A person standing on a rocky cliff overlooking a lush green forest below under a bright blue sky with sparse clouds.

John Creasy

Close-up of a smiling man with glasses and a beige baseball cap, and a woman with brown hair smiling in the foreground, with a beach and colorful sunset sky in the background.
Illustration of a purple flowering plant with green leaves, showing botanical detail.
Family of four taking a selfie outdoors on a mountain trail with green mountains and cloudy sky in the background.
A garden with pink and purple flowers in the foreground, trees and a barn in the background, and a blue water tower in the far background.
John's Substack

John lives with his wife, Alyssa, and three teenage kids in the Stanton Heights neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the founding director of Garfield Community Farm, the largest permaculture site in Pittsburgh, where he has worked for seventeen years. John is also a founding pastor of The Open Door Church in Pittsburgh. John and his wife Alyssa perform musically as This Side of Eve. For a decade, John has been creating ecological designs for food production for schools, home owners and churches. He is a team teacher for Pittsburgh’s Permaculture Design Course where students learn to create regenerative landscapes and community resilience. Wild Indigo Guild is John’s new endeavor, in co-leadership with Rev. Evan Clendenin, to help congregations and people of faith connect with God through nature and develop the tools to bring effective food justice, environmental justice and ecological restoration into faith practice.

In 2019 John and his family went on a pilgrimage to visit the oldest, tallest and largest trees in North America. Their quest took them to the Sequoias and Redwoods of California, the Bristlecone pines of the Great Basin, the “pando” Aspen forest of Utah and, in 2022, the newly discovered ancient bald cypress forest of North Carolina. His new book, Tree Pilgrim: Spiritual Journeys in God’s Ancient Forests, is due out in early 2027.

John is available for Permaculture Design consultingthrough his design business and co-teaches a permaculture design course.

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Person sitting on a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean, surrounded by trees and clear blue sky.

Evan Clendenin

A man wearing glasses, a gray hat, black jacket, and gray pants, smiling and holding a large green leaf in front of a lush green background of trees and bushes.
Watercolor illustration of green fern leaves and a purple lavender flower spike.
Two pies, one apple and one zucchini, placed on a stovetop in a kitchen with tiled backsplash.
A woodworking workshop with a large wooden table at the center, surrounded by various woodworking tools and supplies on shelves, and a red-floored concrete surface.

Evan Clendenin lives in Olympia, WA with his wife Amy, and their good dog. He likes to get his hands in the dirt, work at art, crafts, cooking, assorted subsistence pursuits, reading and languages.

Evan has worked as a horse-farmer, market gardener and teacher. He has served in urban, small town and rural ministry settings, with both Episcopal and Lutheran congregations. As he has moved, he has always made it a practice to pay attention to the local landscape and how local life-ways reflect a love and knowledge of local creation. This practice enhances faith life, preaching, as well as accompaniment of others in faith and life.

Trained in community organizing and spiritual direction, he listens with others as they desire to grow contemplatively in the love and knowledge of God in creation and their daily lives, and in pursuing good.

He has developed a variety of classes and programs, from a community bench build to a blessing of presque isle bay, that engage all ages in faith, listening, care, good work, art, and appreciation of the wider creation.

With Wild Indigo, Evan hopes to offer more such things for your growth in the love and knowledge of God in the whole creation.

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A person sitting in a small wooden boat near the shoreline of a lake, smiling and wearing a hat. The boat is tied to the land with a pink rope, and the water has lily pads and lotus flowers floating on the surface.