Let's Tend the Garden 2006, Vineyard Church, Boise ID
Let me lead in here by saying I’m not by nature an overly emotional or “pentecostal” guy (lowercase ‘p’), though I have known personally the transforming movement of God’s Holy Spirit in my life and the lives of others at particular times.
Let me also say that I’ve been to dozens of environmental conferences over the past 15 years or so, and while I have usually learned a lot and developed some great relationships with others in this business, I almost always leave with not much more than a couple of logo’d pencils, a pocket full of business cards from people I don’t know, some hazmat tracking software demos on CD-ROM, and if I’m lucky, a shiny golf ball or yo-yo or something entertaining.
I flew out for two days (1-2 August) to take part in Let’s Tend the Garden, an environmental conference hosted by Vineyard Church in Boise, not knowing what to expect; l left there 12 hours ago with a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit, and a realization that God’s doing something very big here.
Very. Big.
I know you all hail from many different denominations and various places in your faith and perspectives on ecology. But please take about 10 minutes to scan through my blog post of the conference. You may get a sense why it is clear that God is calling Christians to restore the ethic of environmental stewardship within the local church, something many have longed for in our generation, but have never really seen.
This is not a new thing - clearly there is scripture from the beginning of time that demonstrates God’s interest in our stewardship of Creation. Perhaps this is something like the way Dobson and Swindoll and Smalley brough the ethic of family values back to the Church over the past decade or so. Each generation needs to be revitalized in particular areas.
Take it from Tri Robinson, the senior pastor at Vineyard Boise:
All great movements of God begin with brokeness and conviction over the failure to follow Christ. We are in a repentance process still, that we’ve bought into politics and fear and set aside something that we have passion about. The significant thing about Boise is that we did it and survived it. The evangelical church wants to see authentic discipleship, biblical teaching, and yet want to watch environmental ministry thriving in action first.
When’s the last time you heard talk of discipleship, missions, repentence and biblical teaching in the context of ecology?
And this, in a response he had to a lambasting he was getting in an interview by a conservative radio talk show host:
I know what you’re saying, but I also know that guys like you and conservatives like you are the very reason that bible-believing pastors are afraid to do what is biblical and right. You’re making us afraid to do the right thing, and so we have given the liberals the program to do, and they have blown it. So if you like that, and you think that’s ok, then keep it up.
The Godless, liberal environmental agenda has given the world nothing but angst and anger and hopelessness and fear and false worship and man-centeredness (or misanthropy). The instrument Christ uses to effect change in the world is through the Church, the Body of Christ, in a spirit of love, joy, peace, compassion, and action. Not just caring, but thoughtful and wise doing. God is clearly now linking the efforts of Christian ecology organizations with pastors and lay ministry to give the Church back her permission to love all that God loves, people and all that He has made and called very good.
We need larger hands, and smaller feet.
Please, go read the post. Send it to your friends. When I get the audio links up, listen to the lectures. Dig out your Bibles and look up the scriptures and see for yourself. Drop me a line or a comment on this post if you want to engage on a particular aspect of this. Buy a copy of Saving God’s Green Earth.
All I can say is that from God’s perspective on creation care, it was very apparent this week that that ship has left the pier. Like Noah, we all had best be on it.
Comments
#1 2006-08-05 04:54 (Reply)
Civic courage should indeed embrace stewardship of natural riches AND historic cultural treasures - consider Turkey’s plans to dam the Tigris. A Swiss bank and a British conglomerate pulled out of the project some years ago disquieted by ramifications of the project for residents, environment and posterity, see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5243588.stm
An Austrian-led Consortium now wants to step into the breach and collaborate with Ankara against the wishes of the local Kurds. How sad that the people in the lands of St Paul’s evangelism are so far from being free for us to befriend and explore?
I applaud environmentalists in the US who value the wealth of your undeveloped wilderness, how much more must we plead the cause for preservation amongst the remnants of those ancient civilizations that gave rise to the freedoms we enjoy.
Faith and reason demands no less!