Urbana: Christian Environmental Stewardship?

A lot of Christians are worried about the rise of Creation Care or Christian Environmental Stewardship. To them it seems that the Church is getting away from it's primary message of preaching the Gospel. And to be honest, that is something that the Church needs to guard against. However, it does not mean that the Church needs to sit on the side lines of one of the most important issue in modern times.

We, the Church, need to awake to the reality that God cares for the environmental, the animals, and all those who will be affected by climate change. Some of us may disagree with the science behind climate change – but the fact remains that we, the Bride of Christ, need to be actively engaged in helping those with no clean water to drink or food to eat; those who are destroying their landscape via deforestation because they need the wood to cook and keep warm; those in danger of those both their lives and livelihood due to raising sea levels; those too poor or broken to help themselves.

We need to be living Isaiah 61 – both locally  here in our towns as well as international.

What brought on this post? Mainly two recent articles published by Urbana.org (InterVarsity Christian Fellowship). The first article looks at how missions and environmental stewardship goes together link peanut butter and jelly.

Called to serve an organization that promotes Christian environmental stewardship, I thought – at first – that I was being asked to abandon the great call to missions that had directed my entire career to that point. But I learned, and now believe fully, that I wasn’t leaving my call to missions at all. Instead, I was adding a new and important dimension to my understanding of what missions really is. God was bringing two great themes together in my mind and in my heart. – by Ed Brown, Director of Brackenhurst Center for the Care of Creation

The second article is a response to a book written by a secular biologist to the Church entitled "The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth". It is an amazing article that promotes Christ as the solution to every crisis:

“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Christ], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:20). Christ offers a holistic solution to the physical, emotional, environmental, and spiritual needs of humanity. That Christianity doesn’t do a better job of addressing these needs is to our disgrace. The fault lies with some Christians’ woeful practice of Christ’s message, not with the message itself. Jill Feldkamp, Administrative Coordinator for InterVarsity's Global Projects

I pray that you all will enjoy these articles – and hopefully, take another look at the Churchs involvement with environmental stewardship.