Embracing Kingdom Hope for a Broken World
Jon
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Homepage: http://creationhope.com
Posts by Jon
LA Bike Week!
May 17th
This week is Bike Week LA! It is being hosted by Metro (http://www.metro.net/), the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Anyone who lives anywhere near Los Angeles knows that traffic is crazy and very, very slow. This is an effort to get people to use alternate transportation, their bikes.
I love bikes and I’m on one almost everyday. For exercise, transportation, or just fun, bikes are a great way to get around and steward transportation resources. Win/Win! My wife and I intentionally live, shop, and work within a 15 minute bike ride from our home. Do we still drive, yes, but having a biking option was our guiding criteria when we choose our home and our jobs. Inadvertently, we discovered having a biking option cut down on our gas usage (I typically fill my tank once a month) and our sanity (our commutes are very short) which means must less wear and tear on us and God’s creation.
I know not everyone has the opportunity at this moment to be as intentional as we were, but until then, participate in riding your bike as much as possible. Ride your bike this week and fall back in love with the best form of transportation.
Creation Care= Sabbath
Mar 15th
I came across this great quote by Barbara Taylor-
This land that gives us our food, our water, these trees that clean the air for us to breath; all these green and growing things that bless our bodies with their beauty- these are not resources. They are fellow creatures, with their won rights and responsibilities before God. They have their own sacred duties to perform, if only we will let them.
How do you let our fellow creatures perform their duties? You learn a new rhythm of life, one that includes regular rest or a Sabbath.
We reveal a great misunderstanding of our bodies, our mind and our spirit when we don’t fully participate in a weekly Sabbath. In our western culture we value business, motion, and countless appointments. We don’t realize that this kind of life is not just unsustainable for ourselves but is taking a massive toll on creation. The Bible also calls us to let the land and animals Sabbath or rest. God asks us to respect the created order and to steward it well.
In order to do that we need to simply obey the Sabbath commands. Do you regularly Sabbath? Do you allow others around you to Sabbath? Do you let the people, animals, and land that you are in stewardship of Sabbath?
I believe that if you were to do that every week, you would see astonishing results. A re-ordering of your life will actually result in caring for creation.
Meatless Monday
Mar 3rd
Watch this video. Its starts off with some Obamatics, so don’t let your political leanings influence the overall message it’s communicating. From meatlessmonday.com
As a regular meat eater (I’m not supposed to admit that but I am) the thought of going “full veggie” seems like too big a change to my normal diet and would be a massive disruption to my taste preferences. That being said, this movement has inspired me to take Mondays off of meat.
Meatless Mondays is an organization that is trying to inspire people to take one day a week and take meat out of our diets. As individuals, as a society and as stewards of God’s creation, cutting down our meat intake would have massive benefits.
What I like about Meatless Mondays is that the change is significant but doable. Often when it comes to changing the world, the change required is overwhelming. So much so that it gives us change-paralysis. We don’t do anything at all because what is required is so great.
To care for God’s creation, to live with hope, to live healthier lives, all require many small steps and numerous individual commitments. Think about what is doable for you and start doing it today.
The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time (except on Mondays). The only way to change our would and our lives is one choice at a time.
The Culture of Innovation
Feb 22nd
When I was a kid I saw a future filled with flying cars, fantastic medical devices and endless energy. I saw no reason why these things wouldn’t become a reality. Today, like most other days (sometimes I walk or ride a bike) I drove to work, in my truck, a truck with tires, gas engine, and brakes. Although my truck is a 2000 Nissan, the tires, gas engine and the breaks are not radically different than they were when I was born, or for that matter when my parents were born. Sure tires have progressed… a little, the gas engine is… more efficient, and breaks are made of a more exotic compound, but essentially there has been little change in our basic American transpiration, the car.
What happened to the Ferdinand Porsches, the Henry Fords, and the Sōichirō Hondas? During their careers they sought to solve significant engineering opportunities with innovative answers. They weren’t satisfied with incremental change, they pushed for significant differences. What they did was risk. Now their patronage is more concerned with protecting their brand than taking the necessary risks to truly move forward.
In order for us to embrace the changes necessary to curb the destruction and misuse of God’s creation we must bless and encourage others to risk, and to fail. We should encourage them in their failures, ask what they learned and support them as they try new things.
More impotently we should re-address what questions we are asking. The issues facing us are far different than they were 10 years ago. That means we shouldn’t be asking the same questions we were 10 years ago. Our questions shape our answers. Are the only questions we ask profit related?
As forward thinking as businesses appear to be, they are guided by the question “what will people buy?” If you haven’t noticed people are slow to change and slow to adapt. My hope and prayer is that innovation will no longer be bound by current business models, models that are focused on protecting the status quo by marketing slight modifications to last year’s model. Let’s let innovation blossom out of our imaginations, our creativity and the best our current technology has to offer.
Perspectives: HOPEnhagen?
Jan 26th
A series which considers the latest news, statistics, and happenings from our unique perspectives.
HOPEnhagen?
Did you really think the 2009 summit on climate change would turn the tide of excessive consumerism and pollution?
The green, ecological, creation-care, environmentalism movement has always been (pardon the pun) and always should be a grassroots crusade. Did we seriously think top down legislation on earth stewardship would work?
We all know, our governments are looking more and more like a divisions of multinational corporations.
I for one believe that creation-care will look a lot like the early church. A kingdom movement of everyday people who are committed to making their faith in Jesus and align with every aspect of their lives.
“We the people” have the freedom and the will to make massive, earth changing shifts within our own homes that can and will impact the land, the seas and the skies.
Ask yourself what changes need to be made. Don’t wait for Washington or Copenhagen mandate changes you already know you should be making.
Hope lies in our Father and in you and I.
Also consider:
Avatar and Nature Worship
Jan 21st
Avatar has now made over a billion dollars at the box office and everyone seems to have an opinion. Even the Vatican! I came across some of their comments (in the article linked to below) the other day and thought I would respond. I saw Avatar, more out of intrigue then actual interest. I was intrigued to see what cost 400 million, what took James Cameron 10 years to make, and why so many people were waiting hours and hours in line for a ticket. I agree with the Vatican, in that it did have “extraordinary visual impact.” As for the story, it was typical Cameron, formulaic and cliché. The movie will make a ton of money but it won’t win best original screenplay.
The Vatican also made a statement about Avatar’s theological perspective. L’Osservatore wrote that the film “gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature.” I’m sure the Vatican using this as an opportunity to remind the church that God isn’t a tree, or a bush, or a sunset. True. In a world where Christianity is being mixed with a variety of other “spiritualities,” I for one am glad they are using pop-culture opportunities to confess the Christian message.
However, Vatican Radio also said the movie “cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium.” This is where I take some issue. Ecology is the issue of the new millennium and Christians are re-awakening to the Genesis call to engage in the tending of the earth. To obey God’s first call on humanity is for everyone to be an ecologist.
Genesis clearly reveals that God is the creator and sustainer, and we were called to be in partnership with God in caring for His creation. Moreover, we need to see nature as an avenue of Yahweh worship. If I look at a tree, bush or sunset and reflect on the beauty, complexity and awesomeness of it, it reminds me of both how big, powerful and loving God is. The tree becomes a catalyst/reminder to worship God.
We do need to keep the Christian message straight in the era of buffet spirituality. We are not to worship nature. However, we can no longer pit Christianity and Ecology against each other. The very good news of God contains a great hope for all of God’s creation. We see brokenness all around us and in us, but the Good News is that God has already set in motion the reconciliation of all things, in heaven and on earth (this includes nature). It is our great call and honor to participate in realizing as much of that redemption today and hope for tomorrow.
If you want to interact more on this, read C.S. Lewis ,Perelandra.
