Tending Creation

Environmental Stewardship/Creation Care – Environmental Stewardship reflects the responsibilities given to our ancestors by our Creator to be cultivators and protectors in the earth.  In this very common, human sense, we all join them in being born to be environmentalists.  Yet, as many of us know firsthand, creation is in desperate need of care.  Both land and sky, earth and ocean, are stressed by over-fishing, environmental degradation and pollution.  We seek to connect those who take up the very present challenge of Romans 8, to reveal ourselves to be the children of God in the ‘now-and-not-yet’ that creation groans for us to be.If you are a practitioner, environmentalist, conservationist, pastor, leader or just someone who cares, check out these resources and, as they say out at the Boise Vineyard: “Let’s Tend the Garden!”
Tending Creation

 

Environmental Justice Resources

General Links

  • Environmental Justice: This page from Christians for Social Action with stories of how local churches are taking action to integrate love of neighbor with tending to creation. This page also highlights many ways you can take action.
  • At Your Service: This page from A Rocha International, a global family of Christian conservation organizations, offers a wealth of resources for individuals and churches who want to explore the biblical basis of caring for God’s earth. You’ll find sermon ideas, Bible studies, prayers, songs, children’s activities, resource packs, and more.
  • Creation Justice Ministries: Creation Justice Ministries educates, equips, and mobilizes Christian individuals, congregations, denominations, and communions to protect, restore, and rightly share God’s creation. This site emphasizes theological education and policy action.
  • i61 Ministries: From the Boise Vineyard, the ministry of i-61 is a highway to do the ministry of Isaiah 61, fulfilling this commission to care for the broken, the oppressed, the captive and the extreme poor under the promised anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Articles/Handouts

Video/Podcasts

Is God Green? Video and resource page from Bill Moyers special on PBS, highlighting the ministry of the Boise Vineyard.

Caring for God’s Wounded World: A sermon on ‘Caring for God’s Wounded World’ from January 2021 given at St Paul’s Ealing, UK by Revd Dr Dave Bookless of A Rocha International. Dave looks at the context of COVID and of the upcoming COP 26 climate meeting in Glasgow, and encourages us to seize the moment as a time to see, a time to choose, and a time to act.
Cowboy and Preacher: A documentary of Tri Robinson, rancher and retired Vineyard pastor. Tri recognizes that the Bible and the environment are by no means mutually exclusive. He has worked for decades to bring round his flock. He shows how and why Christians need to face the environmental challenges around us, and how in doing so Christians can find purposeful action and be reinvigorated as an active force for good on this issue, building bridges across social divides and presenting Christianity in its best light.

Photos from VJN Members

If you would like to highlight your church’s creation care efforts in our photo gallery, please email contact@vineyardjusticenetwork.org.