The Rev. John A. Creasy ’06 was honored in April as the 2022 PTS Distinguished Alumnus in Mission. He is the founder and executive director of the Garfield Community Farm. He is also the founding co-pastor of The Open Door Presbyterian Church, a missional community in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Garfield.<\/p>\n
John is passionate about helping people and faith communities connect with God and nature. He does this through works of social justice, environmental justice, and eco-theology. Garfield Community Farm is a place of experimentation of missional faith practices, sustainable urban food production, ecological restoration, and community activism. It has become an example of what can happen with creative missional theology and a partnership of diverse churches and community groups.<\/p>\n
As a result of his work with Garfield Community Farm, in 2016 Pittsburgh Magazine <\/em>gave John a \u201c40 under 40\u201d award. Also in 2016, he received the \u201cCommunity Pioneer Award\u201d from the Bloomfield Garfield Corporation.<\/p>\n John was a founding board member of Open Hand Ministries in Garfield, a local housing and mortgage readiness ministry working to equip lower income people of color to build equity and wealth through home ownership. He also served on the board of Lamppost Farm in Columbiana, Ohio, from 2009-2011. Lamppost Farm focuses on sustainable food production in rural landscapes, education, and holistic wellbeing. Both are mission partners of The Open Door Church.<\/p>\n John has led the mission team of The Open Door to connect with a diversity of ministries, churches, and activists throughout the world. This work has led to an ongoing partnership with the indigenous Xi\u2019Iui people of central Mexico. John also advocates within the PCUSA to recommend divestment from some of the world\u2019s largest fossil fuel companies.<\/p>\n John and his family practice permaculture in their 90-year-old home. This includes rainwater collection, solar power, off grid heating, and a backyard food forest. Together they love exploring nature through hiking and backpacking. John and his wife, Alyssa, also create instrumental and Americana music as the musical group This Side of Eve<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Rev. John A. Creasy ’06 was honored in April as the 2022 PTS Distinguished Alumnus in Mission. He is the founder and executive director of the Garfield Community Farm. He is also the founding co-pastor of The Open Door Presbyterian Church, a missional community in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Garfield. Creative Missional Theology John…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[398],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-8966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people-of-pts"],"yoast_head":"\r\nDeveloping Mission Partners Locally and Globally<\/h2>\n
A Family Affair<\/h2>\n