What We Do
beginning in 2022, as a doctoral thesis project, redeem mi land work is about expressing the christian faith through one of humanity’s earliest callings…to care for the land.
Our Mission
In the Christian Faith the word “Redemption” is a commonly used word. It is spoken frequently, but it is often thought of only in abstract ways. Redemption refers to the work of Christ and how he has redeemed us; rescued us, saved us, paid our debts… and while the Church uses this word to label and tell of the particular work of God, we often fail to show what this means, both inside and outside of the Church. Our mission is to “Show Michigan people what Christian Redemption means through redeeming Michigan lands.”
“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”
— Genesis 1:31
The Redeem Mi Land practice
The work of Redeem Mi Land is a reflection of the redemptive work that God has done through His Son, Jesus. The term “Redemption” in that context briefly means that…
1- We have been bought, our debts (sins) have been paid for. A debt we could never pay on our own.
2- We have repented (turned away from) a life marked by sin
3- We are being sanctified, growing each day more and more into God’s original intention for our lives.
We can use the term “saved” as well. Saved from sin, and its ultimate consequences, and saved to a better, worshipful, eternal life.
With land, we can create a living testimony of this, with living things and real places
You don’t have to think too hard to picture a place nearby that is not as beautiful as it once was, as it should be. There is land around us that is experiencing the consequences, the burdens, of our own wrongdoings. That might be our neglect and abuse when we’ve lazily dumped our trash on it. It might be our greed for profits in our businesses that have led us to contaminate the soil and waters. It might simply be that we’ve paved over a place for our convenience, only to abandon those lots years later when their upkeep became inconvenient. Whatever the reason, there is land that bears the burden of our sin. To show redemption, to be a witness to the faith of the Church…
1- We buy that land, pay the debt upon it, that which cannot save itself. Just like how our debts are paid, we act as redeemer to the land.
2- We clean the land of that which burdens it. This is “repentance” part. We clear away all that pollutes the land that we can and we take the steps necessary to prevent such burden from happening again.
3- We tend the process of sanctification within the land, the process of returning it to what God had intended for it. This process may take many years (just like with us!), but a long sanctification, a slow growth, is more like what we experience in faith than just a “quick fix.”
This practice can be small or it can be large. A 10ft x 10ft plot of land can serve as a redemption witness just as well as many acres, it’s simply a matter of the workers making the story known to those who would see it.