Twenty years ago, my dad set out to build more than a farm.

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Redeeming the Dirt is the ministry of Noah Sanders and his family, committed to encouraging Christians to live for Jesus, excel in agriculture, and make disciples.

The Family Homeplace

Twenty years ago, my father bought the property I now live on with my family. This past weekend, most of my siblings and their families gathered to celebrate. Only a few of the growing clan live on the land today, but it is a regular gathering place for the whole family.

My dad left our well-established home in Auburn to carve a new place out of raw land because he wanted to establish a family homeplace. Not just a farm. Not just a piece of land. A place where the roots of family relationships would bind his descendants together with a common set of memories and a shared physical legacy.

My dad spent many of his growing-up years on the old Sanders homeplace in Indiana, working the land with my grandfather. But when my grandfather was killed in a car accident, the farm had to be sold to pay the inheritance taxes. I have driven by it a few times, but with a new owner and many changes, it no longer serves as a homeplace.

Then my dad read in the Old Testament how God made family land a priority for the Israelites, returning it to its original families in the Year of Jubilee. That stirred in him a desire to establish a new family homeplace. At the time, I wanted to farm and wanted to live near my dad, so we developed this property together.

It took a lot of work to create this place where I now raise my family and our food, and where the whole family can gather to remember who we are and what God has done for us. We built roads, brought in power, cleared fields, dug ponds, built barns, lived in tents, built my dad’s house and then mine, and much more. And we did it together. The togetherness deepened our relationships. And the roots of belonging and family legacy have taken hold and grown deep.

But the land is the setting, not the focus. Like the Garden of Eden, it is a sacred space where we can walk with God and with each other. The dirt under our fingernails and the harvest from our land have value. But the real fruit is the family, and the faith that has grown and been passed on as we built this place and now use it to gather and to minister to others.

Place reflects the people who make it, and then it shapes the people who come after. The trails through the woods. The bench by the pond. The spaces for spending time with others. The gardens that grow food for our families. They are a way to live out our values, and they give us a setting for passing those values on through the relationships we build there.

As we gathered to pray this past weekend, piling up rocks collected from around the farm as a testimony to what God has done, I was deeply humbled to see that we love being together and that we love the Lord. That is rare in many families we know. God has been merciful to us.

As we build our farms and homesteads, let’s remember that one of their most valuable purposes is to be a homeplace for our families. We need physical places to gather, to work together, to play together, and to remember. Few people have a homeplace anymore. But if God has given us land, let’s use it to instill our family’s values, and recognize that while the physical fruit of the land is worth a lot, the relationships it bears are worth more. They echo into eternity.

Does your family have a homeplace, or are you building one? Hit reply and tell me.

This Week

New podcast: My friend Ben Stone and I talk about the question I hear most: “How do you have enough time to get everything done?” Watch the episode, or listen to it.

Pray for a farm family in Norway: Bjørnstjerne and Veslemøy are a Christian farm family fighting to save their seventh-generation farm through a very hard season. They’ve asked for prayer first, and for support if you’re able. See their story and how to help​

A new book is coming: The Joyfully Focused Farmer releases December 1. I’ll share more about it in an email soon.

And a new baby is coming! We are expecting our ninth child any day now, so please keep my wife and our family in your prayers.

Your Fellow Missional Steward of the Land,

Noah Sanders

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