by David Melton
Bet you didn’t expect to see that headline coming out of Boston, did you?
Our church does an annual event during the Christmas season — we have a service in a barn. It’s great for our middle-class “suburbians” to stop and sit on hay bales and read and sing about the birth of the Savior in a stable. So at least once a year I do go to a farm!
I really think I saw Boston Baptist College, and maybe even the Baptist Bible Fellowship, out on the farm.
That farm in Natick, MA, is a cooperative. There are a lot of “members” who have a variety of different identities with the co-op. The woman who takes our “barn rent” check is a diehard. The woman who lets us in after hours to have our barn worship lives in an apartment on the farm. She is not a true ideologue, but I’m guessing that a low-cost apartment surrounded by serenity and fresh air is a sweet enough deal to at least have some “green” feelings when she needs to! Another member of the co-op is the nice, accommodating “hay guy” who makes sure my church people have enough hay bales to sit on. But I don’t even know if he knows the lady who takes the rent. Most members of the co-op, however, just buy locally grown food at the farm — they show up when they need something and then disappear again until the next time.
My favorite part of the whole farm would be the animals. My younger boys and I always take a few minutes and “play” with them. We pull up grass and lure the goats to nibble out of our hands. Then we try the same stunt with the sheep. But one of my favorite co-op farm stops is the chicken coop.
That chicken coop reminds me of our college. We cram them in and try to convince them to produce! The chicken coop is far from the parking lot, and most of the co-op people never get out as far as the coop. But they like the eggs. That farm just wouldn’t be the same without the chickens. Porky might eventually become tasty bacon, but he will still look lonely on the plate without the eggs.
I travel out in our Fellowship. I talk on the phone. I also get financial reports from our business office. I am thankful we have a growing number of BBF churches who value what we do here in Boston and who support us. But I know that many in the Fellowship know little about us. We know we are not the only animals on the farm, and we value the whole farm. But we are an important part of it. If you could only know some of the men and women studying in Boston today! Good things are happening way back in this corner of the farm. Thanks to all of you who help it happen. To everybody else … when you have breakfast, think of us!