Care of Creation and Eden Vigil are cohosting a Consultation on Environmental Missions in Manhattan KS July 12-16.  A small group of environmental and missions leaders will spend three days together hashing out issues that will help us to establish Environmental Missions as a new category of missions.  You can read the announcement of the event here – and you can contact Robynn Bliss, event registrar, here if you would like to join us.

Meanwhile, Lowell recently wrote the following piece for the Evangelicals for Social Action newsletter, answering the question, What do we mean by “Environmental Missionary”.  Enjoy!

What Is an Environmental Missionary?

Munnu-ji was my best Indian friend. He was my first landlord, renting me a small room off Assi Ghat before I was married. I’m not sure Munnu ever believed on Jesus. He was a man of peace, however, and assisted numerous Christian workers. He died when a mosquito, borne off the polluted waters of the Ganges River basin, bit him. Munnu-ji contracted cerebral malaria.

The basic idea was to combine the environment and missions in a way we don’t think anyone else is doing. On an organizational level, no mission organization in North America is openly both environmental and missional. It’s very similar to medical missions in its approach to the mission field. When you take out the word ‘medical’ and put in the ‘environmental,’ that’s what we are. We want to do practical things where we help people by sharing the Gospel, but we want to serve people and serve the church by helping to heal the land through various means.

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: Recognize the complexity of the problem. The environmental crisis we face is a vast and multi-dimensional issue in which every local problem is caused by or causes problems in other areas of the world. All of God’s creation is connected, and when one part suffers, all of it suffers. There are more people alive on earth now than ever before, and many are living a consumer-oriented lifestyle that’s damaging the environment for us all.

Understand the call to dominion. When God gave humans dominion — charging them with ruling over the planet — He intended that people accomplish His goals (not their own) in creation. God made creation to be one of the primary means by which people could come to know Him. It’s a temple that’s intended as a place to meet God, so it should be respected and cared for. Let your love for God motivate you to value the creation He made. Decide to take care of it as an act of worship to show your love for God.

Look at Christ’s example. Jesus Himself walked the earth and worshipped in the midst of nature. He used the fruit of creation in responsible ways, consuming its resources (like food) whenever necessary and enjoying them fully, but never diminishing or destroying creation’s ability to be fruitful.

Recognize the root of the problem. The core issue that’s caused creation to become broken is sin. But the creation that’s been damaged by our sin can be restored by our redemption. If we seek to restore our relationship to God, then to ourselves, and then to other people, our relationship with the rest of the creation can be restored. Realize that the way you treat creation has an impact on your relationships with God and others. The way you either take care of or neglect God’s creation is a measure of how well God’s redemption either is or isn’t working in your life.

Understand the church’s power to fix the problem. The church is the only organization on earth that can successfully address a crisis with as many dimensions as the environmental crisis. The church can deal with: repentance from sin, motivation for individual action, courage and influence to change corporate behavior, and the ability to recruit and mobilize millions of people to take redemptive action to solve the problem. Since the environmental crisis is an unmatched challenge that’s critically important to tackle, it should be addressed in every aspect of your church’s life.

Worship in ways that foster wonder and awe of God’s creation. Design worship that inspires people to feel passionate about creation and work to help heal it. Sing songs about creation and read Scripture passages that describe it. Make creation visible during your worship services, such as by opening window shades to bring in natural light and featuring fresh plants and flowers in the sanctuary. Schedule some worship services outdoors when possible. Pray for environmental healing, and for the people who are currently suffering because of environmental problems.

Preach and teach about creation. When preaching sermons and teaching Sunday School classes, help people see the connections between how they live and what is happening to the world God loves. Emphasize the comprehensive nature of God’s redemptive plan for the environment, and each person’s part in it.

Encourage the next generation to care for creation. Take children and youth outdoors whenever possible, and when the weather doesn’t permit going outside, bring creation indoors when you can (such as by having some unusual pets visit, setting up an ant farm or aquarium for fish, taking care of plants in the classroom, etc.). Urge your classes to conserve energy (like by turning off lights after leaving a room) and recycle materials you use in class. Use service project time for environmental projects. On missions trips, point out the damage that’s been done to the environment in each place you visit, and how that’s hurting the people you’ve come to serve. Encourage kids who are interested in science to prepare for possible careers in that field so they can help the environment even more.

Respect the environment when building or renovating. Whenever you’re building a new church building or renovating your existing one, make sure your plans are environmentally responsible. Minimize damage to your land and the creatures on it, such as by minimizing artificial landscaping (like lawns) and maximizing natural areas, saving animal habitats, planting gardens, and avoiding the use of chemicals that harm the soil.

Save energy. Conserve energy however you can, such as by updating your heating and air conditioning system to one that’s optimally efficient, using good quality insulation, switching from incandescent lighting to fluorescent lighting, turning office machines like computers off at night, using only environmentally healthy cleaning supplies, and reusing supplies like cups and dishes.

Work for a better environment in the community surrounding your church. Get together with others in your church to go out into your local community and contribute to the health of your part of creation. Do volunteer projects, like clearing and maintaining hiking trails or cleaning trash from stream beds. Collect specialized items for recycling (like cell phones and printer cartridges), use and promote public transportation and carpooling, turn over a part of your church’s property to be used for a community garden, host a farmer’s market, etc. Let non-Christians who also care about the environment see that people who love God also love His creation — that will give you a platform to share the Gospel with them at the right time.

Incorporate creation care into your church’s missions programs. Design missions programs that are theologically sound, scientifically informed, geographically comprehensive, and politically savvy. Learn about the environments in the places your church is serving through missions. Plan how to help the people there whose health is suffering because of environmental issues. Do what you can to help heal their environment as part of your overall service to them.

This is part 2 of a three part report on a major Earth Day conference held in Madison WI on April 20-21, 2010.  I am using that conference as  an eavesdropping opportunity:  What is the larger environmental movement discussing today?  Rather than go talk-by-talk, I’ve pulled out four major themes from my pages of notes.  Here are the first two:

[Bios from the speakers referred to below are available here.]

1.  Think local. Act global.

Yes, it’s the familiar bumper sticker saying turned on its head.   An estimated 10 million people celebrated the first Earth Day but this was not an organized campaign.  There was no internet to coordinate events.  There was a small office in Washington DC with a miniscule budget – but the 1500 colleges and 10,000 plus schools essentially organized themselves.

It is true that many of the important accomplishments of Earth Day in the next 10 years – legislation for clean air, clean water, protection of endangered species – came from Washington.   However, the genius of Earth Day appears to be that it tapped grass roots power to move Washington, rather than the other way around.   But the drive to pass legislation came from local people wanting to protect their own places.  Moving a legislative agenda was not the primary motive of the early Earth Day organizers, and more than one speaker reminded us that no one would have been more surprised that Earth Day was still being celebrated 40 years later than Gaylord Nelson himself.

One of the perhaps unexpected effects of this decentralized movement was what Adam Rome, environmental historian from Penn State, called “superb leadership training.”  Thousands of mostly young people had to figure out on their own what to do in their own communities – and the result was not only a tremendously successful national event but also the creation of what Rome calls ‘the first green generation.’

The lesson for the Creation Care movement?  Our success will not come from large events in Washington or even world-wide internet events.  These might be useful as occasional as markers of progress, but the gold is in a thousand congregations and ten thousand youth groups.  When these are converted, the world will follow.

2.  Place matters.

Introducing this conference report I noted that a surprising number of environmental heroes come from Wisconsin.  This is not just local propaganda:  Gaylord Nelson was standing on the shoulders of John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, and Aldo Leopold, author of Sand County Almanac and the concept of the “land ethic” which became our modern sustainability movement.  Dr. William Cronan reminded us that Nelson also followed Frederick Jackson Turner whose work helped to articulate the importance of the frontier in American history and culture.  Lesser known heroes were  Increase Lapham who warned in the 1830’s of the dangers of deforestation of the great forests of northern Wisconsin, E. A. Birge, who established the science of limnology (the study of lakes), and Frank Lloyd Wright, who was a ‘prophet of organic building and architecture.’  All of these are sons of Wisconsin.

More important than the names is a question that has challenged me since I moved to this state:  Why Wisconsin?  Is there something in the water?

We seem to have three things in Wisconsin that others don’t have:

First, in our “middling landscape” urban, suburban, rural and wilderness are not far from each other.  It is possible even in modern Wisconsin to experience all four of these in a single day.  We live with daily knowledge of the effects of the ice age – the ‘Wisconsin glaciation’ explains every bump in our landscape.   Those who live here, and especially those who grow up here, can’t help but develop a sense of the presence and importance of the countryside.

Second, we have an unusual university.  Unlike many other states where a liberal arts university sits separate from a practical Land Grant college, here the two became one.  The classic liberal arts were taught alongside the new and practical fields of agronomy, forestry and engineering.  This may seem like an obscure connection that only an academic would make – but there are practical implications:  Our resource people and our poets were working together, and that proximity tempered both groups.

And third, we have the “Wisconsin Idea” which states that the university exists to benefit every home in the state.  “The boundaries of the campus are the boundaries of the state.” This mission drove the university to seek to understand and develop  Wisconsin’s natural resources as belonging to the entire population,  and not merely to captains of industry who just happened to arrive before anyone else.

What this boils down to is what is called a strong sense of place.  People here knew and cared about the landscape where they lived.  They learned about and developed an appreciation for the natural world around them.  Environmental concerns grew naturally from that soil.

As Creation Care proponents, this principle like the last points us to the importance of the local even when we need to reach globally.  People will care for what they love, and they will love what they know.  Encouraging local church leaders to get to know their own places so they can communicate that love to their communities is the place to start.

[To be continued...]

Three months of planning, writing, praying and creativity and now, a bit of rest before we get into 2010.

The first day of the new year of 2010, was spent driving back to Madison, WI from St. Louis, MO where we had spent the previous week with about 13,000 students and 3,000 other attendees both experiencing — and in some ways helping to shape — the future of missions in the US.

Besides presenting 4 creation care seminars (to a total of about 150 people) and speaking to another 200 or so students at our booth, we hosted a breakfast for 50 leaders from various missions organizations where we presented the concept and the critical need for blending environmental missions into the “traditional” missions activities that these organizations are doing.

We also had many amazing opportunities to talk about what we are doing in Kenya and what we think needs to be done in both local and global missions, as well as being able advise many students how they can blend their love for God and His creation with their chosen profession of environmental care.

What we were able to do at Urbana 09 was all about laying a strong foundation for this “movement” called environmental missions and creation care. From here on out, our job (you and us as partners) is to continue to pray, continue to spread the word in our churches and continue to support this work.

And finally, we, at Care of Creation want to thank you for helping all of us at Care of Creation, Au Sable, Renewal and Eden Vigil reach students that are seriously thinking and praying about how they can blend their desire for caring for God’s creation with their desire to spread the gospel.

Here’s wishing you a blessed 2010.

For all of us in the Care of Creation family,

Fred Gluck

There are a couple of common threads that we have heard from each of the over 100 students we have talked to at our Urbana09 booth and the countless others that we have sat next to in the morning worship service, met in the lunch line or ridden with in the hotel elevator.

The common thread that these students have is that they are seeking how they can serve God with the resources (their lives, their money and their talent) that God has given them. They see injustice, human slavery, poverty and suffering caused by environmental issues, greed and other sins and, deep in their hearts, they want to do something about it.

For some of us, especially those of us who are approaching the later parts of our lives, we may see this kind of thinking as idealistic. We might remember when we were “that age” and thought, as these students do, that we could change the world.

The real truth is, that some of us did change the world because we chose to follow God’s leading in our lives. Just like these students, we asked ourselves the same question that they are asking. “What is God calling me to do?”

Urbana challenges the students who are here in a few important areas of their lives. First, there is the challenge of resources. They are challenged to use what they have to further the purposes of the kingdom. Second, they are challenged to use their gifts and talents. And finally, they are challenged to commit to take action.

For some of the students that accept these challenges, it means changing their plans. For some, it means the comfort of knowing that they are doing what God intends them to do. For some, Urbana is a wakeup call when they realize that following God’s will is a lot better than trying to follow their own imperfect wills.

Last night, I sat next to a couple in their late 20s who were both seniors in college (she was a music major with a concentration in piano performance and he was majoring in economics). As I do with just about everyone who I have run into here, I enjoy finding out why they took their time and money to come to St. Louis for a week.

As we were talking, they told me that they had met in high school, had gone to different colleges and were engaged to be married in June. Their wedding was all planned.

They decided to come to Urbana so that together, before they got married, could try and discern what God wanted them to do with their lives as a couple. We chatted about their decision, the heart changes that they had gone through in the past 4 years (“I used to be concerned about making a lot of money but now, I don’t think that that’s really important in God’s eyes. There are more important things than accumulating wealth”) and what their future plans were.

As I was walking back to my hotel after that conversation, I couldn’t help thinking about the wisdom of what this couple was doing and the small part that Care of Creation and you, who help us do what we do, are playing in helping them and others make decisions like the ones they are contemplating.

I’m going to go a bit further here and ask for your help. I realize that you have not met this couple (maybe you know someone who is at Urbana) but I am going to ask you to pray for them and the others who are, maybe, making the same kinds of decisions about their lives. When we do this, we are helping in a small way, to further God’s purpose in this world – the spread of the gospel and reconciliation of His people back to him. We are working to build shalom and put things back to the way that God intended them to be.

Maybe it’s not the “winter break” that you had planned but, hey, when did God stop acting in ways that we expect?

For the entire Care of Creation Family (some of us who are here at Urbana09 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA), thanks for joining together in this prayer.

God Bless!

Fred Gluck

We had the first of the “Environmental Track” seminars today and the students, through their questions and extremely outgoing personalities told us a lot about what they think, what they fear and what they expect.

Here’s the story in a nutshell.

This week, we are running into students who are passionate about what they do — passionate about the environment and passionate about God. They will tell you that the biggest challenge they face is how to “mash” these two together.

Interestingly enough, many of these students have the expectation that missionary agencies will know what to do with this passion.

In reality, we told them, it is very different. We told the seminar attendees today that they are, truly, pioneers in this field. Very similar to the early church, as pioneers, they are concerned about things that a lot of people have no knowledge about and don’t think about every day. In other words, much of the traditional missions infrastructure doesn’t have a “mental folder” labeled “environmental missions” in which to put them.

With that in mind, our challenge as the “teaching” generation is to disciple these students — lead them and prepare them for a time where they will be leading our congregations and working in industry and working in missions both here in the USA and around the world.

They have the knowledge, we who have been at this “mission thing” for awhile, have the experience and resources and together with God’s plan for salvation, we can make a huge difference in the condition of His creation. The result will be people who hear the gospel and who look at God’s creation through changed hearts.

But, here is an important point. We are at the very early stages in our effort. Our message is solid, the theology is sound and we have the passion about working to restore all four of the relationships that were broken in Genesis 3 (us to God, us to ourselves, us to others and us to God’s creation). As the early church did, we need to persevere and understand that God’s timing in getting this work done is perfect.

Urbana, alas, will be history in three or four days. You may not be here in St. Louis but you can participate in the aftermath of this important experience. We (you and I, Care of Creation and other organizations, those in Kenya, those in the Philippines, those in Tokyo, those in the USA and those everywhere else) need to take what we learn from the attendees and others and translate it to our church youth groups, our short term missionaries, our pulpits, and our long term missions work all over the world. Some of us will expect that this happens quickly (and become discouraged when it doesn’t) but in reality, teaching others about caring for creation is going to require patience, resources and God’s love.

There are amazing things that happen when 13,000 people from all over the world raise their voices in praise and prayer as is happening here. It’s God’s people doing God’s work.

Be part of this. It’s is truly awesome. Bigger than you or I.

Let us know what you think. Drop us a note at:  info@careofcreation.org.

God Bless!

For the Care of Creation family,

Fred Gluck

There is a story – a parable, really – that I use at the end of my Our Father’s World seminar presentations.  It goes something like this:

Let’s pretend that we’re on a refugee ship of some kind.  We’re part of a Christian ministry, and we’re taking a ship load of refugees to a new land, where they can start their lives over again.  The ship is crowded, and we have a lot of work to do to care for the passengers and to keep things running smoothly during the three week voyage.

We have organized ourselves in to work-teams:  Food service, sanitation, medical, children, and so on.  And to we are in the habit of holding a meeting every morning in the Captain’s conference room to coordinate activities and to minimize confusion.  These meetings are usually pretty routine (Sanitation: “We have two bathrooms out of order today, so please let people know…”; Medical: “Vaccination of under-5’s this afternoon on Deck B…”) but one day we have a new person in the circle.

The Captain introduces him:  “This is Mr. Smith, our ship’s engineer.  He has something that you will all need to listen to.”  And Mr. Smith makes his announcement: “We started to take on water during the night.  As of now, we do not know what is causing the leak, but we do know that it is bad enough that if we can’t get it fixed, we will not make it to port.”

Remember – I’m telling this story to a live seminar audience.  I usually stop at this point and say something like this:  “Okay, let’s hit the pause button.  How does Mr. Smith’s announcement change the conversation around the table?”

The answer that is expected is this:  It changes nothing, but it changes everything.  All of the normal activities of the work-teams have to go on.  People still need to eat.  Bathrooms still need to be cleaned and repaired.  Sick people need to be cared for.  But there is now a bigger, overriding concern – the ship is in danger of sinking.  If the leak isn’t found and fixed, nothing else will matter.

This is obviously a parable:  The ship represents the church, or a church.  The work teams represent all of the many different kinds of ministries that churches participate in, from soup kitchens to prison ministry to youth programming.  And the leak in the ship represents the environmental crisis.

The point of the parable (in case you haven’t got it yet) is really quite simple:  Creation care is different from every other ministry a church (your church) might be involved in, because when the environment is destroyed, other ministries cease.  If we lose the ship, nothing else will matter.

Hurricane damage in Haiti

Case in point:  Haiti.  Most of Haiti’s problems, and they are many, arise from an environment that has been damaged beyond the point of recovery.  Population growth has led to massive deforestation, agricultural decline, incredible poverty, relocation from rural areas to the city, and political unrest and general violence.  Haiti used to be a common destination for summer ministry teams from the US.  Not so much anymore – it’s too dangerous.  ‘Normal ministry’ has had to be suspended because the environment has been destroyed.  If we lose the ship, nothing else matters.

That is how I usually tell this story, and how the talk usually ends.  However, it occurred to me recently that it is possible to imagine another response to Mr. Smith’s report of a leak in the ship.  And that is the subject of our next post.  Stay tuned.

A couple of the things our inquirer said:

I have to ask just what is “environmental sin”? If Jesus had wanted this to be our “ministry” wouldn’t He have stated it?  …Do you believe that we can do nothing to stop the “groaning” of creation which is under the curse of sin? …I can definitely see the need to couple the gospel with compassion but to couple it with saving a planet that God says will eventually be destroyed by Him seems…er impractical at best.

I responded as below.  Those of you who have read my book or heard me speak will recognize that this is essentially what I’ve been writing and preaching for at least the last 10 years or so…

Thank you for your interesting and thoughtful comments in response to our web material. It is clear that you spent some time on our website, and while I don’t have time for a lengthy reply, I do think you deserve the courtesy of at least a brief response…

It is true that Jesus did not himself address the issue of the ‘groaning creation’, certainly not as directly as Paul did in Romans 8. However, Christians in general take the entire Bible to be inspired and authoritative – certainly we do at Care of Creation – and a command from God is just that, whether from the words of Jesus, Paul or Jeremiah.

We base our case on a couple of easily understood points:

1)God clearly cares about his creation, and expects us to care for it. (This is what the “dominion passage” is Genesis 1 means)

2)God tends to get upset – very upset – when human beings abuse his creation.

Along these lines, a couple of Old Testament passages leap out:

Woe to those who join house to house,who add field to field,until there is no more room,and you are made to dwell alonein the midst of the land. (Isaiah 5:8)

I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas. 32And I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it. 33And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. 34 “Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. (Leviticus 26:31-34)

And a positively frightening New Testament one:
“We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty,
who is and who was,
for you have taken your great power
and begun to reign.
18The nations raged,
but your wrath came,
and the time for the dead to be judged,
and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints,
and those who fear your name,
both small and great,
and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.” (Rev 11:18)

It is clear from these, as well as Romans 8, that God cares about what happens to his creation – even to the point of driving out his own people because they had refused to give the land the Sabbaths (rest) that God had commanded them. One hesitates to think what God might have in store for our generation whose wholesale destruction of creation is unparalleled in history.

3)It is also quite clear in Colossians 1 that God’s redemptive plan includes all of creation:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through him and for him. 17And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Col 1:15-20)

Simple principle of Biblical interpretation here: The ‘all things’ that Christ created in v. 16 has to be the same as the ‘all things’ that are reconciled in v. 20. Conclusion: Biblical redemption is more than human salvation – it extends to all of creation.

The conclusion is inescapable: If Jesus died to reconcile all of his creation to himself by his own blood, how dare we do less than our best to protect it, to care for it on his behalf?

There was more discussion on climate change but that need not detain us here…

Any additional thoughts?

Um, maybe.  A late spring snow storm has blizzard (that’s right, BLIZZARD) warnings being posted throughout the central plains, apparently including Manhattan.  So what’s a poor seminar speaker to do?

Relax.  People will come – or they won’t.  The world will go on regardless.

Enjoy the unusual feeling that comes from watching our civilisation’s machinery grind to a halt.  If we stopped ourselves a bit more often, maybe God wouldn’t have to take these steps to remind us of what is really important in life…

Be thankful you threw in your winter coat.  [...even though you forgot the boots & gloves.]

And remember – no, not strong enough: REJOICE in the confidence that God is in control and he knows what he’s doing.

The doctrine of God’s sovereignty is a wonderful thing!

Cheers!

[March 27, 4 am, Bethany, Missouri]

The time I’ve spent living in Tanzania has helped me to appreciate many things that I used to take for granted.  58% of the population of Tanzania lives on less than $1 per day. Although I often don’t feel rich, I am very rich by comparison. Many things (running water, washing machines and dryers, cars, electricity, refrigerators, ovens, microwaves and computers for example) that Americans expect and accept as the norm simply aren’t an option for the majority of Tanzanians, or the rest of the world. Most Americans have been born into a situation where our daily needs are met and greatly exceeded.  The things we have been given are not rights, but privileges.  Now, I am not suggesting that we need to feel guilty for being born in the United States or for having our daily needs met. Instead I am suggesting that we should be thankful to God for everything he has given us, and that we should live out that thanks by being good stewards of what we have been given.

God has provided us with a beautiful world to live in.  He has carefully crafted every detail so that His creation can live in harmony.  He reveals Himself to us through the Bible and through the Holy Spirit, but also through the beauty of creation.  Many things that we do as humans can destroy that creation.  It is easy to see this destruction in countries like Tanzania where trash is thrown into the streets and plastic bags clog streams making the sanitation problems even worse.  However, problems also exist in the United States, they are just not as visible in our daily lives because we tuck them away in landfills and the like. This destruction is because of broken relationships with God, with others and with the world we live in and is a result of sin.  Our job as Christians is to work to restore those broken relationships.  God has entrusted us to care for His creation.  He has given us the privilege of ruling over it, not as self-seeking and corrupt dictators, but as stewards who want to do the best we can for the glory of the creator.  My question is this:  Are we doing all that we can do to appreciate and take care of this gift that God has given us?

Many Christians don’t have a positive view of environmentalists, thinking of them as “tree huggers” and “fanatics” and assuming that they would rather save the spotted owl than help their neighbor. Extreme environmentalism that ignores the needs of humans and the presence of a creator is not what I am advocating. In fact, it is quite the opposite of what I am suggesting.  I believe that because we are Christians who know that God created the heavens and the earth, we should be more excited about and willing to care for that gift than people who are not believers. Christians should be leading the pack in trying to take care of what God has given us rather than sitting on the sidelines.

In the last few years the environmental movement has taken off.  Nearly everyone is going green, or at least talking about it.  Shouldn’t the church be at the front of the pack, leading the charge?  Those in our community see how we act and observe whether or not we practice what we preach.  If we say that God created the world and we are the caretakers, is that evident in the way we live our lives as Christians?  Is that evident in the way we conduct our worship and church activities?  Are people in the community saying, “Now that church is a great example of what caring for God’s creation is all about!”?

Unfortunately, I don’t think that is what is happening.  In fact, I think many of us (myself very much included) have been part of the problem rather than part of the solution.  You can think what you want about global warming and climate change.  It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with what Al Gore thinks.  God is calling us to appreciate the gift He has given us and to care for it.  Picture this scenario: What if our church did what we could to cut our waste?  What if instead of using plastic and Styrofoam cups, people brought their own mug for coffee on Sunday and drinks on Wednesday nights?  What if we just served water out of pitchers rather than using all those plastic water bottles? What if we used only recycled paper to print church materials and recycled it again when we were done with it, or maybe didn’t print as much in the first place? What if every person from our church decided to use reusable shopping bags for their groceries and said “no” to both paper and plastic?  What if we composted our biodegradable waste (like fruit scraps, coffee grounds, grass clippings and leaves) rather than burning it or sending it to the landfill?  What if we made as much use as possible of the wonderful recycling facilities that our nation has (and other nations don’t have), or even made recycling facilities available at church?  Think about all the waste we could cut down on!  The United States produces the most waste per person of any country in the world².  What if our church decided we were going to do what we can to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem?

Let’s take it a step further and think about the energy and fuel we use. What if we carpooled to church and even to work?  What if we bought local produce as much as possible so stuff wouldn’t need to be shipped from California or Central America?  What if we used long life, efficient light bulbs in our homes and at church?  What if we turned off our computers and lights and unplugged things when we weren’t using them?  What if we turned the temperature down (or up in the summer) a few degrees when we left the house or just in general?  What if we even went so far as to purchase green energy for our church and our homes or investigated if solar panels or wind energy might be a viable option for us?  What if we drove hybrid cars, or just smaller more fuel efficient cars or even rode our bikes a little more in the summer? What if we all made an effort to make our work places and businesses a little more environmentally friendly?

What if we made caring for creation not a one time event, but a regular activity for our small groups, Sunday school classes, and youth groups?  What if we taught children from a young age about the amazing creation God has provided us with and encouraged them to do a better job than we have to take care of it?  What if this became not a new and separate ministry of our church, but just a part of everything we do?

I’m sure that some of us are already doing some or maybe even most of these things.  I’m sure that there are also many of them that we are not doing simply because it is not convenient.  Luke 12:48b says “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”  God has given us so much, but he has also given us responsibility.  Many people in the world face the inconvenience of walking a long way to get water every day or hand washing their clothes, or walking or biking to the nearest town to get supplies.  Just because we have the option of convenience, it doesn’t mean that the convenient way is always the right way.  I challenge you to think about what you can do individually and what we as a church can do together to be better stewards of God’s creation.  In doing so, we may be pleasantly surprised at the positive effect it will have on the community looks at us, and maybe even on our bank accounts.  If nothing else, we will be doing what God requires of us.

If you are interested in reading more on this topic, check out a good book called “Our Father’s World” by Edward Brown.  Many of the ideas I am suggesting here are inspired by this book.

Thank you, Rachel!

[If you'd like to encourage her, send a note via the comments.  I suspect she'll find them.]