Meeting God in creation

This article was published in the May to August 2025 edition of Rapport magazine.

How do you know how old a sheep is? You can’t ask it; it doesn’t have a baa code with that information! If you want to find out, book yourself onto our new Estate summer week, Meeting God in Creation (Sat 26 July – Fri 1 Aug 2025), where we will be looking at how we find God in creation.

My morning bible notes recently delved into the many ways God speaks to us, referring to Job 12:7–12, which speaks of asking the animals, birds, fish and the earth to teach you how they know that God made it all. As we live in a society that seeks to find answers in every place except a creator God, I am excited that we will be running a week to allow guests to discover more for themselves, grow closer to God and show in a practical way the wonder of his creation. Every day in my work managing the estate at Lee Abbey Devon I am blessed to see the majesty of his creation.

Those who have experienced a typical summer week at Lee Abbey may be in for a shock. We have torn up the rule book and want to offer something different: for a start, we will not be sitting in the Octagonal Lounge for any of the sessions. Whatever the weather, we will split into all-age groups and outside we will go. Each group will be hands-on immersed in the estate, looking at bugs, plants, birds, ponds, seashore, farm animals and grassland. Even the tea and coffee will be outside! Groups will be accompanied by knowledgeable leaders who know what to look for on the estate. We will pose questions – for adults and children – to discuss, as well as giving the opportunity to be up close to the sheep. We want to offer guests the opportunity to engage fully with the estate and do things that you can’t do just anywhere, and to see first-hand what a wonderful creator God we serve. In the afternoons we want to show you parts of the estate you may not see normally, and provide opportunity to do new things. We will end the week with a Forest Church service in the woods. Our prayer is that individuals, groups and families will leave feeling closer to God’s creation and with a deeper insight into the intricacies of his amazing work.

There is no better time to marvel daily at God’s creation than during lambing season on the farm – watching how the sheep naturally give birth and care for their lambs. It’s hard to imagine how this could happen in any other way but through a creator God – new birth, new life!

For us, preparation for the busy lambing period starts in the autumn, when we have afternoon prayers at the farm: a special time where all the Community gather. We bless the rams as they go off into the fields with the ewes. Then at the end of January, Steve Webber, a colleague, comes along with the necessary equipment and scans the ewes. It’s only then we get the first indication of what lambing is going to look like. This year we had no triplets – something that is actually a good thing for us – as the reality is that three is too many for a single ewe to rear out here on Exmoor. Our new Devon Longwool ram performed well with the new Exmoor Horn ewes, and the results can be seen in the fields around Lee Abbey. While we are never going to produce the biggest, fastest-growing lambs here, we do aim to help support native and rare breeds. By having Devon Closewools and now Exmoor Horns we can demonstrate the uniqueness and quality of these traditional breeds. The animals are adapted to the local conditions: they like the rough hill ground and their thick coats shrug off the wet, windy and cold weather. The lambs get up and feed and the ewes are naturally good mothers. It is always a pleasure to show guests that not all sheep are just white and woolly; they all have different qualities and uses.

One of the objectives of the estate is to be able to support, and witness to, the other local farms in the area. Most farms around Exmoor usually lamb at a similar time to us and so are vulnerable to the weather during lambing. In 2024 it was incredibly wet during the lambing period, and it was great to see local farms supporting each other by posting videos of tips, especially on how to do things in the inclement weather. Because Lee Abbey runs a farm, we can stand alongside others in what can be a lonely and draining time. We are fortunate that we work with the daily miracle of new life in the lambs that are born and can easily see the hand of our creator God. Even when things go wrong, we dwell in the certainty that God does not leave us and it’s never long before we see his hand at work again in our situation.

We are very aware that those working in agriculture are facing a difficult time in the current political climate. The constant struggle with changing weather and poor prices is enough to make many want to give up. As I’m writing this article – and you may have noticed – protests continue to take place against policies that many farmers believe puts their livelihood, and the UK food chain, under threat. There is a real feeling, including among our local farmers, that these policies have not been thought through or sufficiently discussed with those who are impacted by them.

During the lambing time many people work literally day and night for little reward other than caring greatly for the animals on their farms. Around here, people don’t farm because it makes them rich but because they feel they have a duty to look after the land and pass it on, according to the well-known phrase: ‘You don’t own a farm, you just look after it for the next generation’.

At Lee Abbey, we farm to care for God’s creation and to share that journey with others, both local and not so local. We aim to show that God is a good God who stays with us through it all. As that passage in Job goes on to say, ‘Which of … these [creatures] does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.’

Lee Abbey was set up to support and empower the church – the church made up of people. On the estate we try to offer a space for those people to come and draw close to God. We are delighted to have the opportunity to run this estate-based summer week for the first time. We pray that all those involved will grow in him and be able to take what they learn back to their daily lives to share with others. Do come along and join us for what promises to be a thoroughly enjoyable, informative and insightful week!

Simon Gibson
Lee Abbey Devon