Let’s Talk About Food

A new free small group resource exploring food, farming, faith, and the environment

Food connects us all. Every meal links us to farmers, land, animals, global systems, and to one another. It also raises important questions about justice, care for creation, health, and the way we live as people of faith.

Let’s Talk About Food is a free, ready to use resource designed to help small groups explore these themes together through conversation, reflection, and shared learning.

Originally developed by the Rural Life and Faith Group in the Diocese of York and now shared nationally by The Arthur Rank Centre, this resource has been created to encourage thoughtful and honest discussion about food, farming, the environment, and faith.

Whether you are part of a church group, farming community, home group, or simply gathering with others who want to explore these issues, this resource offers a welcoming place to begin.

What the resource includes

The material is organised into seven flexible sessions, each focusing on a different aspect of food and our relationship with it:

• • Growing our food

• • Sourcing our food

• • Food and the environment

• • Consumer buying habits

• • Food waste

• • Food and health

• • Spirituality of food

Each section includes carefully prepared questions to stimulate discussion, encourage reflection, and help participants consider their own experiences and perspectives.

No specialist knowledge is required, and groups can adapt the material to suit their own context.

Who is it for?

This resource can be used by:

• • Church home groups and fellowships

• • Farming discussion groups

• • Rural and village groups

• • Eco church or creation care groups

• • Chaplaincy settings

• • Anyone interested in exploring food, farming, and faith

It works well for small groups of around 4 to 10 people, though it can be adapted for larger gatherings.

Why this matters

Food is not just fuel. It is part of our spiritual life, our communities, and our care for creation.

For more than fifty years, The Arthur Rank Centre has supported rural Christians, churches, and farming communities across the UK, helping people explore the connections between faith, agriculture, and daily life.

This resource is one way we continue that work today.

Download the resource

Download Let’s Talk About Food (PDF)

A new year brings opportunities to bless, pray for and focus on those who will work the land, and the eventual fruits of their labour. This fine resource helps us to consider how we might creatively extend our attention, crafted beautifully and carefully as always by Rev’d Helen Bent. We offer it to you with an open hand, such that you might offer blessings for and create deeper connections with your own community.

Please credit the Arthur Rank Centre on any materials or online content (including social media) that you create which draws on our material or includes our images.