alumnus nathan hale helps sustain healthy community through church-run garden

environmental science students learn from madison-based alumnus the theology of gardening.

janel shoun-smith/photos by kristi jones | 10/17/2023

nathan hale (ba ’08) is on a mission to show the world that there is much more to gardening than plants.

gardens can be a source of food, fuel for a community and a pipeline to spiritual enrichment. that’s the message he is sharing with the nashville community, including students in lipscomb’s environmental science programs who have come out to his garden at madison church of christ, north of downtown nashville, each fall for two years now.

hale, the youth minister at the church, is also a former missionary in honduras who planted seeds in people’s hearts as well as planting seeds in a 40-acre farm designed to teach people how to alleviate hunger and need in practical and sustainable ways. upon returning to the united states in 2012, he ended up at madison where he oversees its community garden program.

his work is now a model for lipscomb students taking environmental sustainability courses. hale not only introduces students to hands-on gardening on-site, but he also serves as a guest speaker in the course to discuss how agriculture can be used as positive community activism through food production.

“i talk about why a church would have a garden and why it is relevant,” said hale. “we are supposed to feed people and we need to think about how to go about doing that in a way that also honors creation. the goal is to take care of humans and god’s created world in a way that makes everything work together.

the one-third-acre garden also includes a chicken coop and an aquaponics (closed-loop) system, where fish and plants are grown together to nourish each other as they grow. the caretakers practice organic gardening techniques and on-site composting of leftover food from the church that cannot be used in other ways, said hale. they grow, among other things, potatoes, onions, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, basil and this fall, pumpkins.

“we try not to waste anything. it all turns back into fertilizer for the other plants,” said hale. “god made everything from top to bottom, and he wants everything to be at peace with one another.”

hale said he likes to teach students about plants like the moringa tree, which can be used in a multitude of ways: as a nutritious animal feed that also improves output in dairy animals; as a nutritional supplement, especially for breast-feeding mothers; and even the seeds can be used to clarify water, says hale.

food from the garden is sold at the church’s vegetable stand to benefit church mission efforts, given away to those in need in the local community and used by the church to prepare food for a “meals on wheels” program.

hale, originally from antioch, grew up embedded in the church, as his father was the youth minister and song leader at rural hill church of christ in antioch for 36 years. his parents and grandparents also definitely had green thumbs, working in personal gardens and landscaping, he said.

when he came to lipscomb for college, “the bible department showed me how to help people in really practical ways,” said hale.

during his time ministering in honduras, “people were asking constantly, ‘can you come to india, to ghana, or elsewhere, to show us farming techniques?’.” so upon returning to the u.s., his goal was to set up a demonstration farm in nashville “where students could learn the agricultural tools to bless communities around the world,” he said.

however, after a couple of years of personal struggle to make that goal a reality, hale accepted a job offer at madison, where unexpectedly, his dream of a demonstration farm began to take bloom in a different form. the congregation owned a vacant lot near its properties used for transitional housing. they asked hale to establish a community garden.

hale got the idea “off the ground” in 2015 and six months later was diagnosed with leukemia. during his illness, hale and the congregation decided to till the soil of the local community to find some partnerships to keep the garden growing. 

currently madison partners with organizations that host mission work in nashville, hosting at the church 400 students over the past year who have put in more than 2000 man-hours of work in the garden.

“it has been a great joy to host people, teach and to see the light bulbs go off,” said hale.

one person who felt that light bulb go off was lipscomb student ashton edgeworth, who after visiting the garden with associate professor emily stutzman, decided to intern at madison in the summer of 2023, working with the garden, and to create a senior capstone project focused on the theology of gardening.

“one of the main motivators for nathan is to use the garden as a teaching tool, to incorporate it into the youth ministry and the church body as a whole. i really clicked with that idea,” said edgeworth, an environmental science major from brentwood.

as a former ministry major who expects to graduate this december, edgeworth decided to research the practical theology of a garden, such as how community gardens have been used as a tool to teach the concepts of the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of earth, or both, she said.

“what i’m learning is that there are a lot of churches that have community gardens, but there isn’t much information about their use, what works well and what doesn’t,” she said.

“i did love this summer, the overlap of working on a garden, using my sustainability knowledge, but also working at a church,” said edgeworth. “i learned through that experience that i really want to connect those passions: missions and environmental work.”