In 1920, Plough’s founding editor, Eberhard Arnold, wrote that its mission would be to “summon” its readers to “living renewal.” His words still serve as Plough’s mission statement: “We must get down to the deepest roots of Christianity and demonstrate that they are crucial to solving the urgent problems in contemporary culture. With breadth of vision and energetic daring, our publishing house must steer its course right into the torrent of contemporary thought.”

A magazine is more than text and images between two covers or on a screen. The heart of any magazine is the unique assemblage of writers and readers that contribute to it, read it, discuss it, and let it change them. For us, fostering the growth of a community around the magazine means connecting those readers and writers – in real life.

Over the past two years, thousands of Plough readers and writers have come together in cities across the United States and United Kingdom for an evening meetup. In 2025, local Plough enthusiasts hosted at least twenty-four such events, from Portland to London. At these meetups, readers gather in a café, pub, or private home to connect with other readers from their area and a representative of Plough to discuss the latest issue of the magazine and suggest topics they would like to see covered or writers they would like to see published. At least one Plough issue, Freedom, was a direct result of discussions at a meetup. As one attendee wrote:

I was struck by how well the meetup created a space for people to share. I was also really fascinated to see so many men in their mid-twenties so earnestly looking for answers to big questions. It was beautiful to see.

I’m very concerned these days by young people who seem to be in danger of going from fear of all commitment to believing that freedom itself is a bad thing and that they need religion because it’s a traditional form of limits – not because they see that Jesus is alive and that there is true freedom to be had in the cross. I don’t want to be turning anyone away for whatever reason they come to Jesus, but I do worry that we could have a supposedly Christian renaissance that is actually entirely devoid of Christ. So, it was good to see Plough be a really safe and Christ-centered place for people to work out those questions.

My wife and I attended two meetups last year. In Chicago, the group included an old Catholic communitarian, a former Planned Parenthood employee who is now pro-life, and a woman who ran a regenerative farm in Uruguay for eight years with her husband and young family. A couple walked into the café and asked if they could join because it looked interesting. They left as Plough readers. Attendees who had never met each other exchanged details and promised to stay in touch.

The Milwaukee meetup was at Panther Catholic, a Newman Center near the city’s University of Wisconsin campus. We discussed prayer, health, work, and much more. Several members of a small Catholic intentional community attended. Another attendee has been Wisconsin’s official “circus priest” for over a decade, administering the sacrament to Catholics in traveling circus troupes that come through the state. “Sometimes you can find your vocation in the strangest ways,” he told us.

At neither meetup were people discussing their political allegiances or grievances. They came looking for something more ordinary but far more powerful: a community of people from the same city who are asking the same questions and looking for a life that in some small way reflects God’s kingdom. The renewal that Arnold wrote of in 1920 can begin on the page, but it finds full expression in people gathered around a table and a shared vision. “Where two or three are gathered in my name,” Christ says, “there am I among them” (Matt. 18:20).

If you are interested in attending a Plough reader meetup, visit our events page. If you would like to host a meetup, email events@plough.com.