Embracing Kingdom Hope for a Broken World
Posts tagged Failure
Green Adventures: Your Adventures
May 12th
Green Adventures: a series in which we invite you into the adventures from our journey.
Last night, Tuesday, I met with Noel and Erika, two new friends who are the co-directors of the children’s ministry at Christ Lutheran Church. Not only was it great to be able to work with a church to help implement creation care theology and practices, but I had a blast telling them about why I care for God’s creation and some ways that I have done so. There is something incredibly exciting and encouraging about sharing the ways that we work to follow God and care for His creation.
So, today’s green adventure is not about my story, but about yours. It is time for you to encourage me and each other with the details from your own journeys.
Here’s how:
- Click on the blog title (“Green Adventures: Your Adventures”) above
- Scroll down to the bottom of this article and share your stories with us.
Many of us don’t typically comment on blogs, but this is your chance. Please. By sharing your story you can encourage the rest of us and allow us to see how God is moving in your life. That is important.
If you need a framework for what to share, please tackle any or all of the questions below. Or feel free to share some other relevant story which will be beneficial to the community. If you still don’t know what to share, please contact us and we will personally help you come up with something.
- What is the biggest reason that drives you to care for God’s creation?
- What is the favorite/most exciting/most enjoyable way that you implement caring for creation into your life?
- What is the oddest/funniest thing that has happened to you while trying to care for creation?
- How has Creation Hope been a help in your journey?
Finally, if you are feeling embarrassed, just remember some of my past catastrophes like when the first time I tried to bake bread.
Thank you in advance for sharing.
Also consider:
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.
