By The First Presidency
One of the most frequently asked questions we receive as we travel the church is: How do our identity, mission, message, and beliefs all fit together? Furthermore, how do our short-term visions and goals fit into the larger context of trying to fulfill God’s vision for creation?
As members of the First Presidency, we have been prayerfully considering how to best answer this. We have sought a way to provide a clear context for our shorter-term visions and strategies—one that keeps them deeply and visibly connected to the overall idea of our mission, our Mission Initiatives, and our Enduring Principles. This framework helps us navigate the complexities of being a worldwide body while staying rooted in our shared calling.
Our reflections led us to the image of a large, distributed Global Farm. We believe this image is powerful not simply because it is vivid, but because it expresses the deep identity, theology, and vocation of a worldwide Community of Christ that is diverse, Spirit-led, and continuously unfolding in mission.
This imagery works across the many contexts of the church, providing a shared narrative framework that honors our unity while making space for contextual diversity and prophetic responsiveness.
We hope this metaphor helps readers imagine their place in the new communities God is calling us to create so we can fulfill God’s vision of Shalom. “…see how the fields are ripe for harvesting” (John 4:35 NRSVue).
This framework helps us navigate the complexities of being a worldwide body while staying rooted in our shared calling.
Single Vision for Identity and Diversity
A church in more than sixty-two nations must navigate immense cultural, social, political, and economic differences. The Global Farm metaphor allows us to affirm our unity of identity—the same “soil nutrients” of our Basic Beliefs, Enduring Principles, and scripture—while honoring contextual diversity, represented by different crops and farming techniques. It communicates that variety is not deviation; it is expected, healthy, and Spirit-led. This helps us avoid the dangers of rigid uniformity or fragmentation, offering a unifying theological foundation that holds the global body together without suppressing difference.
Embodies Continuing Revelation
A church with a living tradition of continuing revelation needs imaginations and frameworks that can expand, adapt, and bend with the Spirit. Farms are organic, seasonal, and dynamic. This metaphor reminds us that revelation is cyclical and ongoing, requiring fresh discernment each season. It makes prophetic dynamism normal, not an exception, showing that revelation is not a single event but the ongoing wisdom of a farmer listening to the land, the weather, and the Spirit.
Creates a Shared Language
We are called to both prophetic imagination—envisioning the harvest God desires—and prophetic agility—adjusting our methods when the “climate” or “seasons” change. Because agricultural work requires constant adaptation to changing conditions, this metaphor becomes a natural way to say, “We must discern and adjust.” By experimenting, listening to the Spirit, and responding to the changing conditions where we live and serve, we are practicing prophetic imagination and agility.
Grounds Strategy in Theology
We know that mission strategies can sometimes feel overly administrative. The Global Farm metaphor roots our strategy in sacred story rather than organizational mechanics. It invites leaders at every level to think theologically about their goals, asking: What seeds are we planting? Are they nourished by our identity?
Crucially, this metaphor teaches us that our strategies should not be isolated. Just as many farmers use “three-sister farming” or similar techniques to plant complementary crops that support one another, we encourage teams to plant complementary goals that grow together rather than just one item at a time. This ensures that our ministry is understood as an integrated ecosystem of Spirit-led cultivation, not corporate production.
We must discern and adjust.
Local Agency and Contextual Innovation
A farm metaphor naturally values local knowledge, contextual practices, and grassroots creativity such as experimentation or ecological adaptation. This matches our commitment to enculturation and local discernment. When every field understands that it is free—and expected—to plant the crops that feed its community best, we create a global culture of empowered discipleship rather than top-down control.
Upholds Sustainability
Stewardship can often feel abstract, but the farm metaphor brings it to life: A farm must be resourced, everyone participates in tending the land, and without generosity, the field cannot flourish. The metaphor frames tithing, generosity, and volunteerism not as giving to a budget, but as investing in the flourishing of a global harvest that feeds the whole community.
Clarifies Our Purpose: Shalom
The farm imagery culminates in a vision of the harvest: healed people, reconciled communities, and restored creation. It makes the abstract idea of shalom tangible, giving the church a sensory, hopeful image of God’s dream.
Defines the Elements of Our Shared Work
Finally, this metaphor provides a functional map for our daily ministry by defining the specific elements of our work. We view our ministry context as the soil, which remains fertile only when enriched by the nutrients of our Basic Beliefs and Enduring Principles. To work this ground, we utilize the tools found in our barn—our sacraments, priesthood, worship, and Christian education resources that shape our identity.
We do not toil randomly; rather, we employ specific farming methods—our five Mission Initiatives—to live out Christ’s mission. Finally, the specific strategies and goals we choose to plant for a season—such as our current 2025-2028 focus on discernment, empowering others, contextual mission, nurturing souls, and expanding sustainability—are the crops we carefully select and tend together.
Summary
At first glance, the Global Farm metaphor might seem complex or even overwhelming. Our church life is not one-dimensional; it is an integrated ecosystem. We wanted a metaphor robust enough to answer the difficult question of how our identity, mission, message, and beliefs—everything found in Sharing in Community of Christ—fit together.
To help readers see exactly how these pieces connect, the May/June Herald will feature a comprehensive introduction to the Global Farm metaphor, including a diagram that shows how our identity and diversity hold together in a single vision.
Ultimately, this framework is designed to help each one find their place in the bigger picture. Whether enriching the soil or tending a specific crop in a congregation, you can see how local labor combines with the harvest of others around the world to move us all closer to God’s vision of Shalom.
The Global Farm is not just a metaphor. It is a unifying theological foundation and missional framework that enables the whole church to discern, adapt, experiment, and grow together in Christ’s mission. It captures who we are and what we are called to do in the near- and long-term. It reminds us we must remain both agile and faithful in an ever-changing world—unified yet diverse, rooted yet adaptable, and always focused on the harvest of God’s Shalom.
Our church life is not one-dimensional; it is an integrated ecosystem.