Oil Spills are bad enough – but how do you pray about a Tsunami?

It hasn’t been a year since the Gulf oil spill, which we rightly saw as the worst environmental disaster in memory.  At that time I wrote a piece trying to come to terms with that situation: “How Do You Pray about an Oil Spill?” And now I sit pondering a disaster that could turn out to be exponentially greater than the BP/Halliburton fiasco.  I am doing so at my dining room table, in a part of the world that is seismically if not politically stable, many miles from the nearest nuclear facility.  I am looking out at a landscape where the first birds of spring have arrived and are singing up a storm: Robins, redwing blackbirds, a cedar waxwing and (I think) a pine warbler (see pic below and tell me if I’m right, birders!)  just this morning.  The contrast between my window and the stories on my computer screen could not be more different, and I am forced to ask the same question I asked last summer: How do I pray about what is now happening in Japan? Read more »

We who advocate for creation care tend to overlook some important connections between the central beliefs of the Christian faith and our obligation to care for the world God has placed in our hands.  Christmas – when we celebrate the Incarnation, literally the ‘enfleshment’ of God in human form – is one of those overlooked connections.  The following is an excerpt from my book, Our Father’s World, chapter 3:

In middle-school and early high school, one of my children went through a serious “I have a crush” phase.  Her idol was a singer with a popular contemporary Christian music group.  An enormous poster hung over her bed, and every song he released was purchased, listened to, memorized and sung – over and over and over.  One year the group was scheduled to sing in Chicago, just three or four hours from Madison.  And it happened that the concert was close enough to my daughter’s birthday that we could make her birthday party be a trip to see her idol on stage.  So we bought the tickets.  We even paid a bit extra so that she and her friends could stand in line before the concert to meet him in person.  The great day came and everything, for once, went off without a hitch.  We arrived at the concert venue in good time, stood in line, got our autographs, put in the earplugs, and enjoyed the concert.  It was a highlight of her young life.  My ears are still ringing. Read more »

This is a continuation of a series of articles leading up to the third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization that begins in Cape Town South Africa on October 15.  Today’s post is a continuation of the last as we move from the Fall to Redemption. Find the whole series to date here.

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I live in a college town in the US – Madison, WI.  Our university is known for “partying”, and one of the annual events loved by students and despised by residents is known as the Mifflin Street Block Party, with a history that goes back to the days of Viet Nam war protests.  The party is normally leaves behind an incredible mess that the city has to clean up, at considerable expense. Read more »

This is a continuation of a series of articles leading up to the third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization that begins in Cape Town South Africa on October 15.  Today’s post is a continuation of the last as we move from the Fall to Redemption. Find the whole series to date here.

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Like many kids, young and old, I used to enjoy playing with dominos.  Not playing the game, you understand, but playing with the tiles.  Setting them up in long chains, and when all was ready, carefully knocking the first one over.  If all went according to plan, each domino would knock the next one in the line, and one by one, all would fall over.  We used that image above to describe the series of relationships shattered by Adam and Eve’s disobedience.  As we think of how they are restored by redemption through Jesus, the same domino imagery is useful again.  As the domino tiles fall, each pushes on the next, and eventually all are lying flat.  But if you want to pick them up, you have to start with the first one that fell over, not with the last one. They have to be set up in the order in which they fell. The same is true as we begin to restore relationships broken by sin. Read more »

October  16 – three weeks from this weekend – 4,000 delegates will gather in Cape Town South Africa from 200 countries around the world.  They will be convening the third Lausanne Consultation on World Evangelization.  These meetings happen approximately every 15 years, with the first being called by two of the great evangelical statesmen of our time, Billy Graham and John Stott, in Lausanne Switzerland (hence the name) in 1974.  I am honored – and a bit surprised – to be attending this conference both as a delegate and as a presenter.  I’ll be doing a seminar on (naturally!), ‘Mobilizing Your Church to Care for Creation’. Read more »

The folks over at crosswalk.com have posted an unusually good summary of my book, Our Father’s World: Mobilizing the Church to Care for Creation.  Most reviews feel as if the reviewer looked at the table of contents and the blurbs on the back cover.  Not so in this case: Whitney Hopler has done such a good summary of the content that I almost wish I’d written it myself.  If you haven’t got the book yet, or have it but haven’t quite got round to reading it (! I know this true of some of my own friends, so don’t feel bad!), her review/summary is below – you could almost read the summary and fake it in a conversation – not that you would, of course.  [Here's how to order from the Care of Creation website., and keep in mind that this is also a very good summary of the kind of content you get in the Our Father's World seminar - booking information is here.]

Our environment — God’s creation — is in deep trouble. From the effects of climate change and the extinction of animal and plant species to the growing shortage of clean air and water, creation is in a crisis more serious than ever before.

But the good news is, there’s no better group of people to help solve the problem than Christians. It’s us — those who love God — whom He has called to take care of the environment He made. And if we’re faithful to that call, He’ll empower us to heal our suffering creation.

God is counting on you. Here’s how you can mobilize your church to care for creation: Read more »