A community grows its way out of poverty

A pastor in rural North Carolina has developed a farming and beekeeping operation that improves the health of local residents while training a new generation.

The Rev. Richard Joyner prefers delivering his sermons in the garden. Dressed in jeans and boots and armed with gloves, Joyner is surrounded by rows of collards, peppers, eggplants and okra.

“This is the sermon,” he said, gesturing toward a field where youth from the impoverished rural North Carolina community of Conetoe are working, laughing and playing.

“This sermon out here -- you can experience it here. You can experience it immediately in your kitchen, and you can experience it on your table, and you can experience it in your health.

“That’s real.”

For the last decade, Joyner, the pastor of Conetoe Chapel Missionary Baptist Church(link is external), has been toiling in the field, providing a gracious bounty for his congregation and community.

He founded the Conetoe Family Life Center(link is external), a nonprofit organization that encourages gardening, healthy eating habits and exercise for men, women and children suffering from chronic diseases and malnutrition. He’s also teaching the next generation of Conetoe residents how to feed themselves.

The 62-year-old Joyner had eulogized too many congregants who died from complications from diabetes, high blood pressure and other chronic ailments, he said. Many were men and women in their prime, folks in their 30s, 40s and 50s. He had watched their physical demise both as a pastor and as the director of pastoral care at a nearby hospital.

“We may not be able to afford medicine, but we can grow food,” he said. “The garden is a beautiful, spiritual sanctuary that we play in, eat in, educate in and change our lives in.”

He’s won several awards for his work, including the 2014 Purpose Prize, which recognizes social innovators older than 60.

Joyner is a scrappy preacher, willing to roll up his sleeves and help people with their immediate problems. He keeps a change of clothes in his car, prepared for whatever work that needs to be done.

“He’s sort of everywhere,” said the Rev. Allen T. Stanton, the rural church fellow at the Institute for Emerging Issues. In the late 1990s, Stanton’s father, Joe Stanton, worked with Joyner in homeless ministries in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

“Rev. Joyner is at the hospital attending meetings, in downtown Rocky Mount working on community development -- I don’t think he understands the profoundness of what he does. I have never met someone who embodies discipleship so selflessly,” the younger Stanton said.

Joyner’s mission right now is to feed the hungry -- physically and spiritually. Conetoe (pronounced koh-NEE-tah) is a tiny community of 300 that has been designated a “food desert.” It’s about 25 miles from Rocky Mount, and 8 miles from the nearest grocery store -- a long distance, especially if you don’t have a car.

Joyner says his mandate comes from Mathew 15:32: “Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way” (KJV).

His ministry isn’t just about health; it’s also about empowerment.

“Spirituality is not complete until it reaches the whole person. … I think this community is wealthier than they think they are,” he said. “We have to reframe poverty. When the system talks about poverty, they start from what you don’t have. If you start from what I don’t have, you can’t help me build on what I do have.”