April 3, 2025
Parallel Polis Publishing
By Rory Feek, Plain Values
Five years ago this month, I stood on a stage in Los Angeles and received a Grammy Award, alone. It was a bittersweet moment to be given such a prestigious accolade for music and a career that almost didn’t happen. Knowing what that moment meant, and the beautiful, yet heartbreaking road that led us there…
By: Jerry D. Miller, Plain Values
Our human tendency is to want to be independent. We do not want to rely on others, but the irony of it is, God created us to be dependent on each other when he created a man and woman in the Garden of Eden.
Homesteaders are often encouraged to be as self-sufficient as possible. How can I overcome the pride of being self-sufficient so that I can reconnect with my community?
Answered by: JerryD. Miller, a deaconin his local Amish church
By Joel Salatin, Plain Values
In 1961 as our family looked out over this newly-acquired farm property with its rocks, gullies, and weeds, we needed a roadmap to healing. In our imagination, we could see fertile fields, filled-in gullies, and soil-covered rocks, but how to get there was intimidating. Our redemption project seemed impossible.
My dad contacted both private and public (government) agriculture experts to receive as broad a range of counsel as possible. Every advisor recommended borrowing more money, planting corn, building silos, grazing the woods, and feeding the soil chemical fertilizers.
By Rory Feek, Plain Values
January always feels like not only the beginning of a new year, but a new opportunity. To do things better, to be better. To do the thing you’ve always wanted to do. A chance for real and lasting change. The first few stories I’ll be sharing monthly in this column are about some of the profound changes for the better that have occurred in my life that brought me here to this moment. First, to share a little about who I am and the story God has given us.
By John Heers, of First Things Foundation Alert: This month’s post is not about love as understood by people living on this side of the…
By Lisa Miller, Wife to Marlin, publisher of Plain Values Someone once told us, “If you are looking around hoping for someone to do something…
By Marlin Miller, Publisher of Plain Values
I began our first post with this question and a statement. “What do the Amish, little ones with special needs, two nonprofits, four adoptions, two one-room schoolhouses from the 1800’s and a monthly print magazine have to do with homesteading in 2023? It is the story of our family, and it is a joy to share how the Lord has pieced it together over the last twenty years.” This is the second installment of that story.
Everything we discuss and share inside Plain Values magazine is focused on loving our neighbor. From adopting a child, raising extra tomatoes and peppers, helping that neighbor build a fence or a woodshed… it’s all about living out the two greatest commandments: to love God and love your neighbor.
By Joel Salatin, Plain Values
Does God Care How I Farm? That question defines my life’s work and vision because it moves the visceral, practical decisions I make in my farming vocation to a place of sacredness and godly living. If God cares about physical and practical things in my life, then my theology and belief structure are more than academic pursuits.
They are not just discussion groups and conversations. If God cares how I farm, then I should enthusiastically embrace searching for techniques and protocols that please Him. After all, it’s all His stuff. The courthouse may say I own this land, but ultimately I don’t. Legally and culturally, I may advocate for property rights, but really it’s all God’s property. Does He care how it’s handled? Does He care how I leave it? Does He care what I do with it?
David has been on the run from Saul, and now things are beginning to change. David has assembled a kingdom in exile that is growing more powerful, and Saul is waging war not only on David but on Yahweh Himself. For those with eyes to see, this passage is an example of how God’s people can not only survive godless, bloodthirsty tyrants, but prepare to rule after God removes them.
by Ivan Keim, Plain Values
First, a note from Marlin Miller, Publisher of Plain Values Magazine:
Across the news and nation, I have sensed a renewed drive to get communities together again, more like the “good ole days.” Now, I’m not a fan of wishing to go back, but the interest and thoughtful questioning of a few of my Amish friends confirmed my hunch time and again. We have assembled a panel of Amish folks, some older and a few younger, who are passionate about strong communities and taking care of one another as God asks us to.
The Amish are not perfect, but they do take care of one another in extraordinary ways, and I believe we have much to learn from it all. There are not many more well-known examples of this than “a good old-fashioned barn raising!” Philippians 2:3–4 says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but to the interests of others.”
Our family has had the luxury of having grown up in and around Amish communities our entire lives, and we do indeed have wonderful neighbors. I have no doubt that The Roundtable will become a favorite for many of our readers in the months to come.
Marlin Miller, always looking for more friends
What do the Amish, little ones with special needs, two nonprofits, four adoptions, two one-room schoolhouses from the 1800s, and a monthly print magazine have to do with homesteading in 2023? It is the story of our family, and it is a joy to share how the Lord has pieced it together over the last twenty years. My name is Marlin Miller, and here we go!
The other day I was hauling a couple of cows to the slaughterhouse when a new-model truck with blacked-out windows blazed past me on the left. Big block letters on the rear window read: “LIONS NOT SHEEP.”
It was a nice truck, and I’d guess that the driver was an impressive guy — strong bench press, profitable business, maybe no exogenous mRNA in his bloodstream — but I’m also sure this truck bro is actually a particular type of sheep. A sheep in lion’s clothing, if you will, and I know that precisely because he considered himself to be a lion.
