E55: Homesteading: A Calling Beyond Food | Lucas Mack of Kubota

The homesteading movement is awakening something deeper than a desire for fresh food or self-sufficiency. In this episode, I sit down with Lucas Mack of Kubota to talk about the spiritual pull drawing people back to the land and back to God. We explore how working with soil, seed, and stewardship quiets the noise and brings clarity about truth, responsibility, and purpose. This conversation is a reminder that homesteading is not just a health and lifestyle choice. It is a return to order, meaning, and building a life according to God’s design.

In this episode, we cover:

The surprising ways that Kubota’s mission and heart extends far beyond tractors
How Kubota supports food production, clean water, and land stewardship around the world
Lucas’s early wake-up call about food security after seeing firsthand how fragile grocery supply chains can be
How small steps like gardening, foraging, and growing food begin to shift mindset and priorities
How returning to the land naturally leads people to deeper questions about truth, responsibility, and faith
Why working with the land forces honesty— things either grow or they don’t, and the reasons matter
Why modern systems distract us from these questions, while homesteading brings clarity and purpose
The strong biblical connection between land, stewardship, seed, and human responsibility
The difference between dirt and living soil, and why healthy soil is central to real regeneration
A hopeful vision for rebuilding local food systems and stronger communities
Encouragement to choose life, cultivate hope, and build where God has planted you

Thank you to our sponsors!

McMurrayHatchery.com | A wide selection of poultry breeds and supplies to assist you with raising your flock

Nutrimill.com | High-quality small kitchen appliance products that function well, are easy to use, and promote healthy eating

About Lucas

Lucas Mack is an award-winning storyteller, brand strategist, and speaker who helps organizations align purpose, people, and performance through the power of authentic branding. As head of brand marketing and communications at Kubota North America, Lucas leads the strategic transformation of the company’s marketing and communications structure across the U.S. and Canada—building a brand that resonates as deeply with employees as it does with customers.

Before joining Kubota, Lucas founded 4th Avenue Media, a national storytelling and creative agency dedicated to helping organizations communicate with heart. With a background as a TV reporter and producer, he has spent more than two decades uncovering what drives human connection and translating that into meaningful brand engagement. Lucas is also a TEDx speaker, author, and producer of the docuseries Farm School’d, which explores how experiential education and connection to the land nurture stronger communities. His work bridges business strategy and emotional intelligence, helping leaders see that the strongest brands—and healthiest workplaces—begin with a clear, human story. In his talk, “How a Strong Employer Brand Increases Engagement, Retention, and Wellness,” Lucas reveals how organizations can foster trust, loyalty, and well-being by ensuring their external brand promise truly reflects the internal employee experience.

Resources Mentioned

Visit Kubota’s website

Follow Kubota’s instagram

Connect

Homesteading: A Calling Beyond Food Transcript

Amy Fewell Welcome to the Homesteaders of America Podcast, where we encourage simple living, hard work, natural healthcare, real food, and building an agrarian society. If you’re pioneering your way through modern noise and conveniences, and you’re an advocate for living a more sustainable and quiet life, this podcast is for you. Welcome to this week’s podcast. I’m your host, Amy Fewell, and I’m the founder of the Homesteaders of America organization and annual events. If you’re not familiar with us, we are a resource for homesteading education and online support. And we even host a couple of in-person events each year with our biggest annual event happening right outside the nation’s capital here in Virginia every October. Check us out online at HomesteadersofAmerica.com. Follow us on all of our social media platforms and subscribe to our newsletter so that you can be the first to know about all things HOA (that’s short for Homesteaders of America). Don’t forget that we have an online membership that gives you access to thousands—yes, literally thousands—of hours worth of information and videos. It also gets you discount codes, an HOA decal sticker when you sign up, and access to event tickets before anyone else. All right. Let’s dive into this week’s episode.

Amy Fewell Welcome to the Homesteaders of America podcast. This week I have special guest, Lucas Mack from Kubota, but you do all kinds of other things too that we will talk about. Welcome to podcast, Lucas.

Lucas Mack Thanks, Amy. I’m so honored to be on. Love everything you’re doing, your mission, your heart, your stand. So, really happy to be here with you.

Amy Fewell Yeah, I love that we connected. I know we connected on the HOA sponsorship part, but I feel like I’ve connected with you, like just following you, in so many other aspects of life. And so we’ll talk about that a little bit more too. Some of you guys can kind of see in his background if, you know, you’re watching on YouTube. So, OK, Lucas, tell our listeners who you are and what you do. I know that’s a loaded question, but…

Lucas Mack I love it. So, professionally, I’m the senior director of brand marketing communications in Kubota North America, and I also lead our global brand strategy. And I’ve been at Kubota a little over two years and absolutely love this company. I was asked by the global CEO last January what I thought of Kubota. I’m like, oh, that’s kind of an interesting question. And I said, “You know, I think Kubota is one of the most important companies in the world that very few people know about.” And so if you’re in farming, if you are in maybe construction, you know the equipment, but if you’re not in those industries or you’re not in that world, very few know Kubota, although Kubota is influential in majority of humans’ lives and they just don’t know it. From clean water to the majority of engines in the word are made by Kubota. It doesn’t matter if it’s a generator that you buy at Home Depot to a Zamboni on an ice rink, Kubota engines are empowering all sorts of things throughout the world. But more than that, it’s a company that really wants to see humanity thrive and the wellbeing and health of our soil and our earth so that generations can live prosperously on the land.

Amy Fewell Yeah. That’s super cool. I remember the first time that you told me about all of the things that Kubota does and is involved in. And I was kind of like, wait a minute. I didn’t even know that because even in farming and homesteading (as I look at my Kubota tractor sitting outside), we just think about Kubota as being a tractor company or a heavy equipment company, but we don’t realize all of the things that Kubota does in general. And so I think that’s really cool and pertinent to anyone listening to the podcast, because you’re depending on this company, whether you even know it or not. So that’s really cool. So we connected because Kubota was looking at sponsorship opportunities for HOA. But, you know, as you said, Kubota is so much more than that. And so how do you feel that Kubota really fits into the mindset of homesteading? Like how are they supporting that—obviously as a sponsor, but just as a company in general? Because when you think of Kubota, you’re like, well, they’re not here… You know, where is Kubota? Kubota’s everywhere. So why don’t you kind of talk about that a little bit.

Lucas Mack So I’ve been doing this work a long time. I had my own branding agency for 11 years and then once I left that, went in to work a big global enterprise brand, so Microsoft, Netflix, Google, Facebook, Costco, T-Mobile. I did a lot of really cool projects, really interesting, fascinating, like things that people buy—Mod Pizza is a pizza company that I helped create their brand. So I really love storytelling. I love helping companies align what the truth is of who they are internally and express that externally. So that there’s no mistrust, there’s no along the way, like, I don’t get it. And I joke around that hole-in-the-wall restaurants, which we’ve all eaten at, remain hole-in-the-wall restaurants because even though the food’s incredible, you kind of cross your fingers and go, man, I hope I don’t get sick here, because the environment doesn’t match the experience so often of the food. And I really am impassioned in life, both helping people personally, but also companies, align that authentic truth internally and express it externally. So coming to Kubota, my first experience was, well, what does this company mean beyond the machine, beyond the manufacturing experience? I mean, quality is the number one word at this company. I mean, they last forever. I’d be shocked if anyone even listening has ever driven by a farm and saw a rusted out Kubota.

Amy Fewell Right?

Lucas Mack Yeah, because they keep running. They last forever. And so there is so much integrity in the production system that Kubota produces all over the world. But beyond that, I was like, what does this company really mean? And so I did the research and Kubota invented the first compact four-wheel drive diesel tractor in the world. And so before, there were just two-wheel drive, regular gas tractors that were small, but Kubota invented… the same power that big machines had, they gave it to the individual. So as I started doing the research, I started going, well, what’s the correlation? What is a tractor? What does a piece of equipment actually do for people? What’s the draw? How do you feel when you get on that and you feel like you’re almost transposing into something more powerful, more… You know, our abilities grow. And so I wrote, once upon a time, the horse was a symbol of life upon the frontier. Without a horse, one was tethered to city life. However, the inner calling that beckons humans towards self-actualization and self-determination led many to move out of the cities and into a world where the relationship between land and the individual was cultivated.

Amy Fewell Yeah.

Lucas Mack Several years later, the horsepower. So we went from horse to horsepower. But nevertheless, it enabled the same opportunity: do what you want, where you want without restraint on the land. I saw that what Kubota was actually doing was a continuation of this aspiration inside humankind that says, “Beyond that horizon, what am I capable of? Who am I? Can I do it?” And we have begun pivoting and shifting into this world to really say, “We are here as a partner to empower people to return back to the land and return back themselves.” And that’s why homesteading was such an easy alignment because I think we’ve always been helping people homestead. Now I want to get out there and say, “No, all of you who are answering the existential question: what does it mean to be human in a day and age where humanity is derided and it’s confusing and the world seems on fire? When you return back to that soil and put your hands back into life, there’s something profound that is answered within all of us.” And so Kubota is on a mission to help as many people do that as they can.

Amy Fewell Yeah, that’s like the homesteader mantra that you guys picked up, man. And it’s very true because when you guys first came on as a sponsor… So I think most of the people who listen know, I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: we don’t just partner with anybody with HOA. We are not, you know, give me your money, we just don’t care who sponsors. No, no. We like to partner with companies who have the same mission as us. And so when you guys came in, I was asking around like, “Okay, what do you know about Kubota? What do you think about their products? We have a tractor, it hasn’t ever broken out on us, but that doesn’t mean… you know, we have little experience.” And every friend that I talked to, and we have multiple mechanic friends, have always said Kubota is hands down my favorite engine and equipment to work on because it’s so easy to work on it. And you know, so I think we had this conversation when you first came on. It’s like the homesteader tractor, because it is easy to work on. And you’ve made it very simplistic for anyone to learn and use, and you make different sizes and different add ons and all kinds of things. So we decided to partner with Kubota because of everything you just said, and because the product is so quality. And you’re right, I’ve never driven by a farm and seen a rusted out Kubota tractor now that you say that. And we live in farmland in Virginia, so it’s common to see tractors. So I love that. I love your mission. I know that when people come to conference and they see your Kubota team there, they love you guys. Like, you know, they just love interacting with you. I saw so many kids this year that were walking around with Kubota sunglasses and everyone just loved it. And so we’re just really thankful that you guys are partnering with us and kind of getting our audience to know who Kubota is and what you stand for, because that makes a true difference in America especially.

Amy Fewell We’re taking a break from the podcast so I can tell you a little bit about this year’s sponsor, Murray McMurray Hatchery. Murray McMurray officially started his chicken business in 1917. He had always been interested in poultry as a young man and particularly enjoyed showing birds at the local and state fairs. He was in the banking business at the time and sold baby chicks through the bank to area farmers and hobbyists. But now, we know Murray McMurray as one of the top homesteader’s choice hatcheries here in the United States. They have all kinds of birds, from show birds to exotic birds to meat birds, because who doesn’t want every kind of chicken or poultry possible? They have ducks and all kinds of options for you. Here at Homesteaders of America, Murray McMurray Hatchery has supported homesteaders for at least the last eight years (or as long as we’ve been around) and beyond, since 1917. Make sure you check them out at McMurrayHatchery.com to get your orders in for the year.

Amy Fewell Okay, I’m gonna shift a little bit and let’s talk about Lucas personally. So does Lucas have a homestead or are you aiming to have one? What’s your goal there?

Lucas Mack So I don’t have a homestead, but I have been on this journey really since 2020, is when I really woke up. I grew up in farm country, farmland. Every Saturday being home, I’d ask my parents, “What’s that smell?” When I was young, they’d say, that’s the smell of money. That’s the smell of money right there. So I grew up in farmland, but I had a different path. I had a really rough upbringing and, you know, tried to figure life out on my own. And the 2020 lockdown and all that stuff really woke me up to everything and it really started… My first awakening when it just came to food was in 2012 when my oldest was born and we lived in the Seattle area. Seattle had this like ice storm of a century type deal that shut down everything and what happened was it knocked all the power out and then trucks couldn’t get into the grocery stores so by the time we got into Trader Joe’s, the power had been out. They had to throw all their perishable food away. And that was the first moment I realized… And I grew up working in a grocery store. So my first job was I cleaned the meat department at a grocery store and then worked on my way up to, and then some stocker and different things. But what I realized even back then was grocery stores only have a three day food supply and they’re constantly waiting for the next shipment. So when that ice storm happened in 2012 and all the perishable food had to be thrown away, that put a sense of urgency in me to never put my family in that compromised state again. I think my daughter was three weeks old at the time, brand new, had this ice storm. So we started waking up to real food, whole food, processed food. I think the documentary, Forks Over Knives, came out at the time, and we were just learning about food. But then when 2020 happened, that’s when I had my full like, okay, line drawn in the sand and I got into foraging. And so I started eating dandelions and nettles and fiddlesticks and berries and I mean, berries are kind of easy, but I mean huckleberries is what I eat, and we’d make huckleberry scones… We just started working with the land that was around us. And then in 2021, we moved down to Texas and moved into a neighborhood. So we don’t homestead, although I support and want to get land. Right now we’re in a neighborhood, but we have a garden, we grow as much as we can. Last year I had a cool experience where I dried cantaloupe seeds out and I planted those and it just exploded. I can’t even count how many… It ended up being honeydew which was strange. It had like a little bit of cantaloup on the skin but it was honeydew. Some of it was hybrid but even though it was “organic” cantaloupe and what I realized then was organic truth is always going to be superior to artificial intelligence, or organic intelligence supersedes artificial intelligence. I put one seed and they say one seed can feed a thousand people for a thousand years, the amount of food and regeneration… So I am incredibly passionate about a relationship between the land and I think you’ve heard me say this before that I think there’s no accident why the word heart and earth share the same letters, and when you take the H of heart and you put it at the end, you get earth. And I think, as the Bible, we start in the garden, and in Revelation, we return back to the garden. And, I think there’s this whole process of, you know, and Isaiah says, “Break up the fallow ground.” There’s always this relationship between earth and the human and the heart. And Jesus says, you know, “Cast your seed amongst good soil. And if it goes into rocky soil…” The whole context of our understanding ourselves is in relation to this earth. “You should be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that whatsoever you do it shall prosper.” I mean, it’s constantly about earth and nature and so I am on this personal mission to (a) I want to see people heal. I want to see people return back to the love of God. I used to run my own ministry, I think we shared this last time. I was on staff for Young Life for years. And then I left and started my own ministry as a worship leader at churches. And you know, I used to call myself, in hindsight, I was kind of a verbal assassin as far as like I could Romans road map someone, you know, I could get him to that place. And I did so, I think, effectively. In hindsight, I’m like, you know, my own personal journey was all I really wanted to know was the love of God. And I’ve gone down different paths and explored, God, do you really love me? Are you really who you say you are? I’ve learned that it’s really, as the Bible says, “It’s the goodness of God that leads us into repentance.” It’s not my articulation, it is not my performance or articulation or how much I know. It is really just the goodness of God. And so I personally, you know, I write, I got my first book published in 2013, I have another book coming out this year, podcast and coach people and lead retreats, in addition to all the professional stuff. And to me, it all seems like one in the same. When we return back to the land, I really believe that we’re forced to answer these questions that the world wants us to be distracted from, which is why light pollution bleeds out the stars at night, why noise pollution, you know, bleeds out our own thoughts in our mind. And when we can get still and quiet and just be in presence, then we start to go, hmm. Because there’s no atheist in human history except starting in the 1860s and beyond. It’s a modern-day phenomenon. There’s no ancient civilization anywhere, any anthropological study of any peoples throughout history, no one was an atheistic culture. They all had a relationship with the divine, with the spiritual realm, with God Himself. And we’re in this post-modern era where everything seems so relativistic that meaning has… There is no meaning and even talking about truth and purpose and vision almost get scoffed as something silly or something not serious, but yet the data shows that people are more unhappy, suicide rates are higher than they’ve ever been. I mean, the amount of trauma and sickness and all these things continue. And so my heart is that we return back to truth. I share and then I’ll stop talking a lot.

Amy Fewell No, you’re fine. Keep going.

Lucas Mack You know, I think truth has been an interesting thing because I crave truth more than anything. I grew up in such a confusing and horrific situation that I wanted truth. What is truth? I know what the Bible says about truth. I know Jesus says, “I’m the way of truth of life, no man comes to the Father but by me.” I know “you shall know the truth and truth shall make you free.” I know that “where there is spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” I mean, there’s all these things but ultimately, how do we know if something’s true or not? And this was this question I was on a mission to answer. How do I know if something is true or not? And I’ve come to this place that I believe that if we can breathe more deeply, then it’s true. If it constricts, it cannot be true because if truth makes us free, anything that keeps us bound, afraid, and constricted is not true. So I find that the more we return back to the land, the more we are finding truth because there’s no narrative of manipulation when you plant something in the earth and it either comes up or does not come up and then the question is why.

Amy Fewell That’s exactly right. You know, homesteading teaches—this is something that we’ve said for years—it teaches us a way back to simplicity, but it’s really not simple at all, right? It is, but you have to learn. We’re generations removed from the earth and planting something and like what you just said, it either grows or it doesn’t grow. Why? And then there’s so many factors. And so the back-to-the-land movement… It’s really interesting because when our generation’s back-to-the-land movement started, it was very political. It was very just, you know, the hippie movement, all of these things, which wasn’t necessarily wrong. They had a true desire to go back to the land. But I get asked the question all the time, when did the homesteading movement switch from being a political movement of just anything goes, to a very conservative Christian movement. And, you know, I would even venture to say it’s a neutrality in politics now, because people are just wanting to be better. They know there’s something more outside of everything. They know every system is corrupt. And so what we’re finding is exactly what you said: people are being drawn back to homesteading. And what’s happening? They’re finding Jesus in the midst of it because there’s not as much noise, they’re not being told what to think, they’re growing their own food and they’re taking care of animals. And they’re realizing, wait a minute, there is a creator. There is a presence. Like when I’m milking cows and when I am studying my garden and harvesting and preserving, there’s something else there. And so I love that that has been your journey, because it’s a lot of people’s journey. And it makes them question like, where does life begin? And that’s a great question to be asking right now in the society that we live in. And so you are a homesteader at heart, just like so many people. Even though you don’t have, you know, a ton of land (and you don’t need a ton of land to homestead), you’re still doing it. And you’re coming to these truths that are not only truth just when people are doing it, but they’re scriptural truths. And when we read the Bible, like when I first got sheep, oh my goodness. I was like, “Oh, you dumb sheep. Like you really are! Why don’t you just listen to me?” And so you begin to connect with scripture more and you realize these people could not have known these things unless they were living in agrarian truth and unless they are following the Lord, because you have to come to that reality: like there is a truth, and the truth is Jesus, and he is the only way to the father. And now we get to experience this agrarian lifestyle that so many parables and scriptures are about, and it makes sense. So that’s so cool. I love that that’s been your journey.

Lucas Mack Thanks. I joke, I think I even said on stage, I don’t know, or when I introduced one of the speakers at the last conference, that owning chickens is the gateway drug to buying land. And it’s kind of funny. Like, I have so many friends that have chickens now and now they’re like into everything and it starts with that simple purchase in a backyard. But it is beautiful. And I think, you know, I’m also on this journey, the very first recorded conversation between God and man happens in a garden. And then it says, “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” I think that’s such a beautiful image of what you’re saying that something else is there. You know, Adam and Eve, not to get necessarily preachy or theological on here, but Adam and Eve had already eaten of the fruit, they already were ashamed, they were already hiding, and instead of this picture of God and His wrath and anger and coming in, there was this beautiful phrase that, “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” And I’m like that’s such a beautiful picture of God’s beautiful grace and mercy and presence. And he says, you know, “Where are you?” Even though God knew everything. And I always ask people, “Why do you think God had to ask? And what were the three questions that God asked?” He asked three questions. He says, “Where are you?” And Adam says, “I heard your voice when I was afraid because I was naked.” And he said, “Who told you that you’re naked? Did you eat of the tree where I have commanded you not to eat of?” So three questions that God asks us every single day is, “Where are you? Who are you listening to? And did you do against that which I’ve asked you to do?”

Amy Fewell That’s good, yeah.

Lucas Mack And I believe the actual course of human history hung on Adam’s answer. Had Adam said, “Here I am, I listened to the serpent and I did what you told me not to do and I asked you to forgive me,” I believe that covering would have been right there. But instead, Adam goes, “The woman that thou gave us to be with…”.

Amy Fewell Right, “It’s her fault!”.

Lucas Mack And then God asked the woman, “What is this that thou has done?” And she said, “The serpent beguiled me and I did eat.” So human nature, even in the presence of grace, will still point and not take accountability and responsibility for their own action.” And I often share with people is, you know, it is funny, that’s the joke, right? It’s the woman’s fault. But God asked Adam first because Adam’s responsibility was he sinned first. And there’s also this interesting point because the serpent says in Genesis 3:1, it says, “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, ‘Yea, as God said, are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure that’s what God says, that you may not eat of the tree of the garden?’ And she says, ‘We may not even eat of it, neither shall we touch it, lest we die.'” But in Genesis 2:18, God just says, “Don’t eat it.” So when she adds into his word… He just said, “Don’t eat it.” She said, he said, “Don’t eat it, nor touch it.” And when she added to his word, that’s the opening that the serpent was able to take advantage of her. And it’s this interesting journey that God, he doesn’t ask the serpent, “What have you done?” He already knew what he had done. He asked Adam, he asked the woman, and then he tells the serpent, “Dust shall thou eat all the days of thy life.” And then he turns to Adam and says, “For dust thou art, and dust thou shall return.” So the serpent feeds on the death of man, which is why the word live backwards is evil. Why the word lived backwards is devil. And we have a choice every single day, whether, you know, choose you this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we’re going to serve the Lord. We’re going serve life. We’re gonna propagate life back into this world, back into the land, back into the soil, back into our hearts. And that’s really, I think, not trying to get too preachy, but I think bringing this full circle, that’s the choice that humans are faced with right now. Will you propagate life in a world that hates it, derives it, destroys it, perverts it, manipulates it? And those people, the homesteading community are the ones saying, “No, we’re choosing life.” And I think it’s a beautiful stand.

Amy Fewell It is. You need like the tagline “homestead preacher.” I just see that in your future. You might be into something more than you realize, Lucas. But really, I mean, what you just said is so rich. It’s so good because one, what I’m pulling out of what you’ve just said, is we have to know the word of the Lord. We have to know what he actually says because my husband and I have this conversation all the time: Satan comes as an angel of light and he knows more scripture than most of us do because he’s been doing this for how many years? Six thousand plus years. And so he can quote scripture better than anyone. And then he can manipulate it. And so, you know, I teach my kids this: be in the Word. As soon as they’re old enough to read, you have to read it. You have to get it inside of you. Like we have parallel kingdoms, right? The kingdom lifestyle is parallel. And, so, yeah, now we have thorns and thistles and all of these things that we have to go through when we’re gardening. We talk about this all the time, I think about this—like you had it so good. You could just get up, and you could just cultivate the land, and you didn’t have to worry about all of these things. But, you know, that’s sin. That’s the nature of sin. And so now going back to the land, we get to work with that. We get to work around that. We have to navigate that. And it does—it teaches you so much about yourself, too. I always say this: in homesteading, you’re going to learn a whole lot about yourself because of the way you act, the way you react, and where you put your faith. And so one of the journeys that God has me on over the last few months has been what do you actually believe? You know, do you believe that I am who I say I am? Do you believe I actually cause things to grow? Like we want to science it all, right? Like, oh, the sun causes this to grow. Well, actually, scripturally, God can make nothing grow if that’s what he wanted. I mean, look at famine throughout the Bible. But there were righteous people who saw abundance, even in times of distress and famine. And that’s because of God. And He is literally in everything. And through us, He just asked us to partner. And so, yeah, the homesteading movement, I truly believe that we will see just a massive revival in the homesteading and rural communities because people are so… They’re fertile soil and they’re fertile because they have seen the truth of nature and that that truth is God and he does cause things to grow and he is the one taking care of you. And so when people ask that question, “When did this become a Christian movement?” Well, I think it always has been. God has always been talking to people, whether they were Christian or not. And the question is, are you going to follow truth when he reveals himself to you, or are you just going to keep doing what you’re doing and get completely burnt out and decide this truth’s not for me anymore? You know what I mean?

Lucas Mack Yeah, yeah.

Amy Fewell And we see that in the homesteading community, like people, they do it just for farming and that’s fine. That’s totally fine. But eventually they get so burnt out because they’re not looking at the greater truth. And that’s the way of Adam, right? But Jesus is calling us into a different way. Like, “Why do you do this? Why am I calling you to this? What am I saying to you?” And every morning and evening, I’m up and I’m asking God, “What do you have for me today?” And all of the trials or all of lessons of homesteading or business or parenting or marriage, you have a word for me today. You have something that you want to show me that makes me more like you, that conforms me more into your image. And, you know, we’ve been homesteading for probably 16 years now. And I have seen more growth in our family spiritually since deciding to do that. You know, so it is so much more than just growing food and sticking it to the political system, right? But that’s part of it too. I mean, we could go into all of that, like how the kingdom is a governmental system and why are we depending on the government for all of these things? Why are we not taking a burden off of the system when we can grow our own food and we can buy from a local farm and all of these things. And so, yeah, I love this. This is a great conversation, Lucas. It’s so good.

Lucas Mack One of the sayings I heard growing up was “you can’t have an imitation without the real thing.” And I think you were, you know, referencing “Satan transfigures into an angel of light.” There’s always going to be this imitation. And this is where I think Christians, humans in general, get lost because they’re more listening to the narrative than the output. So Jesus said, “You can tell a tree by the fruit it bears, where that fruit be good or where that fruit be evil.” And it is our job to observe the outcome, not just the narrative that leads into the process or into the flow. And I think this question right now, what I’m really big on is, well, what’s the difference between dirt and soil? And I think oil is a word that’s almost been erased from our vernacular and the zeitgeist is like, no, people don’t really talk about soil anymore. Talk about dirt. Are your hands dirty? Wash the dirt off. Dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt. Even competitive brands are that we, you know, talk about, it’s like we dig dirt or we push dirt and it’s like, it kind of sounds aggressive and it sounds kind of cool. And you’re like, well, yeah, you dig dirt. But I was on this… just four hours in my office… One of the things I’ve asked God is, “Take my mind away, give me your mind filled infinitely with your thoughts, your wisdom, your discernment, your discretion, your knowledge, your understanding, your ability to retain information, your ability to think things through. I want a mind that works well so I can think it through.” So I’m sitting in my office at Kubota and I’m like, well, what is the difference between dirt and soil? And I do all this research and dirt is actually dead. Dirt is not alive, soil is alive. And not only is it alive, the more we put our hands in it, the more work in it and the more we cultivate to keep that life, everything sprouts forth from it. Even our own mitochondria are healthier, our body is healthier. And so I’ve been really observing… You know, I can use scripture all day long, “broad is the path that leads to destruction, narrow is the path…” You know, there’s always many and few, but I think when we return back to… And you know, what is repentance? In Hebrew it’s Shuvah, it’s return, it is a turning back from the path we were going. If we return to God and can get back to the earth, God is going to reveal all the things that are antithetical to His system. Like when I look at the cantaloupe in the ground, blowing out all these vines and honeydew everywhere, which was also cool. I mean, everywhere. It was unbelievable. And I was like, wow, this is the power of God. People are like, “Where’s the power of God?” Well, you haven’t seen it because you haven’t worked in the system where it’s actually allowed to produce and thrive. And even my brother’s a big hunter and they have a little homestead and he teaches people hunting. He’s a real big believer that mentorship is conservation. That the best conservationists are actually the hunters because they actually care about preserving and they’re not just politically driven to lock down. And so he and I have talked about when we process animals and you look inside and you’re like the same lungs, the same organs are in this beautiful creature—whatever it may be, a deer, a rabbit, a fox, a bobcat, I mean, we’ve done all these different things—is inside of us. Of course, it’s the same designer that has designed all things to work in harmony with one another. And I think that’s where people just don’t understand God anymore is because they don’t understand nature and they don’t understand themselves.

Amy Fewell Well, I think you also nailed it in that people don’t understand it because we are in totally different systems than the systems that God created. You know, when you take a look at all of the centralized systems—taking this from America, but also everywhere—you’re told what to think. If you are a hunter and you’re intentionally going through, you know, you are eviscerating this animal, you know how fragile life is, but you also know how strong life is. I mean, to see this entire system working, it’s like, take our medical system. Most people don’t know that the heart isn’t actually necessarily a pump. It’s like a cylinder. It’s this muscle that’s actually, if you cut the tendons up and you lay it flat, it’ll lay flat. And it’s just kind of turning together. It’s hard to explain that without a visual, but you know, you don’t know that unless you get into that system and start breaking things apart. And so, you know the food system, we don’t know how food is grown anymore, because we’ve just listened to a system that’s been taken over. And throughout Scripture, the message is very clear to depend on no one. And yet now we live in societies where we’re dependent on everyone for something. And so the question is, is it impossible to get back to that? I don’t think it’s impossible, because if God designed it, then it’s not impossible to get to that design. It’s difficult because we have billions of people on the planet now. But you know, I say this to my team a lot, I say this to people who are trying to cultivate community in their states and their regions: you have to change the culture first. It’s just like the apostles. When you go into a region, the culture has to be kingdom culture. And as people begin to see that, they start realizing these systems are not inside the will of God. They are not the way that he set up the earth to work and people to function. And we were created to have covenant relationship with one another. We were created to live in community with one another. We were created for all of these things. And so think of all of the mental health crisis and all of this spiritual crisis is really what it is, and how different that would look if what you just said was true: we saw God’s systems and his intelligent, creative design for humanity versus building kingdoms on man and what man thinks is best. And so I truly believe that this movement, when people hear me say the homesteading movement is so much more than just growing your own food and knowing where it came from, it is truly a movement of God that is trying to break up centralized earthly systems that do not glorify him. And so people are starting to catch onto that and people are creating these little pockets of systems that are scriptural, that are led by God, that they are discerning what he wants and they’re moving where he says to move. And so it’s pretty incredible to watch this movement be used to further the kingdom.

Lucas Mack Yeah, yeah.

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Lucas Mack I want to say, one thing that is a dream of mine, a vision of mine is that, you know, it’s funny you guys are called HOA, but then every neighborhood HOA. I have a dream that they’re replaced. So all these amazing men typically that are labor, you know, they’re keeping everything pristine looking and a lot of flowers. Can you imagine if that gets replaced by fruits and vegetables. And instead of an HOA pool or a neighborhood pool, that there’s a neighborhood tractor, there’s a neighborhood Kubota in every HOA across America. So even if it’s not acreage of land, it’s that wherever the homes are, you understand it’s communal, it’s community, there’s food, it would change everything. And when I first started at Kubota, I was doing all this research, when I found you guys, and I talked to this one homestead family. They moved from San Diego to Mississippi and they have this really cool YouTube channel called 3 Mississippi and I talked to them. I found them because they bought a Kubota tractor and so I was like, I gotta reach out to these guys. And I had a beautiful conversation with them and he was retired military of the Navy and they moved out of San Diego and they went and bought this land and he’s saying, he’s like, “Have you ever heard of Victory Gardens?” Because I was like, “Why don’t we have like gardens everywhere? Why don’t they plant fruit trees or some sort of tree that can produce food, even in the harshest of climates?” I leach my own acorns and I make acorn flour and I do all sorts of stuff with acorns. It takes a long, long time, but I still do it and it’s fun and it is food. And I’m like, “Why have we not just flipped the script to teach everyone that food should be everywhere? It’s not in these systems where you go to these markets.” And he was talking to me about Victory Gardens and I had never heard of it. And then I do all this research and I’m like what the heck? We are so far removed even from 80 years ago that they mandated (to talk about a mandate, government mandate, that’s probably the only one I could get behind, but literally, it’s probably only one) that you had to have a garden. You had to produce your own food because all the production of the food went to serve all the troops that needed to have their own food. And I thought, wow, the fact that I don’t even know that and I feel like I’m very well read and studied. I knew nothing of that and here this beautiful homesteading family was educating me. I just think there’s so much education that once people are introduced to the idea, you know… What’s the saying? “You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.” Like once we have and I’m like, wow, I never knew that, we can change. Maybe this is just my upbringing or it’s just who I am, but I believe we can change the world. Truth makes us free. We just have to start bringing truth to people and like exposing, not being against anything. This is what I’ve learned from 2020, like I grew my podcast and my platform because I am very against. I drew a hard line. I was hardcore. But I realized that being for something is greater than being against something. And so I’m like, well, what am I actually for? I’m for life. I’m for peace. I’m all the things that I have: love, joy, peace, long suffering, goodness, gentleness, faith, temperance, meekness. These are the nine things I am for in life. And the more I think we can introduce thoughts that open people up to these ideas, as opposed to attack, indict, get angry, because the Bible says, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” And so I think, to bring it full circle, I think if we start casting vision again of what life could be, what every HOA in America could actually be doing for its community, what cities could do and municipalities could do about focusing on food that is natural, food forestry, regenerative farming, healthy soil, I think people will get into it. I don’t think people are adverse to it. They just don’t know any other way. And that’s like, what does the Bible say? “How will they hear unless they have a preacher?” Sometimes you have to go and preach the good news. And one of the things I share is: “Gospel” is actually a conjunction word. It’s “Go-spell” because we are a spell. Now, this is kind of wild, but think of the word. We are to go spell and break the spell. Because it is, we’re wrestling not against flesh and blood. Well, what is it we’re wrestling? Principalities, powers, spiritual darkness, rulers of high places, they are casting a spell, and that’s why they broadcast, and that’s why there’s programming, and that’s why they teach us cursive because there’s a curse in the writing. There’s so much intention behind the dark consciousness. Well, that’s just mimicking God’s truth. And that’s why the hippie movement was… I have so many hippie friends and I’ve gone into this world, it’s interesting, it’s like, man, they’ll love everything. They can talk about unconditional love. They can talk about divine truth. They can talk about all these things, but you talk about the creator of all those things, that’s where the breaks get put on. So that’s what the counterfeit system will do. It will give you 99% truth, 1% lie, denying the God, the creator, the most high of all things, and everything falls apart. And I teach that 99% of truth is 100% a lie.

Amy Fewell That’s right.

Lucas Mack That’s a hard saying because people are like, “What do you mean?” Yeah, if I put a little bit of urine in a pure glass of water, would you drink it? One drop. No, it’s not clean. It’s not pure anymore. And so I think when we give these ideas of a bigger vision, the God who loves and has designed all things to work together for good to them who love Him, to them who are called according to His purpose, when we can understand that there is actually good for us and not evil for us, or not anti-our life, that God really wants to support us in walking this journey, I think more people will wake up and go, “I want that.”

Amy Fewell Yeah, and what you said is so true because, especially coming out of 2020, it was and still is very easy for us to say, “I’m against this, I am against this.” And obviously there’s a time and a place for that, but the Bible says to think on things that are good and noble and honest and worthy of Him, right? And so, you know, we can storm the gates of hell, right? But if that’s all we’re talking about, then there’s no room for us to talk about and disciple people, right? This is the way, this is the better way. Walk in this. Because all day long we can, you know, this is what we’re against. No, no, no, don’t believe that. Okay, well what do I believe then? How do I live then? Where’s the solution? And so, you know, that’s probably a really good place to break this off and start ending, because I think you and I could probably talk forever. And we will one day. But I encourage everyone listening to… You have one of the main leaders of Kubota having this conversation with you, but bringing in his experience and his personal life, and what’s the solution? Instead of just focusing on darkness, we all know what darkness is doing and it’s okay to expose darkness. That’s not what I’m saying, but how are you showing people the solution? Where should people turn to? And can you be that solution for them to bring light into their life and into your region and your community and change that culture? And so I would encourage you guys to just think about that once this podcast is over and reflect personally on your life. But Lucas, one more thing that I want you to talk about real quick: one of the ways you are doing that is you guys are getting ready to put out a TV series, right? Do you want to talk about that real quick?

Lucas Mack Yes, I’m so excited about it. Thank you. So in addition to the homesteading movement, there’s this other parallel track of farm schools, forest schools, outdoor-based education that’s happening all over the world. I mean, truly there are more than 10,000 outdoor-based schools in South Korea now. South Korea had one of the highest suicide rates of a developed nation in the world for their teens. And now they’ve lowered that because the government actually mandated outdoor-based education. And it’s just, of course, when you go outside, your nervous system relaxes, when you hear birds chirp, because it tells you everything’s okay. If a bird’s chirping, everything’s good. When birds aren’t chirping, you better go, “Wait, what’s going on?” Right?

Amy Fewell “Jesus!”

Lucas Mack Yeah, exactly. And so we produced a show called Farm Schooled and we follow three farm schools in Tennessee, and then one public school that actually is a charter school. The whole curriculum is outdoor-based education, it’s a high school. And the transformation that it’s had in the students’ lives and the families’ lives, their mental health, their physical health, their family relations… It is so beautiful to see the change. And so really excited to bring it out. We’re gonna launch it on YouTube, but there’s also some really cool conversations of bringing it to a much broader audience and excited to share that, but we’re going to launch it in April. That’s what we decided. And so Farm Schooled, look for it. And it’s going to be really powerful.

Amy Fewell Yeah, I’ve watched the first four episodes. I have one more episode to watch and I love it. And so you guys, I think you’ll really enjoy it. We’ll try to push it out there when that launches, that way you guys can watch it. I know we have a ton of people that have started their own schools—nature schools, farm schools, just co-ops even. So it’s really cool. The last episode I watched was the teachers you know, coming out of the public school system and learning. You know, it’s true. I didn’t even think about that. Like, again, they’ve been taught a system, right? Public school teachers are taught a system and how to educate. And so they’re unlearning these things. And so that was a really cool episode too. Okay, Lucas, at the end of every podcast episode, I let the platform open to you. You are welcome to share anything that’s been burning on your heart, or any thoughts you’ve been having, with our homestead community. So here’s your chance to share with them something you’ve been thinking about.

Lucas Mack Well, I think the thing that comes up and I share is, I’m very hopeful and optimistic of the future. And I used to be a real doom and gloom, but I don’t feel that anymore. And there’s a verse in the Bible that says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” And when we lose our hope, it’s because we’ve lost our vision, so where there’s the lack of vision that people perish, and hope deferred makes the heart sick. So when we reclaim a vision, that’s what enables us to have hope. And when we get hope again, that’s what enables a healthy heart. And while we have a healthy heart, that’s how we can go in and change culture. Culture cannot change with an upset heart with no hope, and then maybe I get a vision someday. And so I just want to encourage everyone to continue down the path, encourage, and know that darkness is not a counter force to light… This quote that I have behind me is: “Darkness is not a counterforce to light. Darkness exists in the absence of light. “And the earth was without form and void, and darkness upon the face of deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of water, and God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and immediately there was light.” There is light when we bring it forth, and Jesus said we’re the “light of the world.” And so, go forth with vision and hope, because I really think that someday we’re going to hear, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, you may enter into your rest.” And right now we work, we push, we hold the line, we do all the good things, but rest is coming.

Amy Fewell Yeah. Amen. And you’re going to have a garden in heaven that has no weeds, right? I always think it’s funny. People are like, “I’m going to get to heaven. I’m going to do nothing.” Oh, no. That’s not what the Bible says.

Lucas Mack Yeah, right. That’s so good. Thanks for having me on, Amy.

Amy Fewell Thank you! This has been great. I’ve loved this conversation. I know that you guys listening, I’m sure you’ve loved this conversion. We’re going to link stuff that we’ve talked about in the show notes of the description of the video or the podcast episode, wherever you’re listening. And if you have any questions, certainly you can ask them. I’m sure Lucas, you know, will be around looking at these things. So guys have a great day and as always, happy homesteading.

Amy Fewell Hey, thanks for taking the time to listen to this week’s Homesteaders of America episode. We really enjoyed having you here. We welcome questions and you can find the transcript and all the show notes below or on our Homesteaders of America blog post that we have up for this podcast episode. Don’t forget to join us online with a membership or just to read blog posts and find out more information about our events at HomesteadersofAmerica.com. We also have a YouTube channel and follow us on all of our social media accounts to find out more about homesteading during this time in American history. All right, have a great day and happy homesteading.