After a long hiatus that has included many activities besides writing blog posts (including bringing a new book When Heaven and Nature Sing to publication), I’m back and happy to be posting again. Enjoy!
There’s an old parable I use from time to time to remind friends or colleagues (or myself) of how easy it is to try too hard or schedule too much and thereby to fall further behind. The story goes like this:
 This is a front-line report from the recent Jamaica Consultation on Creation Care and the Gospel which I was privileged to lead. I didn’t have a lot of time for reflection during the Consultation, and am still somewhat overwhelmed with detail relating to the event. However, Lowell Bliss has been reporting his experience regularly through the Eden Vigil Newsletter. [Contact Lowell if you want to subscribe.] Here is his most recent, describing the experience of coming up with a Consultation Call to Action. [The document being described is still under review, but should be released publicly on Monday, November 12. Watch for it in this space.]“Buddy, you don’t know half the story!” I didn’t say these words, but I was thinking them, as I acknowledged another consultant’s gracious encouragement that people were praying for our Statement Committee. If only he knew about the hundreds of you who were so faithfully praying, even after internet communication had been cut from my side in Jamaica. My heart is full of joy, but I’m feeling the rigor in my body even as I write these words. The picture above is taken from the communion service on the final evening. It depicts how exhausted I was by this point, but it also shows Chris (Canada) passing the wine to Cassien (Burundi).: “This is the blood of Christ shed for you.” Chris had received it from the hands of Terry (First Nations Canada) who had received it from Darceuil (Trinidad and Tobago) who had received it from me (U.S.) who had received it from Robert (U.K.) who had received from Kuki (India). . . . It was a thrilling experience of the Body of Christ. |
Tags: Cape Town, church, climate change, community, God's Creation, guest post, Jamaica Consultation, linkedin
Conferences, Our Role | Ed | 
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Yesterday was Earth Day, this week is Earth Week. Many of my creation care friends are in Washington DC right now involved in a number of large scale events that we all hope will have great impact on the environmental and creation care conversation going on in the US in general and within the evangelical community in particular. I’m not in Washington; I’ve just returned from the bustling metropolis of Arcadia, Florida – where a different kind of and altogether remarkable creation care event took place this weekend. Let me tell you about it… Read more »
Tags: agriculture, community, farming, linkedin, seminars, Wendell Berry
Conferences, God's Creation, Our Role | Ed | Comments Off
There are times when one line makes a movie.
Halfway through The Descendants with George Clooney, I wasn’t really sure where the film was going. There are a lot of plot layers in this story and it is not at all clear in the middle that the director is going to be able to pull them together: We have a comatose wife whose marital dalliances surface only after her accident; a teenage daughter with drug issues at the beginning of the film who becomes a pillar of strength for her Dad and sister; a not-very-bright boyfriend who turns out to be emotionally wise and unexpectedly smart; an extended family of ‘cousins’ descended from one of the last kings of Hawaii with fascinating, mostly unexplored relational dynamics; and a land development scheme that is about to make them all rich – but at price of losing one of the last unspoiled pieces of island land. Read more »
This year is starting off fast and exciting for Care of Creation. I am just back from a week-long trip to our project site in Kijabe, Kenya along with Lee Hardman and Nelson Hard, two of our U.S. board members, and I’m excited about what God is doing through our efforts in that part of the world. Let me share some of what we heard and saw during this visit.
Farming God’s Way
Farming God’s Way (FGW), a conservation no-till agricultural program that is presented as part of an intensive Biblical-worldview training program, continues to generate a lot of interest among farmers and with the staff of other development organizations in East Africa. The project site at Moffatt Bible College now features 8 test plots, four for FGW crops with the rest serving as controls. The week before we arrived, a large group of farmers witnessed the harvesting of beans – the FGW plot produced 3.3 times as much as the control (that’s a 330% increase in yield!). 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…
Tags: camping, community, family, guest post, linkedin, ministry, nature
God's Creation, Our Role | Ed |
