The Food, Health, and Ecological Well-Being Program serves clergy, congregations, divinity students, faith-based non-profits, community gardeners, food activists, and any faith leader confronting community health issues caused by substandard food systems by:
- creating courses across the curriculum emphasizing the themes of stewardship of and within Creation, and that highlight food’s pivotal place in that stewardship;
- equipping students with the knowledge, skills, and experience so that they can lead on these issues in the church and not-for-profit ministries;
- developing research and publications across the core areas of theological education on these themes, and generate resources for faith communities who want to learn, worship, and serve more effectively as stewards of Creation and leaders in creating food systems that embody shalom;
- building partnerships in worship, service, and education around food issues within the university, with the Piedmont and Western mountain regions of North Carolina, and with national and international partners; and
- teaching and cultivating the theological habit that living in peace with the land and with non-human Creation is a core pastoral practice for religious leaders and the communities with whom they serve.