Who knew? Your best way to survive this might be to go to church...

So once again cutting edge research shows that if the church will just be the church, she will be better positioned to respond to crisis than any other institution.  For the last two or three years I have been winding up my presentations with a call to the church toward Repentance (change our attitude toward God’s creation), Restoration (work to restore what has been damaged), and Preparation (be ready for more disasters to come).  A report from NPR this week reinforces the effectiveness of this kind of preparation.

You could start with a multiple choice question:  In the aftermath of the 2004 Tsunami, which Indian villagers had a great chance of survival?

a)      Those who were rich.

b)      Those who were influential.

c)       Those who attended weddings and funerals.

And the answer, surprisingly, is … Read more »

The Egyptian revolution now underway has a personal connection for me – my niece Annie is attempting to pursue graduate studies in the middle of the chaos.  I had a conversation with her mother, my sister Marilyn this morning:  “So what’s Annie doing?  Trekking to the airport every day to try to get out?”  “Not exactly – she’s trekking to demonstrations every day…” Anyone who knows Annie – heck, anyone who knows her mother – would not be at all surprised by that. Marilyn’s family lived in Egypt for a number of years, and she has been covering the crisis very competently on her blog here if you’d like a well-written day-to-day overview including occasional eye-witness reports from Annie.

There are so many dimensions to this uprising that it’s hard to know even where to start.  There are plenty of obvious dimensions of this crisis:  A hard-pressed population’s desire for freedom.  The fear many have of the possibility – maybe remote, maybe not – of an Iran-style Islamic state taking the reins after Mubarak leaves. Read more »

If you are in the Madison area, check out this upcoming conference.  I will be participating in the Saturday morning session (but attending the whole conference).  NOTE THAT there is no cost, but the folks at New College Madison would like you to preregister so they know who and how many are coming.

Register here – and see you there!

“A Conversation About Environmental, Familial and Social Sustainability: An Issue for the 21st Century”

In memory of Don Browning, 1934-2010

Friday evening and Saturday, January 21-22, 2011
Pres House, 731 State St. Mall, Madison, WI 53711

———————————————————————-

Conference schedule…

Read more »

This is my final Cape Town post for the time being.  The Cape Town Congress is over, but the work of the Lausanne Committee continues with the now-in-process writing of Part 2 of the Cape Town Commitment, a plan of action for the global evangelical church.  I am eagerly awaiting that document, and will share observations on it with you in due course.  Meanwhile, my final thoughts on the Congress itself, and the remarkable Cape Town Commitment document released at the end of that meeting:

My particular interest at Cape Town was understandably creation care.  I had come to do a presentation on the topic, and personally and professionally I was curious as to what this gathering of the global church would have to say to itself on this topic.  My observations are three: Read more »

I recently returned from a three week trip to South Africa and Kenya.  The South Africa portion of the trip was to attend and participate in Cape Town 2010 – the 3^rd Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation.  Today’s post is my first reflection on that meeting.  Note that these are general comments, not limited to the particular focus of this blog, which is creation care.  That topic did come up, and I’ll address it in a separate post in the near future.  The second half of the trip involved a visit to the Care of Creation project in Kenya, and that also will get its own post later this week. Read more »

This is the final post in a series leading up to the third Lausanne conference that begins in just a few days – on Sunday, 17 October in Cape Town.  Earlier posts in this series are here; up to now, these have been summaries and excerpts from my book, Our Father’s World.  Today’s post is different.  This is a call to action that summarizes the challenge I will be sharing with a group of delegates at Cape Town.

We have been making the following case in this series:

• the environmental crisis is a direct result of human sin;
• God’s redemptive plan in Jesus Christ includes the restoration of all of our broken relationships, including our relationship to non-human creation;
• The church – the people of God – can respond to the environmental crisis in ways that no one else can;

From this case, it is hard to escape the following conclusion: Read more »