Attention, Students!

If you…

• Have an interest in caring for God’s creation
• Can put together a video
• Could use a thousand dollars

Then Listen up! Read more »

This summer Brittany Ederer, a student at UW-Madison, served as an intern in the Care of Creation office in Madison.  Based on her interest in camping, education nature and environment, we assigned her to start a survey project of Christian camps in Wisconsin, the upper Midwest and then throughout the country.  Are there Christian camps who are actively promoting creation care as part of their camp program?  Are they using creation care principles in caring for their properties?  This blog post is a preliminary report on a visit to one camp not far from Madison.  It turns out one of the best examples of creation care at camp is right in our own back yard.  We’re looking forward to a complete report from Brittany later on, but in the meantime, enjoy her thoughts on what’s going on at Timber-lee…

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Eight or nine months ago I got an email from a guy named Mark Davis.  Could I give him a call.  I was travelling – out of the country, I think – and the message got buried.  He emailed again.  Then he called.  I thought, Okay, this guy is serious – let’s find out what this is all about.

Mark is a large animal vet in Florida (think James Herriott in the Florida sunshine).  He is also, like my colleague Craig Sorley, a missionary kid who grew up in Africa.  He has a passion for Africa’s wildlife that matches Craig’s love for Africa’s birds and trees.  He is also a phenomenal photographer. Read more »

I’ve been pushing hard all summer on a major writing project with the goal of finishing the intial writing by the end of September.  This is the main reason you’ve seen less posts on Our Father’s World than usual.  Sorry about that – but hopefully the end product will be worth the wait.

In the meantime, enjoy this video clip from Chipotle.  You may know that I’m not much of a fast-food advocate – but this company does seem different.

Enjoy and pass it along!

A couple of weeks ago I attended a conference in Bozeman, Montana.  The announced topic was ‘Human and Environmental Health: Social Justice Implications: A Program for Religious Leaders and others…’  The setting was magnificent:  A century old railroad inn an hour’s drive from the western entrance to Yellowstone Park, surrounded by the mountain ranges for which Bozeman is famous.  But what made this conference unique was the oxymoronic nature of the sponsors.  FREE (The Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment) is a conservative institution dedicated to the application of what they would consider ‘sound economic principles’ to environmental problems.  I call them my ‘libertarian economist environmentalist friends’, and while I happily retain my own convictions, I found much that was profitable in this conference.

New Friends

As with any gathering of people around a common concern, the most profitable and enjoyable aspect of this conference was the people.  There were just 25 of us including presenters, and we represented a wide range of intellectual and religious  and career backgrounds.  A number of mainline protestants (Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian and so on), a couple of Catholics, one Orthodox priest, two Rabbis (including one who survived the Holocaust as a teenager), and yes, four or five evangelicals. Someone commented than an afternoon hike could have been a joke:  “A priest, a rabbi and a minister went up a mountain…” Read more »

John Stott’s going-home-to-glory was announced yesterday.  I wrote the piece below last September, but the thoughts are just as valid if not more so now.  If you haven’t read Uncle John’s farewell message to all of us, please do so.  There’s a link at the bottom of the post.

There are few leaders in the Christian world greater than John Stott.  I first heard him preach at Urbana 1970 – forty years ago, when I was a senior in high school.  [You can read the actual talks here - I don't think the recordings are available on-line.]  I’ve followed his ministry career ever since, though almost always from a distance – we shook hands perhaps twice or three times, but my memory fades a bit at this point.  John is now at the end of his life, though he has not yet ended his service to the church and her Lord.  He has written one last book that is intended to be his farewell to those of us still here – and you need to read it.  Read more »