My Dear Champions
I greet you in the precious name of Jesus, the name that is above all names, to whom one day every knee that is in heaven and earth will bow. The name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth is infinitely precious to us all, and we are so thankful to Him for demonstrating His boundless love at the cross. We are so grateful that He has revealed Himself to us and has shown us how to live and have our being on earth. It humbles us that in His grace He has even shown us how to farm and how to steward all the gifts and resources He has bestowed on us.
It is with this wonder and awe for Jesus that I bring to you something that I believe is very important and of great significance for the future. I have spent weeks before our Lord in submissive and inquiring prayer, and now I have a peace and conviction that what I am about to share is in the belief that it comes from Him. As you examine and meditate on what I now share, I pray that you all join me in the same conviction.
The name “Farming God’s Way” started to emerge in my heart in the early to mid nineties and then a great friend and very Godly organic farmer from Missouri came out in 1996 to share his system of farming with us in “Farmers for Jesus”. His name is Carroll Montgomery and he is the pioneer and founder of the “Christian Agricultural Stewardship International” (CASI). Carroll has had a tremendous influence on me and helped shape much of FGW, especially in the birthing of our own more recent move to farm without harmful and expensive chemicals. Carroll mentioned in his talks and in the introduction to his manual that we should ‘farm God’s way’. This inspired me and then in 1998 with confirmation from Cath, Piet Dreyer, Alan Norton and Dave Slaven, we changed the name from “The Hinton Outreach Programme” to “Farming God’s Way”.
The name Farming God’s Way is very precious to me and I am sure it is to all of us, as is the FGW logo, and in our hearts we will always farm and teach God’s Way because Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. But I believe that it is time to change the name, but not the heart or the message, to “Foundations for Farming”. I would like to share the reasons for this change...
