Creation Care -- Pray for the Environment

Care for the environment, (and the awakening to our human capacity to damage it), is coming to the forefront of the Christian agenda. We can see a world in big trouble, creation groaning under the burden humans place on it, and we need to respond with caring acts, thinking of the futures that our children and grandchildren face. We need to care for God's creation.

Creation is God's first Scripture, declaring His greatness. Read Psalm 19:1-4: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world."

We look forward to a time when a congregation’s concern for the environment will be as natural as its care for the sick and the poor, because a sick envioronment makes people sick and poor! We look to the Churches leading public debate back to this most fundamental of all concerns -- care and stewardship of the lands and the world that God has given to us. May God raise up new seekers of justice like Amos to proclaim this truth.

Evangelical Christian leaders like author and pastor Rick Warren have called for us all to be involved in "creation care." The National Association of Evangelicals, in its Evangelical Call for Civic Responsibility, stated last October: "We affirm that God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part. Because clean air, pure water, and adequate resources are crucial to public health and civic order, government has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation."

Amen to that! It is time for us to sing a new song of caring for our environment. "Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth . . . Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy." Psalm 96:1,11-12.