Over the past few months, several have asked, “Where did From Soil To Soul come from? What does it mean?” While the seed has always been there from the beginning, the moment of planting happened on a spring morning in 1999. 

I was sitting on the steps in the back of the milk parlor simply waiting for the automatic milkers to remove themselves from the cows. I had already submitted my application to the ministerial board of our denomination and went through the appropriate interviews. My profile was now available to churches with open positions.

My mind drifted back over a couple of decades as I reflected on how I’d gotten to this point. I’d been to school and I’d been involved in youth ministry and church leadership, but for the past nine years I had been managing our old family farm for another family. Illness, deaths and the dissolusion of the business led to the sale. 

It was a strange place to be. Here I was on the piece of ground I had known intimately from my earliest memories. I knew every nook and cranny. I knew every field, every animal, where the water lines were buried, where electric lines were buried, this was home. However, through the circumstances of life, I found myself as a hired hand on the very place I used to be a son. The time had come for me to return to ministry. The farm was done. The loss was enormous.

As I sat there that morning feeling the weight of leaving what had always been home and heading into the unknown feeling completely inadequate; a voice in my heart came to me softly and gently saying, “I’ve taught you all you need to know right here.”

In that moment I realized I had been in God’s classroom. Not only for the previous nine years as farm manager but for my whole life. How I would preach, teach, and shepherd God’s people was formed in the labs of the barn and soil. While I’d had the formal classroom experience, I realized the farm had been my practicum. My internship. My clinicals.

It helped form the very essence of my pastoral style. I had long before developed a fivefold care plan for the cows. You might say these were things I would provide as a herdsman to foster a healthy and productive herd. Good nutrition, safe environment, a place to reproduce and be productive, a place of healing, and boundaries for safety. 

Another pivotal moment happened while attending a pastoral care workshop put together by one of my old professors and mentor, Dr. Jack Hayford. He strongly advocated that if a pastor only communicates with his congregation during the sermon they will fall far short of connecting with their congregation. He encouraged all in attendance to write something to their congregations on a weekly basis. From that moment on I began a journey of written communication with those I served.  It’s been called different things; Pastor’s Page, Chaplain’s Corner and so on. Through inserts in bulletins, handouts, and emails, I communicated beyond the thirty-minute window at the pulpit.

Nearing retirement I didn’t want to quit writing. I didn’t want to quit communicating the truth of God’s creation and its connection to His Word. As I began to ruminate on how I would do this and what it would look like and what it would be called the thought came to mind, “I had been a farmer/herdsman for thirty-five years and I had been in pastoral ministry for thirty-five years. Half of my life was nurturing the soil and animals it supported and the other half nurturing the souls God had placed in my care.” 

After a little percolation, From Soil To Soul came to settle in my heart. The stories from agriculture and ministry have shaped my whole life, and the stories of Scripture have formed my spiritual being. Why not marry the two?

Parable after parable, psalm after psalm, and story after story, the Bible reminds us that creation points beyond itself to the Creator. The seed, the soil, the weather, the animals, the seasons—all have something to teach us if we are willing to pay attention.

That is the essence of From Soil To Soul.

For thirty-five years I worked to nurture the soil and the life it supported. For thirty-five years I worked to nurture the souls God placed in my care. Looking back now, I realize those were never two separate stories. They were one story all along.

Thank you for joining me on the journey. My prayer is that as we travel together, you too will discover the fingerprints of God in the ordinary moments of your own story.

Grace and peace,

Jarvis—From Soil To Soul