Beauty from the Ruins

Origin Community Space has become a place of healing and restoration

(From the July - September 2021 issue of VOX)

Transforming an overgrown, dilapidated space in Finvoy, Co. Antrim into a beautiful, flourishing garden has mirrored what God is doing in the lives of those involved. As part of this year’s Finding Faith “Tour” VOX editor Ruth Garvey-Williams chatted with Kenny Baird about the vision behind Origin Community Space and the impact it is making on a small rural community even through the challenges of lockdown.

How did Origin Community Space come about?

About five years ago, we were a group of friends who were a bit disillusioned about our journey of faith. We were trying to find a way that we could link what we believe with our desire to care for the environment and care for our community. My wife’s family in Finvoy had a little piece of land. My father-in-law had been a chicken farmer and when he retired, they knocked down the chicken shed. The shed was lying in ruins on a concrete slab in the middle of three acres of land. One day we stood in the middle of this rubble and imagined what would happen if the wasteland were turned into something usable.

It took a lot of shovelling and a lot of hard work. We didn’t have any money, so we did everything by hand. We were loading pieces of rock and concrete into the back of car trailers and driving back and forth to the dump. Looking back now, we realise how committed we were. As we cleared space, we got some rescue chickens and some geese. Slowly things began to speed up and we filled the site with animals and with the vegetables we were growing.

Early on we began to give away some of our produce to those in need and we partner with FarmBox in Belfast to provide vegetables, fruit and eggs to refugees and asylum seekers in the city.

How do you run Origin?

We have a core team of about 10 or 12 people involved most of the year with up to 30 volunteers who drop in at different times. We run it as a cooperative and a social enterprise. My wife started a flower growing business to raise more money for Origin. And people have run various classes on the site. An artist has taken over one of the sheds and that also provides funds to help run the project. The whole idea is that as more and more people use the space, they can dream and develop their own ideas.

So where does faith come in?

A lot of people we see are disillusioned and dismayed at what they see portrayed in church. We believe there has to be a different way of living as followers of Jesus. Our church community “Collective” is a micro-church model that was birthed out of Origin. It is centred on Christ with a desire to live out our Christian faith in all of life with a focus on discipleship and relationship.

Origin itself is not a Christian group. But the DNA of the garden has been established on Christian principles such as caring for our environment and caring for the vulnerable and marginalised in our community. We wanted to build something that could not be labelled. That has enabled us to be a welcoming space for all kinds of people and it has helped to break down the fear of “otherness”. Only 10% of those involved in Origin would be practising Christians.

How did the pandemic affect you?

In January to March 2020, we were in our regular rhythm of prepping seeds. Then lockdown hit and we quickly realised we needed to grow a lot more food. We all thought the hardest thing was going to be figuring out how to keep things going.

Then things got real. My father-in-law who was one of the central people in Origin, got sick with Covid. He was taken into hospital in April and died. This loss hit our community really hard. Trevor was the one who built our poly tunnels. He was the experienced farmer who had been teaching us all how to care for animals and grow vegetables. Soon afterwards, I got sick with Covid and had a double stroke because of it.

And while all that “shaking” was happening to us, we also had social services and others getting in touch with us because so many in our community were in need. We began dropping off boxes of fresh food to people and also providing support to those who were isolated. The need was massive but we realised it wasn’t just about hand outs. People were looking for something deeper. With an outdoor space, we found opportunities to invite people to come and grow things for themselves. It empowered people to take back control.

Sometimes in trying to help people, we can make them feel small but by inviting people to work at Origin, we could empower them to feel part of something bigger. One of the unique things about working together in an outdoor space is the ability to dig your hands into the soil and process what it going on in your life. People were longing for community. They wanted to get involved and make a difference. Origin has become a space of healing and restoration for people as they have struggled with their mental wellbeing and with the isolation of lockdown.

You also started teaching people how to cook. Tell us about that.

For a lot of people fresh food is a luxury so when we were able to drop off a box of freshly harvested vegetables, people were incredibly thankful. We were showing them that they are worthy of it. People value healthy, fresh food but many have no idea how to cook with these types of ingredients. We started a wee kitchen, making videos to teach people how to cook recipes using our vegetables. Then we would call them the following day to have a chat and ask, “How was your meal?” It was a lovely experience to receive photographs of the meals people had cooked using fresh vegetables from Origin.

It seems as if the transformation in Origin is a picture of what is happening in people’s lives.

It is beautiful to stand back and see something that was once an overgrown mess but is now flourishing. We have story after story of people who have joined us. Some of them have never grown anything in their lives. One woman has become one of my best friends here. She came along as a way of getting out of her house but now she is one of our head gardeners and one of our hardest workers. She teaches others. Her life has been transformed by hanging out with a pile of people growing some food and sharing community.

But to play devil’s advocate for a moment, what has this got to do with the Gospel?

“God is involved in the restoration of all things to Himself.”

God is involved in the restoration of all things to Himself. He is at work in the world. One danger that churches face is that we can focus on pulling people from their real authentic rooted life into a building. Instead of empowering people to live in that [every day] space, we can elevate Sunday services as the most important part of the week.

Our desire is to empower people to live for Christ throughout the week and in all of life. We want to share the good news as we live our lives. But it is hard to change the narrative unless you see it for yourself. Being part of Origin has helped us to connect with people who would never walk through the door of a church building. It has helped us to forge friendships with people from different backgrounds and many of them have felt safe to come along to Collective. They see the Gospel lived out in our community and in those moments of beauty in Creation as we work side by side in the garden.

What are the lessons you have learnt as a church community during this time? And what would you say to other church leaders as we emerge from lockdown?

It has been an awesome journey. We have been learning to be a community that loves Christ and where everybody is caring for one another. As a pastor, it is exciting to see the hierarchy being flattened. I can sit back and watch as people have risen and God is releasing more people into their gifting. We’ve had conversations about our mental health and wellbeing and have been able to discover how to meditate on Scripture and practice gratitude. We’ve found new depth as we’ve experienced those feelings of great loss at the same time as holding onto hope.

I truly do believe in Jesus-centred communities. Many church leaders are struggling with trying to bring people back together because some who had been searching for something deeper have actually experienced that. They have found space to read, to go for walks and to be imaginative about how they live out and express their faith. I’m praying that churches and leaders can break down some of the walls. This pandemic has the potential to change generations of Christians if we let it.