Here’s the Christmas letter we sent from Care of Creation to our mailing list recently. If you would like to be on this list, click here to sign up, and check off any of the different newsletter’s you’d like to receive (we mail about every six weeks or so).
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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On this week of Christmas, I am very pleased to bring you greetings from all of us here at Care of Creation – from me and Susanna, from our staff and volunteers in Madison, from the Sorley family and our project staff in Kenya, and from the Ness family, preparing to launch our Tanzania project early in the new year.
Often at this time of year people ask me if I will be doing any traveling or speaking in December. Invariably my answer is, “No – people don’t want environmental talks during Christmas.” Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining! It’s nice to spend time closer to home.
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…
As part of our summer vacation this year, we found ourselves at Canada’s Wonderland, a colossal amusement park near Toronto. My teenage son has discovered roller coasters as a passion, and so we strapped ourselves into the Behemoth, riding up to a height of 230 feet and then plunging down at 77 mph. The Behemoth cost $26 million to build. But all day it was like that: we were surrounded by acres of ingenious and costly technologies engineered with the sole purpose to amuse and thrill.
As my old body began to wane in the late afternoon, I plopped down on a park bench and waited out my kids who were on another ride. A young teenage girl was standing nearby. Suddenly, I heard her utter a short squeak and I felt something rustling on the ground between my ankles. I looked down. A chubby woodchuck wandered out from under my bench. Behind us was a small wooded lot between paths in the amusement park. A little stream flowed into a pool there and it was hard to tell whether this patch of nature among the tarmac was original or manufactured. Nonetheless, it was apparently where the woodchuck lived. I suspect it was “suppertime,” if that’s what you can call his daily allotment of popcorn and funnel cake. 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.
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 »
While it is hard to find a mainstream newspaper or magazine that does not have one, two or more stories on environmental topics these days. Out “in the world” the crisis enveloping God’s creation is apparent and people are concerned. Scanning the pages of Christian periodicals and journals yields the opposite result: Little or no coverage of anything remotely environmental. Which is why it is encouraging to find creation care appearing in two important magazines and journals in the last couple of weeks. Read on and click through – they are both worth your time.
My colleague in Kenya, Craig Sorley, has an important paper in the latest issue of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research. The entire issue is devoted to the topic of Creation Care, including topics like Mission and the Care of Creation by Jonathan J. Bonk [HTML or PDF] and Historical Trends in Missions and Earth Care by Dana L. Robert [HTML or PDF]. [All these papers require free registration to read.] Read more »
God, God's Creation | Ed | 
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