By Maria Copeland
The Church of the Lamb has been brainstorming the idea of developing a piece of land in Rockingham County, pitched as an abbey. They’re assembling a team and plan to work on the property over the next nine years.
In Penn Laird, Virginia, about five miles from Harrisonburg, 30 acres of tree-studded land crossed by a rippling creek stretches out amid the canvas of farmhouses, pastures and cows.
The land once belonged to a Mennonite family who had passed it down through generations of their family. It finally reached four siblings, the children of a husband and wife who had built their house there, set high on a hill overlooking Rockingham Park on one side and the grassy expanse of the property on the other.
In November 2020, during Thanksgiving week, a “for sale” sign went up — just in time for a group from a local church congregation to see it. They were from the Church of the Lamb, in the Anglican Church of North America, and they had a vision.
Kevin Whitfield, the rector of the Church of the Lamb, said the church has had the idea for some time of buying farmland in Rockingham County and protecting it from going the same way as other farms in the area: being bought up and parceled out among developers. More than that, it’s a campaign to set aside the space for spiritual care and service. They’re calling it The Abide Project.
“We had this desire to preserve a piece of property, to hold it together for the purposes of ongoing work — like what’s always been part of the Valley agriculture — and then also beauty and worship,” Whitfield said.
The church itself is still growing: Just six years ago, the Church of the Incarnation in Harrisonburg installed the Church of the Lamb as a plant in Elkton, Virginia. During that time, the Church of the Lamb has moved from a coffee shop to a brewery to a Christian private school in search of a place to meet regularly for worship on Sunday mornings.
But already, the church has undertaken an initiative in its own right in the form of The Abide Project. It’s already starting to unfold on the Penn Laird property they purchased in 2020.
The name of the project finds its roots in a biblical passage from the gospel of John, which calls believers to rest in God, Whitfield said: “If you abide in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit … Apart from me you can do nothing.”
“To come into a relationship with God is first to just stop clamoring, and trying to save yourself, and all the various ways that we try to do that as human beings,” Whitfield said. “It’s just to relax in the presence of a God who loves you and forgives you, and he knows you and still loves you.”
Part of the pitch for The Abide Project is for it to function as an abbey, which were historically what Whitfield describes as “places where worship and work intersected, where work was done as a form of worship.”
“We’re trying to retrieve something that we feel like has been lost,” Whitfield said, “that worship of the Creator and service to the creation belong together.”
“High points and low points”
Dan Velker, a member of the church’s vestry and owner of Virginia Cabinetworks, has been encouraged by the way elements of the project have started to come together — in particular, the acquisition of the 30-acre property.
“Everything just kind of fell together in a very affirming way,” Velker said.
That doesn’t mean the process has unfolded without challenges. When the church first started looking at properties in 2020, their first choice — a selection of 40 acres of land on the North side of Rockingham Park — fell through. Someone else purchased the land before the church could.
Undeterred, the group continued looking out for properties. In November, the church discovered the land belonging to the Mennonite family and started talking to the remaining family members. The family was excited to work with the church, Travis Dorman, the campaign director for The Abide Project who worked with Whitfield in the property’s acquisition process, said.
“They were happy to see the vision that we have for continuing to be an agricultural space, even though we obviously want to have a church there,” Dorman said.
The house in particular made the property stand out; Whitfield’s family had been looking for a home, and the church needed office space. With the house, the property surpassed their previous top choice. The church bought the land, and in March 2021, officially started work on it.
The process of settling on the property answered several prayers at one time: A location for The Abide Project, a home — or parsonage — for Whitfield and his family, and a place for the church to base its administrative functions.
“There were high points and low points, and we thought we had this other farm, and it was cool, and we were starting to dream big dreams and then it fell through,” Dorman said. “At the same time, Kevin and his wife were looking for a house … We needed church offices, all these things that we needed. And then this place ended up answering all three of those things.”
For Dorman, the initiative is particularly meaningful because he grew up in the Valley. He wants to see the property set aside as a place that glorifies God and serves as a resource to the community.
As a model of inspiration, the church looks to a sister church of theirs in Greensboro, North Carolina — the Church of the Redeemer, who bought an old plant nursery and transformed the showroom into a worship space. They also rehabilitated a gravel lot and turned it into a working farm, Whitfield said. It provides a place for nearby immigrant populations to work and raise food out of the ground for themselves.
Dorman said the pastor of Redeemer has encouraged the Church of the Lamb to look for ways they can invite other people to join in their project.
“We don’t have all of this stuff worked out, but it provides space for us to invite people in and invite their creativity in as well,” Dorman said.
‘Master plan phase’
The projected timeline for the development of The Abide Project is broken down into three phases. Phase One runs tentatively from 2021-2023 and is called “Growing Roots.” It’s focused on developing the property and different spaces within it for worship and other goals.
Phase Two is scheduled for 2024-2028 and is titled “Breaking Ground.” It will potentially see the establishment of a church building, as well as long-term agricultural projects and plans for a cemetery.
Finally, Phase Three is set for 2029-2031. “Harvesting Fruit” envisions the maintenance of ongoing projects, expansion of ministries and an artist-commissioned project — outdoor Stations of the Cross on the property.
The church is expecting to begin hosting worship services on the property within a year, Whitfield said. Because the property includes a natural amphitheater, services can be held in an “outdoor sanctuary” that would not be quite as developed as a building. A more permanent structure is projected to follow later.
Animals will be welcome on the property, though that’s still a work in progress. They already have chickens, and Whitfield said he hopes some lambs will join them as well.
“We want people to be with the animals and to garden,” Whitfield said.
The group has also set goals of pursuing regenerative farming, sharing food they grow with their communities and helping refugees and immigrants. Because Harrisonburg is a central location for refugees, they’ve discussed possibly partnering with local immigrant churches in the future or with a Sudanese church that has shared a downtown worship space with the Church of the Incarnation.
“That’s something that we long to do, is to see immigrant churches perhaps worshiping here, once we have structures that work for worshiping here, and maybe growing things too,” Whitfield said.
Another dream the founders have is to eventually build a cemetery on the property, with the goal of being able to bury people in the place where they worshiped. It’s the “oddest idea that’s gotten the most draw from people,” Whitfield said, but people have already expressed that they would like to be buried at their own church. Even members from a sister church in Crozet have reached out already, asking to buy plots.
Dorman said the cemetery is one of the aspects of the project he’s most excited about.
“You sort of literally see the generations of saints who have gone before you, buried in that place,” he said.
For now, the church is just a year into developing The Abide Project, and Whitfield said he had expected the process to move more quickly. He’s realizing that it takes patience.
“We’ve been in a master plan phase, trying to figure out how to use the land well,” Whitfield said.
The process may still be moving slowly at the moment, but pieces of the vision — a space of rest that flows out into love — are starting to slot into place.
“There’s got to be something in it that is not just for us but for the world,” Whitfield said. “So, that’s a shape that we want our church to take as being a place of rest that then, out of that rest, gets to serve this community.”