4) What are the Tree's Environments?
Just as we can analyze the tree to understand personal faith, we can look at the environments a tree grows in, to see the concentric circles that our faith is planted: Soil, Forest and Ecosystem.
Soil
First is the soil which is composed of three different materials: sand, silt and clay. Sand is finely crushed rocks that does not hold moisture or nutrients, since water drains so easily. Silt is fine sand, that does a fair job of holding moisture, but when wet, silt becomes like slick mud. Clay is very fine soil that is very dense so it does not drain well and makes it difficult for roots to grow. Good soil has a well balanced mixture of these three, giving enough stability for tree roots to remain strongly fixed, with enough space for drainage but dense enough for water and nutrients to be absorbed by the tree. Likewise the environments our faith is planted in should allow us to absorb enough of the message of God like water, have enough room to breath and growth like oxygen, and enough stability to hold our faith strong like dense clay.
Forest
A forest most simply is a large collection of trees in a given area. These trees together provide a shelter and habitat for animals, clean the air for the world, stabilize the ground, provide food and medicine, and so much more. Once we understand a single tree is one person’s faith, we can see how a collection of people working together for a purpose is what we commonly call “church”. More precisely, any size group of followers of Jesus can take on roles that the church is called into, from a small group to a large congregation.
Ecosystem
The word ecosystem is a very flexible word which could describe a single forest or something as large as the entire world. An ecosystem is the entire biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment. By observing the ecosystem, we can see how everything in the area lives and works together. In our analogy, the ecosystem would parallel the entire world, from God’s creation of it to the story of Israel, through the ministry of Jesus, and up until today. Most specifically the ecosystem of faith would be focused on how Jesus lived, taught and modelled the way of God designed the world to function, specifically called the Kingdom of God. Through this work we can observe how individuals, small groups, local congregations, communities, nations and the world operate, and how they should function under the Kingdom of God.
