Earthkeepers: A Circlewood Podcast on Creation Care and Spirituality · Forrest Inslee

Faith and Farming in Chicagoland: Matt and Mary Anne Ryan of Vineyard Green | Ep. 123

·34 min·2 clips

The farm grows "almost 50 different varieties of vegetables" and flowers for a food pantry.

1. Earthkeepers: A Circlewood Podcast on Creation Care and Spirituality focuses on Matt and Mary Ann Ryan’s work with Vineyard Green and Vineyard Farm at Evanston Vineyard. 2. Matt Ryan is director of farm operations for Evanston Froze, and Mary Ann Ryan co-leads Vineyard Green at the church, so both connect food access and faith practice. 3. The episode asks what a church can do when it treats creation care as part of "joining Jesus and the restoration of all things." 4. Matt explains that Evanston Froze addresses food insecurity in Evanston through growing and distributing produce, plus cooking classes, chef demos, and health and wellness days. 5. The church contributed about a 5,000-square-foot lot that became Vineyard Farm, and Evanston Froze helps finance the project as a partner organization. 6. Mary Ann describes Vineyard Green as a wider church ministry for creation care, environmental justice, and raising awareness about environmental issues. 7. The farm welcomes volunteers with experience or without experience, and many families come with children who plant, harvest, and play in the dirt. 8. Matt says the farm site grows "almost 50 different varieties of vegetables" across about 25 weeks, plus flowers for church spaces. 9. The produce goes to a food pantry that serves about 200 families each week, with Monday harvests and Wednesday distribution. 10. The church also uses compost bins for cups, utensils, napkins, and food scraps, and the team says it diverted over a thousand pounds of material last year. 11. Vineyard Green is built around three pillars: greening church infrastructure, greening the community, and green theology or green spirituality. 12. The senior pastor is planning a three-part series on creation care this year, after a one-sermon launch last year from Genesis. 13. Matt says the project began in 2010 when he felt depressed about the status of the world and realized local food growing fit his skills. 14. Mary Ann says her childhood in the Philippines, in a bamboo house on stilts, shaped her memories of clouds, the moon behind mountains, dragonflies, and frogs after rainfall. 15. She connects that childhood to wanting the next generation to feel "God's loved when he overflowed through his creation." 16. The team is also working on children's ministry, including classes where kids cut vegetables in star shapes with their parents. 17. The tone is collaborative and practical, with Matt and Mary Ann answering detailed questions about land use, volunteers, and year-by-year planning. 18. The format stays conversational and pastoral, with Forrest Dinsley repeatedly pressing for concrete examples and personal stories. 19. People interested in church-based creation care, food pantry gardens, and small-scale sustainability efforts would likely appreciate this episode. 20. Listeners wanting abstract theology without hands-on environmental examples might skip it.

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