This document summarizes a discussion between Sarah Gibson and three individuals - Marty Cauley, Mac Ledgerton, and Katy Phillips - about starting and expanding food ministry programs in faith communities. Some of the key points made include: that food ministries can address both food security and racial justice issues; the importance of inclusion and bringing all people, including marginalized groups, into leadership; and that successful programs require a committed core team of 8 people who hold each other accountable. The discussants also emphasize starting small, assessing community needs, and partnering with other organizations.

1. In the months following the 2013 Come to the Table
Conference Series, we’ve heard from a number of you
who were inspired by the projects you encountered,
people you met, and conversations you began. Many of
you are now figuring out how to bring these ideas and
discussions back to your clergy, congregations, and home
communities. Last month, after the Rural Life Committee
Meeting at the RAFI office, we sat down with a few folks
who attended the conferences. Here are their insights
into the challenges and transformative potential of
starting or expanding a food ministry.

Marty Cauley is a pastor at St. Paul United Methodist
Church in Rocky Mount, in an area that has one of the
state’s highest rates of obesity, poverty, and
unemployment. The church owns six acres of farmland
and is in a process of building partnerships and a plan to
convert these into a large-scale community garden for
hunger relief.
Mac Ledgerton is a UCC pastor, community organizer,
and the director of the Center for Community
Action in Robeson County. He works with churches to
assess their capacity to engage in community projects and
food ministries. In addition, he serves with the statewide
Sustainable Food Advisory Council and the Wilmington-
based local foods organization Feast Downeast.
Katy Phillips works with Farmer Foodshare, an
organization based in the Triangle that partners with
farmers’ markets, churches, and hunger relief agencies to
distribute market produce for hunger relief. She has also
been involved in Anathoth Community Garden, one of
the state’s most well-known faith-based gardens.
Bringing it Back:
How to Talk with Your Faith Community about Food Ministries
March 15, 2013 - Western NC Come to the Table Conference
Photo Courtesy of Peter Eversoll
Come to the Table Critical Conversation I: pp. I

2. Sarah Gibson: What’s your advice to conference
participants on first steps for starting or expanding
a food ministry in
their congregation?
Marty Cauley: Pastors as a breed are
overwhelmed by opportunities, so the worst thing
that people from the Come to the Table
Conference can do is to come back and tell their pastor
what more he or she should do. What I’d love as a pastor
to see is someone who’s interested and passionate about a
food ministry and all they need is the permission to go
forth and make it happen.
Katy Phillips: Often people will come back from
conferences and see what others are doing, get really
excited, and want to do those same projects rather than
gauge what their own communities’ needs are. At the
Rural Life Committee Meeting earlier today, one of the
insights I found to be helpful was the idea of conference
participants creating tours of different projects in their
local area so that groups from a congregation can get a
sense of what’s already happening. Someone else at the
meeting pitched the idea of having food ambassadors
who would report back to their congregation about what
they’re finding in the community, whether it’s a
gardening project or a cooking program.
Mac Ledgerton: Our Christian church is a church of
sharing food, but you [still] need to ask: How is this food
ministry connected not just to outreach but to the
mission, growth, and sustainability of your faith
community? Or is it aligned at all? I think this has to be
answered before ministry has begun, because if it’s not, it
can create a lot of tensions later. People will get burnt out
on serving the community without understanding how it
leads to the growth or sustainability of the congregation.
One thing congregations can do is a real assessment of
both their facilities and their property, and how to better
utilize them to serve the congregation and the
community. I worked with LaGrange United Methodist
Church to do this, and as we started looking at all the
resources that were available (a nice fellowship hall, a
well-equipped kitchen, a big parking lot), the potential for
food ministries were identified. They started a Farmers’
Market on their own in 2012 right there in the church
parking lot and got other churches, organizations, and
the school involved. It’s going very well [and they’ve
increased church membership as a result].
Katy: I think it is important for churches to partner with
other organizations in order to incorporate the wider
community and build bridges. I have encouraged Farmer
Foodshare to do this with Iglesia Emanuel, a Latino
congregation in Durham...Igelsia Emanuel already has a
food pantry going, along with fabulous cooks, but they
were only receiving canned goods from the food bank.
Many churches are already involved in feeding the
hungry, but we need to encourage them to take a more
You need to ask: How is this food ministry
connected not just to outreach but to the mission,
growth, and sustainability of your faith
community? Or is it aligned at all? Mac Ledgerton
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
⎯
Come to the Table Critical Conversation I: pp. II

3. sustainable and conscious approach. Farmer Foodshare’s
Donation Station Program is now giving donations of
fresh food to Iglesia Emanuel’s Sunday and Wednesday
night dinners. This is a great way to build a relationship,
as it [builds from] the assets that both the church and the
organization already have.
Sarah: What have you found are the
best ways to get congregations or
clergy galvanized and committed to
food ministries?
Marty: Most people are for food
ministries. From my most
conservative to my most liberal
church members, all can agree that
we don’t want people to go hungry,
and that unless we feed people’s
stomachs we can’t feed their souls.
The best way I’ve learned to
communicate a macro-problem [like
food insecurity] is with a micro-
story. For instance, if we start a
community garden adjacent to our
church property, the story is going to
have to revolve around one or two
people being positively affected by the endeavor, not just
the fact that we can feed sixty families with our produce.
Those big numbers don’t resonate with congregation
members, but one story about one life that’s improved
carries real weight to it.
Also, in eastern North Carolina, if you’re talking about
food security and reaching across economic lines, you
tend to also be reaching across racial lines, which are
much more clearly drawn. I can tell you from personal
experiences that a strong stand for diversity in the
community is going to cost you something. These food
ministries address not just a food security issue but a
racial justice issue.
Sarah: Are there strategies that you have used to ensure
that the ministries you are involved
with address these issues of racial
diversity and inclusivity?
Mac: I think there’s a real difference
between diversity and inclusion in
our community, and churches don’t
really understand that distinction.
We tend to focus on diversity –
having diverse representation in the
room – and then we don’t develop
structures that are really inclusive,
where people are genuinely engaged
with each other and there’s inclusion
and equity in all our activities and
programs. You can serve diverse
populations but not really welcome
them into your door.
Sarah: Are there ways you can build structures that
facilitate this work in an inclusive way? Is there a “magic
number” of people who need to be committed in order to
keep the momentum for a food ministry going?
Katy: I think that faith communities need to bring all
people into the conversation and into leadership,
supporting those even on the margins and encouraging
leadership amongst the "least of these." This is one
 Most people are for
food ministries. From my
most conservative to my
most liberal church
members, all can agree
that we don’t want people
to go hungry, and that
unless we feed people’s
stomachs we can’t feed
their souls. Marty Cauley
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
Come to the Table Critical Conversation I: pp. III

4. thing Anathoth Garden did well. We got
really creative with how we used volunteers
who would come out to help us. We would
have disabled and older folks come sit
under the shade and plant seeds in seed
trays sitting down, so there are always ways
to build capacity and include folks who
don’t want to be in a labor-intensive role.
You need to use your imagination to involve
people who might not feel like they have
anything to offer, and give them tasks that
really need to be done. Having regular
volunteers is really important, and
Anathoth supplemented their community
member volunteers with interns and seasonal volunteers
who got food in exchange. Having a garden manager was
essential!
Marty: I’ve found that eight tends to be a good number
because I can’t really hold strong accountable
relationship with more than that. Like any good thriving
relationship, it requires vulnerability. The team that’s
going to be able to do anything is going to need to trust
each other and a have common mission, vision, and
values. [To form this kind of team], we use intentional
leadership huddles gathered in single gender groups with
a facilitator. We gather every other week and we ask two
questions: “What is God saying to me?” and “What am I
going to do about it?” The goal is to take responsibility for
the voice of God in your life. Once you answer that
question, then you have a group of people that hold you
accountable, and that’s how we get our traction for any
good ministry.
Mac: I use the mustard seed approach. You get just a few
people together and if the pastor has limited experience,
you can expose him or her to the field of food work.
Eventually you need a visionary who is task-oriented and
good at direction and implementation; a community
builder who is focused on the meaning behind the
ministry; a resource coordinator who knows what your
financial and non-financial resources are; and a
practitioner/coach who has experience in the field and
can facilitate the process.
But besides the right numbers, you need right minds and
right hearts and the right structure. The structure’s
important to really ensure that everyone feels like they
belong in the group and has purpose being there, and
that purpose is respected and honored. In doing this
work, you need to be building community at the same
time you’re accomplishing your tasks.

Come to the Table Critical Conversation I: pp. IV
 There’s a difference between diversity and
inclusion and churches don’t really understand
that…You can serve diverse populations but not
really welcome them into your door. Mac Ledgerton
 [We] need to bring all people into the conversation
and into leadership, supporting those even on the
margins and encouraging leadership amongst the
"least of these." Katy Phillips
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
⎯⎯⎯

5. Suggested Reading
To read more from Marty, visit his website:
http://www.martycauley.org.
Get a copy of “Street Smarts”, a guide to community
ministry from Mac and others at the NC Council of
Churches and NCCUMC:
http://nccumc.org/outreach/files/2009/03/ss-
guidebook-updateforcopy.pdf.
Come to the Table works with people of faith relieving
hunger and supporting local agriculture in North
Carolina. It is a project of the Rural Life Committee of the
North Carolina Council of Churches, coordinated by
RAFI-USA with support from The Duke Endowment.
For more ideas and resources on how your congregation
can get involved, go to www.rafiusa.org/cttt.
Come to the Table Critical Conversation I: pp. V
Learn more about Katy’s organization, Farmer Foodshare:
http://www.farmerfoodshare.org.