Episode 68: Church Beyond Walls: Loving Our Neighbor in Times of COVID-19 with Rev. Anna Woofenden

Upside Down Podcast

Kayla Craig, along with Gina Ciliberto, welcomes Reverend Anna Woofenden as she offers a new direction for planting churches, literally. She started a church in an empty lot in Los Angeles by planting a community garden. In her new book, This Is God’s Table: Finding Church Beyond the Walls, Anna shares the story of what happened when she gardened, worshiped, and ate with anyone who would join her. As churches across the Western world wither, Anna offers a raw, honest, gritty way of doing church.

In this episode, we:

• Compare the institution of church against non-traditional church settings
• Find God in the pews and in the garden
• Look to cultivate community in the light of the pandemic
• Take Anna’s experience from building a Church Beyond Walls into ideas for today
• Love our neighbor through consideration of the most vulnerable
• Discuss ways to increase our spiritual practices

Anna Woofenden is a writer, speaker, pastor, and leading voice in the food and faith movement. She is the founding pastor of the Garden Church in San Pedro, California, the founder of Feed and Be Fed Farm, and the cohost of the Food and Faith podcast. Woofenden, who has an MDiv from Earlham School of Religion, has served at Wayfarers Chapel in Los Angeles and at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church and The Food Pantry in San Francisco

She serves as the Protestant chaplain at Amherst College and lives with her husband, David, in Northampton, Massachusetts. Woofenden is passionate about spirituality, justice, food, the earth, and community, and is driven by a calling to reimagine church.

Join us as we consider ways to spiritually connect in these days. May we be people who lean into the uncertainty, and increase church, even as we cease in-person gatherings.

Recommended reading & resources:

• Connect with Rev. Anna
• Increase Church: Cease In-Person Gatherings (For Now)

News, Notes, and Links:

• Support more conversations like this on Upside Down Podcast! Please visit us, where you can pledge a few dollars of monthly support to help us pay our bills and keep the conversations going.
• Learn more at Upside Down Podcast.
• We’re on Instagram, too.
• Join the Upside Down Together listener group on Facebook!

Support the show