Creation Care

We’ve turned into a new calendar year, with all of its cultural energy around newness. And Christians carry on into the church year begun at Advent, and the newness brought into history in the incarnation. 

So it’s a good time to see afresh the entire world, object of God’s love, theater of God’s glory, and our miraculous home. And not only ours, but of the entire community of creation—human and ‘beyond human’ creation. 

"Now, for good friends to cheer us, for seasonal weather to envelop us, for good work to engage us, we give You thanks."  - An Evening Prayer Neal Plantinga 

I, a minister in a post-Christian American city, found myself presenting on a zoom call with about a dozen community leaders. On screen with me were representatives from an agency that connects and serves local businesses, a housing developer, a woman from a company that prints materials for the Phoenix Suns basketball franchise, a leader in one of our most diverse and liberal business districts and others. Midway through my presentation, I alluded to a tune they might recognize from Ken Burns' National Parks documentary.

"God made sky and soil, sea and all the fish in it. He always does what he says— he defends the wronged, he feeds the hungry. God frees prisoners— he gives sight to the blind, he lifts up the fallen." - Psalm 146:3 MSG 

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord— and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. (Isaiah 11:1-2)

“Hope is what you get when you suddenly realize that a different worldview is possible, a worldview in which the rich, the powerful, and the unscrupulous do not after all have the last word.”
― N.T. Wright

Updates from Ukraine

A Russian fighter plane has crashed into a residential building in the southern Russian city of Yeysk, near Ukraine killing 4 civilians. Footage on social media, which has been verified by BBC News, showed a large fireball erupting from what appeared to be a multi-storey building.

This past May, Climate Witness Project hosted a Sustainable Investments webinar featuring Kurt Holzhueter, an advisor with ClearView Investments. For those who are serious about mitigating climate change, a powerful advocacy tool is financial investments. Taking money OUT of fossil fuels and instead channeling those funds to companies with a commitment to sustainability is an important step. But how to go about making that change? 

Another summer of extreme heat, wildfires, drought, and flooding events around the world may have you and your church more concerned than ever about climate change. The CRCNA’s Climate Witness Project offers resources, events, and projects to help churches explore our role as people called by God to help heal a suffering earth. If your church is ready to go deeper, you might join Christians around the world this fall in observing the Season of Creation. 

Songs about the end of the world and stuff.  [Actually] we have a great conversation about ways churches in North America can think about their relationship with creation in a new way through the music offered in the Climate Vigil Album created with The Porters Gate.  

Climate change can feel heavy and dark. The Climate Vigil is a project to bring prayer and light to the topic. Global participants met during COP21 in Glasgow to sing and pray for creation.  Isaac Wardell and Peter Fargo are guests.