Take Spiritual Formation Into Your Neighborhood
Equip Your People to Be the Church
Tend helps your church become more like what it was always meant to be: rooted in place, growing in discipleship, and building trust in your community. All without adding new programs to manage or draining your staff.
Ready to Run
Tend comes fully prepared with everything you need in a church small group curriculum—no planning, programming, or time-consuming prep.
Lay Leader Friendly
Tend is made for busy lay leaders, with Bible-based tools that keep prep time minimal and make leading easy, even if they’ve never led a group before.
Designed for Impact
Made for churches that want to have a missional presence, Tend helps your people grow in faith and reach neighbors in simple, organic ways.
A Ready-to-Run Discipleship Experience
Tend’s 10-week small group experience offers a simple way to grow your church, engage your neighbors, and join in God’s renewal.
Biblical Discipleship
Help your people engage Scripture throughout the week. Bible-based discussions lead individuals all ages to rediscover God as Creator.
Organic Outreach
As your people make faith visible through caring for creation, they invite neighbors to join them, cultivating your church’s missional presence.
Hands-On Restoration
See your people practice faith beyond the living room and into the community through a fun project that connects them to God’s creation.
How to Get Started
All you need is one person who can give ±20 minutes of prep per week to lead a 10-week small group. Tend keeps it simple and sets them up every step of the way with:
- A step-by-step Leader Guide
- Scripts for prayer and Bible discussion
- Earthcare Activity Guides that make outreach organic and fun
- Personalized dashboard to manage leaders and track small groups
Plus, your personalized digital dashboard makes it easy to access all your resources, manage your group, and find helpful tips, tricks, and tools.
Tend Guides for LeadersFAQs
What is Tend?
Tend offers a simple way to grow as a disciple, make faith visible, and connect with your neighbors through pastor-approved practices that care for God’s Earth.
As a leader, you won’t have to teach. Tend guides you every step. As a 10-week small group experience that fits real life, Tend starts small, with just a few households gathering weekly. Some weeks, your group will enjoy a simple meal together and discuss Scripture. On alternating weeks, you’ll welcome friends and neighbors to join you in hands-on Earthcare Activities that are grounded in Scripture and designed to connect you to creation, such as gardening, hiking, or cleaning up a shared space.
Who’s behind Tend?
Tend is an initiative of Plant With Purpose, an international Christian environmental and development organization. Plant With Purpose partners with 1,500 churches in developing nations worldwide and has seen those churches flourish and transform their communities as they embrace their identity as stewards of creation. Plant With Purpose hopes that U.S. churches will experience this transformation too. The Lilly Endowment has funded Tend as a resource that will help congregations thrive. You can learn more about Plant With Purpose at plantwithpurpose.org.
What does Tend cost?
It’s free! The cost for Tend has been paid through a grant from the Lilly Endowment to help American Christian churches thrive. Thanks to the grant, the Tend curriculum is available to you for free. All we ask is that you provide feedback on your Tend experience through our short surveys.
Why is Tend free?
The cost of developing and distributing Tend has been covered through a grant from the Lilly Endowment, aimed at helping American Christian Churches thrive. As a result, the Tend curriculum is being made available free to Christian churches, church planters, and more.
Our only request is that you share feedback about your experience and help grow the Tend community.
What’s a Tend Group?
A small group community that welcomes all ages and stages to connect with neighbors as they care for creation. Five households meet weekly for 10 weeks, alternating between Bible-based Dinner & Discussion nights and hands-on Earthcare Activities. No teaching required. Tend provides word-by-word scripts—so you can just come with curiosity and join the conversation.
Do I need to lead the group myself?
Tend is designed for lay leaders (but you can still lead it if you like!). It comes with a step-by-step, biblically rooted guide that makes leading simple for anyone—no matter their level of experience.
When looking for a leader in your church, focus on people who connect naturally with others. All they need is a willing heart and a desire to see others grow as disciples and reach their community.
Why the focus on caring for the earth?
Caring for the earth isn’t just a trendy add-on to our faith. From the beginning, we were created to live in harmony with God, one another, and all the earth. Sin fractured that harmony. But through Jesus, God began restoring it, promising a new creation where heaven and earth meet again.
We participate in God’s work of healing relationships when we care for the earth—because by helping creation thrive, we help build communities where everyone has enough. It also opens the door to partner with neighbors who don’t follow Jesus but who share a desire to tend the earth. As we build relationship around our common interest, we have the opportunity to witness to the Creator of it all.
Is Tend connected to a church denomination? What are your affiliations?
Tend is an initiative of Plant With Purpose, an interdenominational Christian organization with members and participants from a wide variety of denominational backgrounds.
Tend serves churches of all sizes and traditions by providing a group experience that’s grounded in Scripture and designed to fit naturally within your church’s existing rhythms.
You can read the Plant With Purpose Statement of Faith by visiting plantwithpurpose.org/statement-of-faith.
Who is Tend for?
Tend is made for real life and real people. Whether your group is adults, youth, seniors, or a mix of ages including families with kids, Tend makes faith visible by fitting into everyday rhythms. Designed for people of all abilities and communities of every kind—from rural farmland to city blocks—Tend helps groups grow in faith and connect connect with God, neighbors, and the earth.
How big (or small) does my church need to be for Tend to work?
Tend works for churches of any size! It can start small and scale to any size. To begin, all you need is four or five households that will meet weekly to share meals, explore Scripture, and participate in hands-on projects to tend to God’s creation.