Gabe LePage

Yale Divinity School

"Cultural Services of Church Land Stewardship: The Stillmeadow Method"



Biography

Gabe LePage is a student at the Yale School of the Environment and Yale Divinity School, interested in working with faith communities to steward their landscapes for the common good. The Urban Resources Initiative in New Haven taught him a lot about community forestry. Gabe spent 2 years with ECHO Inc learning small scale farming in Florida and Thailand and one year being trained by Great Lakes Urban as a community listener practicing Asset Based Community Development in Grand Rapids, MI. He studied Geography and International Development Studies at Calvin College, and grew up in Nairobi, Kenya.

Paper Abstract

In October 2020, a small church in southwest Baltimore announced its forested property as the Stillmeadow PeacePark. Stillmeadow Community Fellowship has partnered with city and environmental agencies to steward their 9.5-acres of forested property for the common good in a way that works to build trust between community members and government and non-profit institutions and across social divisions. This paper reflects on the quality of relationships and social process of the church to build culture in a way that promotes ecosystem services, especially the cultural serves of sense of place and belonging. The paper traces some of the theoretical background at work in the church and lays out 9 building blocks for others to replicate their approach. Other organizations and communities can mimic Stillmeadow's approach to landscape stewardship and to social relationships to build trust across divisions of race, class, and religion, to increase local senses of place and belonging and increase disaster resilience.