Stewardship Over Extraction: Why Farmers Are Creation's Caretakers

0:00 I wanted to kick this off. I like to kind of set the stage. I'm not going to give you any necessarily practical farming information, but I'm here to set the stage for everybody else. And so I wanted to start out by just thinking about environmentalism. And this can be a touchy subject. You know, what do you think of when you hear this word environmentalism? Because it's one of these words that you depending on your background and experiences you can have many different emotions associated with this word. For many of us we don't necessarily say I'm an environmentalist because we think of these type of people very angry, very militant, very destructive people who are always yelling and always mad and that's not who we want to be. Or maybe we're thinking of just all this anger about fossil fuels, chain yourself to a tree type things. And so often times we don't say yes I'm an environmentalist because we don't want to be associated with this type of behavior.

1:16 So how should we think about the environment? Because as farmers and I'm going to address us mostly as farmers but if you have a lawn you're technically a farmer or you're growing something, so we all fit into this category. How should we think about it? Because really that's a big part of what we do as farmers, as ranchers, as caretakers of the land. And so I want to help us think through the fact that farmers and Christians, and I also did this for one of my Sunday school classes. And I'm not saying that everybody in here is a Christian and that's completely okay. But much of this is going to be from a biblical perspective because for us, for Green Cover, and for many people in the room that's where it starts. But farmers should be having the same exact mindset. We should be the caretakers of creation. And I'm going to make the case for why that is. And I think that this is preaching to the choir a little bit. And that's okay. I don't mind preaching to the choir. I don't know that any of this is going to be shocking revelatory information for anyone in here because you came in with the right mindset. But there's other farmers that we need to reach out to and get them to understand this. So part of this is for a message or a mindset for you to take back home to your neighbors, to maybe other people in your family farming operation, other people within your sphere of influence. They may need to hear this. And I think for both Christians and farmers there's some confusion about this whole concept of how do we look at the environment because of this word right here: dominion. What does dominion mean? Because in the Bible in Genesis chapter 1, God says, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heaven." And I think throughout much of history, church history, farming history, too many people have taken this to mean God has told us we can do whatever we want to because we have.

3:39 Dominion over this. And so this passage, this concept has been taken out of context. It has not been understood. And it has led to the destruction of some of the environment, some of creation. And I don't think that people understand this correctly, especially in the past, but even now of what does this concept of dominion mean? So I want to look at this just a little bit. God says it again in later on a couple verses later says, "Be fruitful and multiply." Talking to Adam and Eve, fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heaven, over every living thing. So it says that twice. Have dominion over.

4:22 Well, what does that mean? So the Hebrew word here is the word rada. Rada. And it can be thought about and interpreted several different ways, you know, to dominate, to rule over, to subdue, but it can also mean to exercise authority. And so there's kind of some, you know, if it truly means that we could just subdue it and rule it. And sometimes it's actually translated subdue in some versions, translations. But does that just mean that we can do whatever we want to? Hey, God has said this is ours. We can do whatever we want to with it. So, you know, we don't have to worry about conserving it because we've been given dominion over it. And that has been the attitude unfortunately of some farmers and some Christians. And that's not a good look. That's not a good way to be.

5:14 So how do we think about this word Rada when it's got these different meanings, you know, how do we really understand what that means? So I think a good principle is when you don't understand something in scripture, you let other scripture interpret that scripture. And so I really like this in chapter 2. It says, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it." And I know many of you have probably read this and sometimes it even says to till it to cultivate it. We don't like that. Who wouldn't like to till, you know, we like to think of more no till. But when we look at these words the word for work is the word avad and it can mean to work but it also means to serve. It can also mean to serve and keep it. And again, sometimes that's where it's translated to cultivate or to till it. But really it means to work or to serve. And the word for keep it, the translated word there is the Hebrew word shamar. And it means to keep, to guard, or protect.

6:28 And so we can look at this verse this way. You could say the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to serve it and to protect it. And how much different is that as we think about you know what is the purpose of you know man if you know how much different would that be if we have the mindset of serving and protecting and not just taking advantage of it because God said we could dominate it have dominion over. And so if we think about these within the same parallel tracks of having Genesis 2 help us interpret Genesis 1, then I think that we can say that part of Rada or dominion is to steward it, to serve it and protect it. And many times we refer to ourselves as stewards of the land. And that's a good word and I like that mostly, but I don't think it's quite exactly correct if we just say we're stewards because stewardship is the responsible overseeing and protection of something considered worth caring for and preserving. And that's a great definition and we should be stewards. But I don't think it's enough. I don't think it's enough to simply say we're a steward because a steward is mostly taking care and preserving what's there. So stewardship is almost like being a sustainable farmer because that means we're sustaining and we're protecting what's here. But folks, we have degraded resources. We've got a lot of things we need to fix.

8:18 We have to recover from a lot of the destruction that has been done. And so I don't think that stewardship by itself is enough. And I don't think that's what God exactly intended because he didn't say stewardship initially. It was this word dominion. And so we've got these two things. We've got the stewardship part which is overseeing and protecting. It's almost a defensive strategy. You know, defending and protecting what we have. And you've got this dominion which is exercising control or command over something that's almost an offensive, you know, going on the offense because it shows a lot more action and initiative to make things better. And so how do we think about these two things together?

9:02 So oftentimes when I'm in a situation like this, I just make up a new word. And this is not without precedent. The Apostle Paul in many of his writings, he has words that he makes up by combining two other words or two other concepts because there simply wasn't a word to describe what he wanted to convey to people. And so he would take parts of two other words and put them together and that's the concept that he was convey. So that's what I'm going to do here. Please don't, this is not necessarily biblical. This is Keithal. Okay. So, so we can talk theology later if you want. This is my opinion, but I like this concept I call stew minion. Sounds kind of funny, but it's memorable because it's part stewardship and is part dominion.

10:01 Because I think if we're really going to be the caretakers of creation that each of us as farmers should be and I think I believe that we want to be and we want to encourage our neighbors and the rest of our family and the future generations that come after us to be. I think this is the mindset that we need. So stew minion it's the exercise of responsible authority. Okay. So it means we're actively doing something here and it reflects both the care and the protection of stewardship and the sovereignty and initiative of dominion. So it's both. We've got to do both. We've got to take care of it, but we also need to show enough initiative to fix it and to make it better. So it's actively nurturing, protecting, managing and regenerating creation. And this is really the concept that you know when we started Green Cover, you know, we said, well, we need a mission statement. Why do we exist? And many of you on your farms or your businesses, you probably have a mission statement or a vision statement or a purpose statement. It's called different things, but it's your why. Why do you exist? What are you there for? And you know the mission statement at Green Cover is and this has gone through several iterations, but our mission, the reason we exist is to help people to regenerate and to steward and to share God's creation for future generations. And that's basically what this is. We want to help people be good stewards.

11:44 Now, when I did this at our church, my older daughter, she sends me a picture of the little minion guy from what's that Despicable Me? Apparently, there's one called Stewart. Is that right? So, she says, "This is all I can think of when you're talking." Great. I didn't put that in there. But this is what we need to be doing. We need to actively nurture, protect, manage, and regenerate creation.

12:13 I want to share one story here from the New Testament that I think demonstrates. So, this is an Old Testament concept, but I think it's Jesus demonstrates this when he talks about the parable of the talents. And if you're not familiar with this, I'm just going to go through it really quickly, but Jesus tells this parable. So a parable is simply a story that teaches a spiritual concept by using the context that people would be very familiar with in that time and age. And so Jesus tells a story. He says there's the master and he's going on a journey and before he goes on the journey, he's got three servants. And he gives one servant five bags of gold or five talents depending on how that's translated. One gets two bags or two talents and one gets one bag of gold, one talent, and then he leaves on a trip.

13:07 And so the one with five bags of gold, scripture tells us that he went at once and he put his money to work and he got five more. He essentially doubled the money. He doubled the investment for the master. The one with two bags of gold, he gained two bags more. He did the same thing. He put it to work. The one with one bag of gold went off, dug a hole in the ground, and he hid his master's money.

13:35 Okay. So, the master comes back and the one with five bags of gold says, "Master, I've doubled it. Now I you gave me five. Here's five more. Here's the 10 that is yours." And the master says, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come in and share your master's happiness." One with two bags. Same thing, same message. Hey, master, you gave me two. I made two more. Here's four. These are yours. I was working with it and now you have four. And he says the same thing. You've been faithful with a few things. I'm going to put you in charge of more. The one with one bag of gold. Very interesting here. He says, "Master, I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and I went out and I hid your gold in the ground. See, here's what belongs to you. Here's your one bag of gold back. Here's your one talent that you entrusted me with. I was a steward of it. I protected it. I sustained it. I protected it, and it didn't get stolen."

14:37 What does the master say? Well, it's not "well done, good and faithful servant." Says, "you wicked and lazy servant. You knew that I harvest where I have not sown and I gather what I have not scattered. You should have at least put my money on deposit with the banker so that when I returned, I would have received it back with interest."

15:19 So instead of getting accommodation, this guy gets cussed out and kicked out, and the master takes that one bag of gold and he gives it to the one that had five and earned five more. And basically this guy gets kicked out. And the moral of the story is I think we have the responsibility to actively use, increase, and improve what God has entrusted to us. That's a responsibility to actively use, increase, and improve. That's the dominion part. That's the showing initiative part. Sometimes it involves taking some risk, but it definitely takes work and action.

16:09 And that's I think more than just stewardship because you can make the case that the third guy was a steward. But he didn't get rewarded. He didn't get complimented. And I think that we are to have this responsibility with our minds. We should make them better. And that's, you know, good job for being here. You're increasing your knowledge. One of the core values that we have at Green Cover is always growing. Always growing. It's a little bit of a play on words because we want to see people's fields always growing something. But we also want our team and our customers to always be growing as well, learning things. That's why we spend so much money on education. We put lots of effort into putting videos on our YouTube channel, our smart mix calculator, all these things that we do because we want people to be always growing. We should do this with our talents, with our energy to use that to improve what God has given us.

17:14 And then finally, our peace of God's creation. And I think this all rolls back to this concept of God has given us dominion over this. But what does that look like? Well, I like to think of it as "stew-minion" because we are both taking care of it like a steward, but also pushing it and improving it and using it and increasing it with the dominion part of that. And so I want to talk a little bit about, you know, when we talk about creation, what does that exactly mean? You know, because we understand that it can be our soils. But I want to spend just a little bit of time talking about creation and maybe broaden our thinking a little bit about that because as farmers, it's easy to walk outside, look at our field, and go, "Yeah, I've got, you know, I've got soil, I've got the plants, I've got the animals. Okay, that's my job. That's what I'm taking care of." But we need to have a healthy understanding of what creation is, what God's intent there was in order to be good stew-minions of it. So number one, it's all inclusive. It's not just the soil.

18:26 Now we're going to focus a lot. You're going to hear a lot of talk about soil health, regenerative agriculture, improving and building our soil. That is important, but it's much more than that. It's also the water and it's the animals. It's the natural resources and it's the insects and it's our family and it's livestock and it's the microbes and it's our communities. It goes way beyond just the soil. It's all of these things that God created. And I believe that we're called to be good stewards of all of these things and not just the soil. So I would encourage you over the next few days to broaden your thinking beyond just the farm ground that you've been entrusted with.

19:05 Number two, it was intelligently designed. Creation was intelligently designed. And if you're familiar with some of the work that some of these guys like Michael Behe has done, he has this concept of irreducible complexity. And I really like this because he's not approaching this necessarily just from a biblical standpoint saying, "Well, God said he created it, so that must be how it is." He's looking at this from a very, very scientific standpoint. And he says this concept of irreducible complexity is a single system composed of multiple well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to cease functioning. He uses the example of a mousetrap in a lot of the writings and teaching that he does. You know if you take any part of that away then it ceases to function as a mousetrap.

20:05 He goes on to say this type of system cannot be produced directly by slight successive modifications of a precursor system because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional. So in other words, he's saying look at the systems that we have and science has given us insights into how complex even the tiniest of things are, single-celled organisms with billions of genes and the DNA strand. The complexity of these systems is almost unfathomable and these systems can't just be built by these slight successive modifications because all these pieces fit together in order to make it work.

20:57 And so I personally really like to think about the systems that we're working with as something that's been created because that means it was designed to work. If it was just created by a whole bunch of accidents, you could say, "Well, I'm not sure this is really supposed to work because it was kind of an accident in the first place." But when we go in thinking that this is a system that was designed to work, it gives us encouragement that we can make it work again, function the way that God designed it to work. And again, that's what much of our talk here is going to be is how do we bring our agricultural systems back to the way that they were created because they flourished and were productive for thousands of years without our input. How do we get back to following those principles?

21:54 Intelligent design? Thirdly, creation was good and very good because when God created it in Genesis 1:31, he says God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good. He actually said that on the sixth day after creating the animals and creating man. But four different times throughout creation, God says he looked at what he created and it was good. And again, I think this is really helpful for us. And when we think about the systems that we're working with, they're good systems.

22:29 Now, we look at some of them now, wildfires, the floods, California. I mean, you look everywhere and you can see things that aren't good, but that's not the way they were created. And so part of our goal should be to restore it back to being good and very good. That'd be a pretty good goal for each one of us. Get it back to being good and very good.

22:53 Some of you may have heard of Timothy Keller. Unfortunately, he passed away last year. He's a preacher in a church in New York City. Probably one of the best teachers I've ever heard. He's very matter-of-fact but just he's so intelligent and I just love the way he talks and teaches and speaks. So I would encourage you especially this first one. Write this one down. Can faith be green? Is one of the sermons that he gave at his church that really deals with this topic of you know how farmers and Christians and he talks specifically about Christians but I think it can apply to farmers as well. How we should be the most passionate environmentalists that there are and he goes through all of this but one of his points in this talk and you can search it on YouTube. It's just an audio track but you can easily find it on YouTube, Can Faith Be Green. One of the things that he talks about in there is the goodness of creation and he goes through this whole study of you know how God created creation to be good so he does a much better job of bringing that concept out than I do. So, I would encourage you to look at that. He's also got one, two other sermons that if you're really interested, the Song of Creation and Lord of the Earth would also be worth your listen. They're relatively short, you know, they're only like 30 minutes, 35 minutes long. And they're going to be just audio only because they were basically a sermon that he did in his church. So, highly encourage you to go listen to some of Timothy Keller's stuff there.

24:32 Number four, creation was designed to be fruitful and abundant. It's supposed to produce. So, as farmers, as we're working with this creation that we've been given, it was designed to be fruitful and abundant. Again, Genesis 1:28, God blessed them, and God said, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heaven, over every living thing that moves on earth." Multiple times God tells both people and the animals to be fruitful and multiply and be abundant. So as we're working with these systems, as we're farmers trying to grow things, raise livestock, keep in mind that these systems were designed to be fruitful and abundant. And that's our goal as well.

28:57 Part in helping with the dust bowl and all of that. He was a great leader and I wish I could blow this picture up bigger and I wish that you could study his face because if I've ever seen a dejected, discouraged, depressed look, it's that right there. And that's how each one of us should feel when we're looking at soil that's been eroded, soil that's been abused, soil that's been degraded. That's how we should look. We should be sad. We should be discouraged, dejected, because we've taken this thing that was good and dynamic and fruitful and abundant and far too much of it is gone.

29:47 But that's where we need the dominion part of what God has called us to because we can rebuild it. Many people in this room are doing it right now and you'll hear from some of them of how we are rebuilding and we're fixing what has been broken and degraded and abused. So we've got resistant weeds in addition to erosion. We've got broken human systems as well. So when we think about degraded creation, it's not just the ground. We've got many human systems, part of the human creation. We've got a lot of problems that we have to fix there as well. Now, many of those problems we're not going to be able to fix or address here. There's other times and places for that. But we need to be aware that many of these systems, much of creation is broken. But there's good news because creation wants to be and it will be fully restored.

30:47 So as we work with these systems, creation wants to be fixed. And I can't tell you how many people that we've talked to when they put this diverse cover crop mix in and they integrate the livestock and they're following all these principles of soil health and they say, "I can't believe how quickly that came back, or I can't believe how fast my soil organic matter came up when I did these things." Well, that's because it wants to be restored. It wants to go back to the way that it was created. The biology, all of these systems working together will help put it back the way that it should be. And again, I take great comfort in knowing that. And one day it will be restored.

31:37 You know, if you're one of those people that you read ahead in a book to see how the ending is, if you read ahead in the Bible, God will come back and he will restore all things. But in the meantime, we've been called to do our part to restore the little piece of creation that God has put you in charge of. And that might be your soil. It's definitely yourself and your family and all of those things that God has put in your life. And so you and I are God's creation as well. And sometimes we overlook that fact that people are God's design. And that changes the way we work with people. And especially the people that we don't get along with or that we disagree with or that disagree with us. We have different viewpoints on things and sometimes it's just really easy to hate that person or to avoid that person. But we need to remember that.

32:39 Psalm 139 where it says, "For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made." That wasn't just written to me. That applies to every person on the face of this earth.

32:58 But often times we only remember this for the people that we like or that like us or that are like us. But how does it change the way we look at people and work with people, interact with people if we're applying this even to the people that we don't like or that don't like us or aren't like us?

33:24 And so that leads me to my last thing that I want to just share with you here in the last few minutes. I have this concept that I call regenerative living. Because I think as we think about regenerative agriculture and you're going to hear us talking about that for the next three days here, regenerative agriculture and all these principles of regenerative agriculture and how we can restore the soil and the land and the animals, I want to talk about things that we can personally do in our own lives because this applies to each one of us on an individual level and on a daily level. And so regenerative living is when we give back more than what we take because the only way that we regenerate our soil is if we're putting more into it than what we're taking out.

34:14 Now that definitely applies to carbon. If we're going to increase our soil organic matter, we have to put more carbon in than what we're taking out. It's very, very simple. It's just like your bank account. You have to put more in. You have to give more than what you're taking out. So that's how we rebuild. That's how we regenerate things. And this principle applies in our life as well as it does in our soil.

34:35 And so in closing, I want to just share a few things here to get you thinking about. So we'll talk about the soil. Not going to talk a lot more about that right now, but there are other areas where I would encourage you to give more than what you're taking. So first your job, your vocation, what you do. Are you a regenerative worker? Do you have a regenerative job? A regenerative worker, they're making $15 an hour. They're giving $18 worth of work. If you're making 25 bucks an hour, you're given $30 worth of work. If you're making $100,000 a year, your value to the company is $125,000.

35:24 And the really good regenerative workers, they're not bitter about that. They don't sit around saying, you know what, that stinking company, they should be paying me more because I bring a lot more value than what I'm getting paid. Now you may have legitimate gripes about that sometimes, and there's appropriate ways to deal with that and handle that. But I suspect that if you are contributing, consistently contributing more than what you're earning, more than the value you're getting paid for, you will get noticed, you will get promoted, you will get raises, or you will get other opportunities.

36:01 Opportunities. It will happen, but it's not going to happen if you sit around complaining about it. So, are you putting more in than what you're taking out? I show a picture of much of our green cover team here because we have a lot of those people. A lot of those people are in this room because they're giving more than what they're taking back out.

36:22 Number three, your finances. This is one people don't often think of, but if you aren't actively, proactively putting more in to your accounts than what you're taking out, you aren't living regeneratively. And here's the problem. If you are constantly spending more than you're earning and you're going into debt and you're living on credit cards or you're living paycheck to paycheck, you will not be in a position to help other people when those opportunities arise.

37:02 And we've got a lot of that going on. There is so much debt in our country, not just national debt, but personal debt. And so part of the issue that we have society is that when somebody sees a need, they can't help because they don't have any money because they haven't been regenerative with their finances. We are no longer a culture that thinks about saving. We just think about spending the immediate gratification.

37:36 And so I encourage you to be thinking about this, especially when you're young because that's where it has to start. You have to be saving. You have to be building because down the road there's going to be opportunities that come and it may be opportunities to move to a different location or to bless somebody with a gift or to enter into a different business relationship, make an investment in a company. If you don't have some savings, you won't be able to take advantage of those opportunities.

38:11 And it has to start when you're young. You know, we encourage all of our younger employees to take advantage of the 401k and the matching that we do, but some of them still don't even do that. Hey, we'll match whatever you want to put in your savings account, your 401k. We want to match it. That's free money. But there's still way too many of them that don't even do that.

38:38 So, live regeneratively in your finances, your relationships. Are you putting more into your relationships than what you're taking out? I have a picture of my wife because that's what she does. So, she's a great example, and it's not just a relationship with me, but with all of the people that she's associated with. You have to be the type of person that puts more into a relationship than what it takes out, or you're going to find that you don't have very many close friends.

39:04 You're going to find that your relationships are continually stressful and broken if you're taking more out than what you're putting in. But if you're the type of person that's investing in others, then when you do need that help, and there will be times when we all need that help, you will have this huge base of resources to draw on.

39:27 To touch on this a little bit with the farmer suicide rate because there's way too much of that going on. There's so much depression, so much stress. And much of it is because we don't have regenerative relationships. We don't have relationships where we're putting more into than what we're taking out. So that down the road when we need that, we have a pool of people to pull on.

39:56 Finally, your community. Are you helping to build your community? And I'm using community in a broad sense of the term, not just the geographical location where you live because that is important and that's part of it. Are you helping the local community where you grow? Are you supporting that? Are you participating in things? That's important. But what other communities are you part of? Maybe it's your church. Maybe it's a service organization. It can even be some online groups.

40:30 Now, it shouldn't be just online groups, but there is community that can be found virtually and online. Are you giving more than what you're taking from those? Because community cannot be built if it's just a bunch of takers. There has to be more givers. And many of you in this room are the givers. And thank you for being here. Thank you for being part of our Nexus community. And we are trying to do some things that extend this community out. We'll be doing some follow-up virtual rounds if you want to jump online and join another discussion where we're talking about a specific topic. There will be some videos that we're putting out down the road that will be kind of exclusive content to people that have been to these Nexus events.

41:18 So, what are you doing to help build your community? What areas are you putting more into than what you're taking out? Don't be an extractive person because we have way too many of those.

41:33 So in closing, Stewardship, the exercise of responsible authority reflecting both the care and the foresight of stewardship with the sovereignty and initiative of domain. Be thinking about that. Drop that word out there. You'll sound super smart because people will go, "Oh, I've never heard of that word." And you can say, "Really? I think it's been around a long time. I don't know." But it will give you a chance to explain what it means. That's one of the benefits of made-up words is it opens up the opportunity to explain it and you can tell people why that's your part of your passion to actively nurture, protect, manage, and regenerate God's creation, especially for future generations.

42:28 Because I know that's a passion of each one of you out there to leave the land, to leave your farm, to leave your family, to leave your community a little bit better than what you found. It should be all of our goals. And so that's what we're all about here at the Regenerative Nexus. So hopefully that sets the stage for the speakers to come. They will give you lots of practical applications of how I just talked about. So, thank you very much. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here.