We are ecumenical because we are intentionally inclusive of the whole Christian family. This does not mean theological sameness or the erasure of difference. We instead seek to go beyond denominational and doctrinal boundaries with the assumption that across the traditions, we are facing shared crises and shared questions about how we can faithfully following Jesus.

Historically Christian orders have been groups of people who commit to a shared of way of life marked by a rhythm daily and weekly practices that are formative over time. We are a practice-based community that exists in many places, cultures and churches while desiring mutual commitment and accountability.

A Rule (short for Rule of Life) is a set of shared practices that people commit to as formative. Like a trellis provides support for a growing plant, a rule provides structure for our lives so that we may “bear fruit.”

The Rule is voluntarily applied in the context of one’s own life, binding for the duration of one's membership. Our particular Rule forms us into people and community with technical and relational capacity to follow Jesus through crises.

Gardening is placed first intentionally as one of our default working metaphor as it represents our embodied, grounded faith.

We garden because humans were first placed in the Garden to be co-gardeners with God. We garden because we seek to re-connect with our Creator’s original purpose (telos) and Kingdom (re: Kindom) plans for our world. It is a way of practicing humility, patience, attention, limits, and interdependence. It reconnects people to land, seasons, and the community of the natural world. We garden in order to connect and live as instruments of life and solidarity with this same very natural world that faces ecological collapse and extinction. We garden as a way to redeem and repair human destruction. Through gardening we practice humility, patience, attention, limits, and interdependence. It allows for the reconnection of people to land, seasons, and care.

Like most monastic and spiritual communities across Christian traditions and time, we garden because we find that God is gardening us all the time and we cannot help but imitate our Creator.

Gardening forms us into grounded caretakers who are connected to the world around us.

Prayer is the practice of ongoing relationship and communication with God.

Because we are ecumenical our prayers can look like the following:

• Contemplative prayer

• Liturgical prayer

• Charismatic prayer

• Silent prayer

• Spoken prayer

• Prayer woven into work

Prayer is understood as life-giving nourishment, energy-giving attention, like water flowing through a garden. We communicate and relate to God in prayer in order to align ourselves with God’s heart and will for our world and to receive support and resources in accordance to our needs. We pray because we believe that God is always near to us (Psalm 139:7) and we pray so that we are formed into people who are known to be immersed in constant divine conversation.

Prayer is not sharply divided from gardening or daily activity and it is forming us into people who are sensitive and subject to the final authority of God’s loving Spirit.

We stay in Fellowship with each other as well as our neighboring communities because our work is communal in nature.

We cannot face the polycrisis alone. We confess our need for each other and that our best selves are drawn out and put into action when we are in flow and mix of a healthy, beloved community that is centering God.

Participating members are expected to not abandon their existing communities, churches, or relationships but to explore new ways to lean in. We recognize that we are formed and made into Jesus' disciples over time as we work together, collaborate, share, mentor, reflect and keep each other accountable and safe.

We choose and practice Fellowship to remember that this work is for and with others. Where gardening and prayer is cultivation and water, fellowship is the soil.

After creating the heavens and earth God rested. Scripture commands God’s people to rest every week, to “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.”

We know that just as there is day and night, just as the land and animals need rest and reset, so do we humans. By practicing a weekly rhythm of rest, trusting and depending on God’s care, we affirm that all salvation and provision ultimately depend upon God. By taking a day of rest and worship, we protect against burnout, urgency and the idolization of projects and work. We confess that we have limits and weaknesses and we remember that we are not saviors.

Furthermore in the context of climate anxiety, technological acceleration, and systemic injustice, Sabbath is a spiritual act of resistance. We struggle not against humans but against Powers and Principalities that seek to dominate us.

Sabbath allows us to rest in God’s victorious sufficiency knowing that the healing of the world does not rest entirely on us.

We “play” because we have a well-placed hope in God’s creative Spirit and inexhaustible imagination. We are marked by joy in our engagement and outlook on life, the future, and our fellow players journeying with us on our quests.

Playing is an organizing means for Solarpunk Christian community’s existence.

One of our primary projects is variations of The Solarpunk Game where humanity finds itself facing a precarious planet-wide threat called The Polycrisis, a cosmic “multi-headed” monster boss, which must be confronted. Players are invited to take on real-world “quests” that respond to each head of the monster. Each head represents an escalating ecological, social, and technological crisis. Players collaboratively develop the game The Solarpunk Game and expand it as they advance.

Click here to learn more about THE SOLARPUNK GAME.