Attending 3Generate 2025 with a group of 36 young people from Gatwick and Mole Valley Circuit, our campsite sat underneath a sign declaring ‘The Potting Yard‘.

As I spent a weekend as part of a team who cared for and nurtured these young people, I found God spoking to me, encouraging me and challenging me through the image of being in ‘The Potting Yard’. This inspired be to write the following reflection.

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As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Colossians 2:6-7

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In The Potting Yard

In the potting yard,
are pots ready to be filled.
tools ready to be used.
compost ready to be potted.
seeds ready to be sown.

Seeds full of potential,
But need a gardener’s care and attention.
Seeds that need regular watering.
Seeds in need of a gardener who will watch them closely,
watching they don’t get too hot or too cold.
too wet, or too dry.

Seeds that begin to sprout,
But are hugely fragile.
Whose fresh shoots will whither and fade if neglected in these early moments of life.
Whose roots are small, unable to store up many resources for the long term.

The gardener must tend and care regularly.
Must know what their seeds and sprouts need,
To nurture them into growth.

In the potting yard,
are seedlings ready to be re-potted.

Seedlings that are green and full of promise,
Their stems are beginning to strengthen,
Leaves beginning to broaden,
Roots beginning to spread.

They need to new ground,
A larger pot,
Space, free of their fellow seedlings, to be free to grow further.

They’re still fragile.
Especially just after they’ve been re-potted.
Their fragile roots have been disturbed,
And the re-potting could be a moment they wither…
But with the right attentiveness from the gardener,
The new ground brings them new sustenance,
And they begin to flourish and grow.

As roots spread and stems strengthen,
The gardener can begin to step back…
Knowing they don’t need to water every single day.
That the door to the potting yard can be left open,
Pots can be put outside in the sun and left to begin to harden up,
To grow resilience for life in the big wide world,
It’s winds and rains,
The warmth of day and the cool of night.

The gardener doesn’t neglect them,
They are still attentive and caring,
But it is different.
Because the nurturing that been,
Has led to strengthening stems and widening roots,
The seedlings now have more of their own inner resources,
They have their own sources of self-care and sustenance.

In the potting yard,
I am.
Ready to be tended and cared for.
Ready to be nurtured.
To be carefully potted and planted.
To be tended by the all-embracing, loving arms of God the gardener.

To be nurtured by discovering the God given resources that are within.
Those I knew I had, those I didn’t know I had.
To weather the winds of the world,
The seasons of dry ground,
And learn to draw on that which is stored up within.

In some moments,
I feel dry and parched,
In others I look withered, and certainly don’t look of feel my best,
but the nurturing I’ve journey with has given me strength to weather these seasons.

In the potting yard,
You are.
Ever present
Never neglectful.
Tending and caring and pruning and watering and potting and turning and feeding.

And no matter how parched or withered I may think I am,
You always know the moment to quench that dry ground.
To offer sustenance when weary.
Shelter when buffeted by the winds of the world.

You never tire.
You never grow weary.
You are never neglectful.

God my gardener,
Nurture me,
Day by day,
Into the person you have made me to be,
Call me to be,
And know me to be.