Enjoy the following dispatch from the Care of Creation team at Urbana09 in St. Louis… Please feel free to add your comments to this post to let us know you are with us in spirit… and if you are AT Urbana, come by booth #108 and say hello!

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This post is the Christmas letter my wife and I have just sent out to our friends and financial partners in our ministry.  Suspecting that a few of the regular visitors to Our Father’s World might not be on our distribution list, here are our thoughts this Christmas season.  Note that the first half is a devotional – we’ve been doing this in our letters for at least 15 years – and the second contains brief news about our family.  You are welcome to read both – we’d love to have you meet our family in this way, if not in person!  And feel free to contact me directly if you’d like to be added to the direct distribution list or click here if you would like to partner with us by donating to our ministry.  Our work is mostly provided for my small-ish gifts from ordinary people. –End of Commercial– !

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Dear Friends,

Of all the common Christmas carols echoing in shopping malls, elevators and on the radio – not to mention in churches and on our music players – surely the most interesting and subversive is “Joy to the World.” Read more »

Having no idea how many people actually follow our little conversations on Our Father’s World, I am going on the optimistic assumption that dozens (hundreds?!?) of you have been saying to yourselves, “Hmm, I wonder what ever happened to Habbakuk?“.

So here’s the latest:  Habbakuk became a pupa over the weekend (see picture).  Next step, mature Moth-dom.  Stay tuned.

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What I’m picking up, though, is an alarming increase in headlines relating to water crises – shortages that are happening now, or that will be felt long before the really bad aspects of climate change kick in in 50 or 100 years or more.  Following is just a sample from the last couple of days.  (The stories are from various sources, but are all available on the excellent website, Circle of Blue). Read more »

Screwtape is history… but it appears that his nephew Wormwood is alive and well and busy tempting Christians and church leaders in North America!  This year’s must-reading for fans of C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters is The Wormwood Archive by T.G. Brown, an updated look at how demons might operate in a world of email and the internet.

The following excerpt will give you a taste, and as you will see, the topic fits our theme at Our Father’s World perfectly.  In fact, it almost makes one think of a section of my own book – Our Father’s World: Mobilizing the Church to Care for Creation – that argued that ‘church planting’ is better for creation than ‘church building.’  It should – T.G. Brown is one of my younger brothers! – and I am pleased to encourage you to take a look at this well-written, clever and timely look at church life today.  The following excerpt is used by permission from Doorlight Publications and the author. Read more »