers and the Word. We bless and greet our neighbors with words of peace. We make holy sounds, make them exist in time and space, we beat upon the ear drums of creation, and so liberate the world from its quarantine within the mind.
Is this kind of an alternative to church?
Not at all. We exist to make it easier for the church to be who she is called to be. And we do this through partnering with a local church. We need the local church, and we aim to serve her.
What requirements do you have for the kinds of churches you will work with?
We look for historically orthodox churches that we can partner with. And because of our commitment to the formative power of community discipline, we do ask that the local church be willing to partner with us on a few issues that are of particular importance to the shaping of the community.
Do you take vows of poverty?
No, but our commitment to the rule of life does include a commitment to a much simpler life than what a typical American is used to. For example, as a discipline, we limit the use of personal electronic devices such as computers and cell phones. These virtual appendages of modern life tend to rob from the reality in front of us. We want to be more aware and involved in the place and moment before us. The presence of these devices often take us away from that connection. Folks in our community have iPhones, Macs, and wifi; we’re not complete Luddites. However, we will not abide the insidious distraction that their constant presence brings.
Simple living also gives us a voice that has been lost in a Christian culture that has largely avoided suffering. By being a people that is familiar with laboring, self-denial, and discipline we learn to speak into the lives of those who suffer.
Isn’t life on a farm in rural Iowa dull?
We look for ways to express human creativity in the midst of ordinary life. Jesus is bringing about the redemption of all things. Even ordinary things. So we are concerned with making the most ordinary elements of our work witness to that future hope. We want to show forth the beauty and dignity of our daily tasks in myriad ways that tell of an earthy beauty and dignity to come.
How do the arts fit into that vision?
We celebrate the arts. We are called to create beautiful things out of our lives. But there are those vocationally called to specific disciplines of creation, expression, beauty, and truth. These artists often see, express, and witness to truths and realities in ways that the rest of us simply do not have vocabularies for. So we invite them to help us see, hear, and experience reality on a different register.
Is this like a commune or a new settlement?
No. We are not designed or equipped to be a self-sufficient community. Nor do we see such efforts as having a future. Though we do hope that our groups will be able to be profitable within their broader communities and eventually get to where they can meet their operating expenses.
What about Alistair MacIntyre’s or Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option?
We are glad for the conversation that Rob Dreher has opened up to a broader audience. But, as we understand his Option, there are fundamental differences about what he describes and what we do. There are similarities in the cultural diagnosis, but the fundamental "Benedict Option" move of retreat and preservation is different than what we are about (and we think he is at least partially mistaken about this being the original effectiveness of Benedict).
We are about going to strained places and making something new. Yes, that new thing recovers what we have abandoned, lost, or taken for granted, but it reincorporates them into the life of the world in a new way. If we develop the way we hope, whole towns and maybe even some urban centers will exist with a new character, and churches will be the church in ways we haven’t been able to be.
At the heart of the difference is that we believe the church should be at the front lines of making a new world and that we can do it now. We take Dreher’s Benedict Option (again, as we understand it, perhaps we have mis-read him or haven’t gotten the full picture) to be about holding on to what we believe is good of the old world and waiting for the imploding old world to sort itself out so the church will emerge like a roach from the ashes. These strategies aren’t necessarily opposed to each other, but at the end of the day the Benedict Option sounds like wishful talking more than a real plan of action that real people will really do. And if anyone does do it we can’t help but suspect that it will be a narrow demographic of people that commit to it. And that kind of homogenized Christianity is part of the problem, so how can it be a real solution?
Are you the same as the Agrarian movement?
Along the same lines as the answer to the Benedict Option question, we appreciate the conversation of the Agrarian movement, and share some points of diagnosis and strategy, but there are differences. Agrarians tend to build their claims on moral absolutes. We may choose to do some of the same agrarian things but we do them because we see the discipline of doing them as important for what is needed right now.
How does this compare to some of the Fellows programs that churches are doing these days?
Fellows programs are typically geared for individual educational training (in a group) for a vocation or range of vocations. We are a community devoted to a community disciplines. We do hope that our individuals gain an education, but our primary goal is toward the good of the people and place we are in.
Doesn’t this cost money?
We encourage the members of this community to donate financially to help the community thrive. As much as we would like to just give this experience away to people (we really would!) we’ve decided it best to suggest a donation of $10/day, $50/week, $150/month to help pay for the expenses of our community. These donations certainly help pay the very real expenses incurred by the community but we also feel that this helps incentivize members to be more focused and deliberate with their time here.
Is it forever?
No. The term length is agreed upon at the time of joining. Term extensions are negotiable, perhaps forever, but it is not a lifetime vow like monks or nuns take. But we do expect that our members will be forever changed. When you live this life you can never fully go back, and you won’t want to.
"Rule" means standard or guide. So a "rule of life" is a guide for the life of the community. The rule of life spells out the rhythms and patterns of daily living. It lets everyone know what to expect of themselves and of others and it reminds us of the character, practices, and goals of the community.
Our official Rule of Life is under construction, but the character of our community looks like the following…
Some of the aspects of the "rule of life" that look like what we more typically think of when we hear the word "rule" are…
Also included in the rule of life are instruction about practices like praying out loud, singing the psalms, going out into the towns and farms, and other specific disciplines we practice together.
prairiewholefarm.com · archived January 2016 · original