Conversations with Caleb Haynes

Today we’d like to introduce you to Caleb Haynes

Hi Caleb, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Greetings! My work is with churches and faith communities to encourage a better relationship with the Earth. Some call it “creation care” and some call it “living eco-friendly” or others use the language of “kinship with the earth.”

I grew up in the rural hills of Tennessee in the small community of Culleoka. I spent an exorbitant amount of time outside as a kid, gardening with my Gran or just getting lost in the woods. So, even after having been planted in urban Nashville for 20 years, a big part of my soul has always been rooted “in the sticks,” as we say. My wife and I have two little girls, Story and Daily, and we have been pastoring for many years (KaleoNashville.org), but that’s always been bi-vocational… that is we’ve always had something else that we did to help fund the ministry. For me, the environmental piece always had a strong pull.

For about 10 years through my twenties and into my thirties I co-operated a small local hauling business called Earthtone Reconstruction and Recycling. This was basically me in a 1997 GMC Sierra truck driving around Nashville responding to calls to clean up after a job site, a home remodel, an eviction, or any number of scenarios that left piles of trash on someone’s property. Needless to say, I encountered plenty of grosss garbage during those years but also received an up-close encounter with the extreme levels of waste that occur on a daily basis just here in our city. Meanwhile, at that time, we were probably the only hauling operation in town who were striving to have an environmental conscious with our work as we attempted to recycle, reuse, properly dispose of, or just find new homes for as much of the content as possible.

Over the span of time, my vocation continued to evolve around equipping people of faith to engage more meaningfully with God’s good creation, and out of that time I wrote the book “Garbage Theology.” Through that book I’ve been able to make wonderful connections, speak at churches, book clubs, universities, and even senior living facilities to help others uncover the important eco/spiritual/science/faith threads and to make changes toward environmental justice.

Today, though I no longer operate the Earthtone business, I am the Director of Nazarenes for Creation Care, which is a grassroots ministry within my denomination that seeks to educate and equip Christians toward caring for the environment. I also host The ecoChristian Podcast, a bi-weekly show dedicated to “exploring what it means to be Christian on Planet Earth.” I’m also on the board of Creation Justice Ministries and partner with multiple other national faith-based organizations that specifically work in this intersection, such as the Evangelical Environmental Network and A Rocha USA. I love writing and having the opportunity to speak with churches and other organizations! Connecting with people and dialoguing about how we might best care for this place we call home gives me so much joy!

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Certainly no road worth traveling is smooth for long! My journey has been one filled with years of making sandwiches at Quiznos, being a “Safari Guide” at the Rainforest Cafe and about a decade of back-breaking sweat, hauling and recovering waste all around Nashville. In December of 2015, a week before our second daughter was born, I had an accident unloading a glass table top that severed an artery, nerves, and tendons in my right hand. So, yeah, the struggle is real!

Today, while I have been able to move away from those kinds of jobs, my wife and I still operate at Tiny House Air BnB.
Today, the struggles look different. A lot like breaking down the perceived barriers to being a people who care for the earth. There are of course political barriers, evangelical barriers, and so on. Yet, what we have in common as people who are all dependent on the life of the soil, food, water, and air – far out-weigh anything that divides us!

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
(Sorry I may have done some of this out of order!)

What I love doing is “lowering the paywall” for people to understand and engage in environmental care. While I work mostly in Christian circles and churches, I end up connecting with people from all walks of life!

One issue with the climate and environmental crises today is that the water can often feel muddy and unclear. Meanwhile, many great environmental books and texts are also thick with too much information and full of unfamiliar language, charts and graphs. So, a large part of my unique work in the world is bridging the information gap for the “every day person” who wants to know more, wants to make a difference, but is busy with their own life!

Out of that posture sprang my book Garbage Theology, and another small group book project called Keeping Creation, and my work hosting The ecoChristian Podcast – which are fun conversations, again, working to translate and bring to light this important conversation today!

What I find most special is being able to get in a room with any group of people and dialogue about environmental issues and find that we are all humans trying to figure out what it means to flourish. 🙂

Over the last year I’ve had the privilege to give talks, travel to DC for a White House faith-climate leaders gathering, do a segment with NBC and just engage in the local work of care right where we live.

What matters most to you?
It’s so important that we rediscover our interdependence with all creation. Every one and every thing we love depends on it. We, as humanity, are deeply out of balance with the rest of the created world and we are seeing the effects of it through these extreme climate events like hurricane Helene and the L.A. wildfires. Unfortunately, so many more of these disasters will occur if we do not deeply alter our posture in the world. Even just dealing with our own lifestyles, policies, and procedures right here in Nashville can have positive ripple effects around the world!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://calebcrayhaynes.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/calebcrayhaynes
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@EcoChristianPodcast
• Other: https://calebcrayhaynes.substack.com/