Finding God in the Garden

Revd Veronica Greenhill, Priest in Charge, Marbury, Tushingham, Whitewell and Bickley

I went to Foxhill for a day retreat called Rooted in Rest — and it was absolutely blooming marvellous. I spent time thinking, praying, and being creative, and I left feeling deeply refreshed.

While I was there, I picked up a leaflet about something called The Quiet Garden Movement. I don’t know if many people are familiar with it, but what caught my eye was, of course, the word garden.

In our group of four small rural parishes, we’d been thinking about gardens over Easter. We’d used the theme of the garden through Holy Week and Eastertide — from the garden of Gethsemane to the garden of resurrection — and it had really resonated with people. So, when I saw that leaflet, I thought, This might be something God is nudging us to explore further.

I took it back to my lovely team of Readers, and we sat down to talk about it. We began to wonder how we could continue the garden theme beyond Easter — how it might help us create new spaces for God to move, and new ways for others to encounter Him.

One of the challenges we face, like so many small rural benefices, is that fewer people are simply walking through our church doors these days. Apart from the curious few, many simply aren’t coming in. So we’ve been asking ourselves: How can we create spaces outside the church walls where people might feel comfortable enough to meet God?

And in our villages, one thing we all have in common is that people love their gardens. Every Sunday, while we’re in church, there are plenty of our neighbours happily digging, weeding, planting, or tending their hanging baskets. So we thought — why not start there? If people love their gardens, maybe that’s exactly where God wants to meet them.

Compline in the Garden

So we came up with a simple idea: through the summer, we would hold short evening services of Compline (or Celtic Night Prayer) in gardens — five evenings, each in a different place.

We wanted to make it as easy and welcoming as possible, so we varied the days — Monday one week, then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday — so that anyone who was busy one evening might join another.

At first, we simply used our own gardens. We didn’t advertise heavily, just spread the word among our congregations and neighbours. But as often happens, word got around. Someone told a friend, who told someone else, and before long, we had quite a few new faces turning up.

By the last evening, we had twenty-two people gathered in one of our gardens — at our lay minister Ali’s house. Her husband made everyone a hot chocolate, because it was September and the evenings were beginning to turn cooler. It was a simple, beautiful time — candles flickering, the sound of birds in the hedgerows, and people quietly praying together in the open air.

Something Simple, Something Sacred

Afterwards, we all sat down and said, “We must do this again.” It had been such a blessing — peaceful, joyful, and full of gentle conversation.

So next year, we’re hoping to take it a step further. Rather than just using our own gardens, we plan to invite others to host an evening in their gardens. We’ll put out a simple message in the spring, reminding people what we did last year and asking, “Would you like us to come and hold a service in your garden?”

We’re keeping it deliberately simple — no refreshments, no fuss, just prayer and presence. We use a short, reflective liturgy — Celtic prayer seems to go down particularly well, probably because two of our Readers are so passionate about that style of worship!

The idea is not to create an event, but to create space — space for God to move, and space for people to be still.

Creating Spaces Where God Can Be Found

What I love most about this is that it’s not complicated or expensive. It’s just about noticing where people already are, and joining them there.

For us, that place happens to be the garden — a setting that already speaks of life, beauty, and creation. And when people gather there to pray, something quietly sacred happens.

We’ve discovered that when we create space — however small, however simple — God fills it.

And that, I think, is the heart of it all.