Embracing Kingdom Hope for a Broken World
Posts tagged Resources
Creation Care Resources
Apr 23rd
Resources: a series that highlights valuable resources to help you on your journey to better understand and participate in caring for God’s creation
In the wake of Earth Day and in anticipation of Creation Care Sunday, I thought I would share some resources to help you on your journey to care for God’s creation. No one post can share the breadth of resources that are out there. Instead of making an exhaustive list (in this forum), I would like to highlight a few important resources.
Books:
Here are a couple of my favorite creation care books:
For the Beauty of the Earth by Steven Bouma-Prediger is an excellent book. It is incredibly comprehensive and well worth the time to work through it. I will be doing a full review of the new edition soon.
Our Father’s World by Ed Brown is another excellent resource. The first part of this book is about why Christians should care for creation and the second part is about how that is carried out in our mission. This book is clearly written and is very accessible.
Here are a few green living books that I think are great resources to help you live a life that better cares for creation:
The Complete Vegetable & Herb Gardener is an incredible resource that every gardener should have access to. This book helps you with the entire gardening process. It provides instruction for planning, composting, planting, care, harvesting, and has a large variety of plant profiles.
The Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan is one of those books that just makes me so excited. It helps you work through how to squeeze a very productive farm into a small space. It helps you with your garden (including vegetables, herbs, and grains), poultry for eggs and meat, meat and dairy, and much more (including beekeeping, beer making, and foraging in the wild).
The Better World Shopping Guide (2nd edition) by Ellis Jones comes recommended by one of our board members. It actually grades companies in the areas of human rights, the environment, animal protection, community involvement, and social justice. Want to be more thoughtful about what you buy and where you buy it? This is the book for you.
Looking for more books and other resources to help you understand and live out your care for God’s creation? Be sure to visit the Creation Hope Store. By purchasing your resources through our store you can get the items you need and help support our ministry at the same time.
Resource Sharing:
Here are a couple of websites to help you share with others the things God has blessed you with or borrow/ receive items from kind people near you. These post about reusing and sharing talk about them in more detail.
Freecycle – Freecycle is a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills.
NeighborGoods – NeighborGoods is the online community where you can save and earn money by sharing stuff with your friends. NeighborGoods members can borrow, lend, rent, sell and buy stuff from their neighbors, saving money and getting more value out of the items they already own.
I hope these resources help you continue moving forward on your journey. This will be a regular post which will highlight valuable resources for you on your journey. If there is anything in particular you are looking for, let us know and we will include available resources for you in upcoming posts.
Note: we will also be putting an extensive list of recommended resources up on website soon. Stay tuned.
Also consider:
Announcing the Creation Hope Store
Mar 10th
We wanted to let you know that we have officially opened our Creation Hope store to the public!
Our online store currently offers the following items to help you care for God’s creation:
- Creation Care books – these books will help you better understand what the Bible says about caring for God’s creation. They will walk you through the theology and theory of creation care.
- Green Living books – these books will help you put your beliefs into practice. These will help you care for creation at home, work, church, and even while on vacation. From gardening to beekeeping to transportation to building to entertainment, these will help you find the resources to fulfill your call to care for God’s creation in your entire life.
- Green Products – these products will assist you on your journey. From composting to rain barrels to energy monitors to sourdough starter, we recommend practical products that will assist you. While we recommend you first borrow, reuse, or DIY your own products as possible, if you are unable to do so these things will help you along the way.
- Partner Music – find excellent worship music from our partner in ministry Shine Like Stars. Their music is uplifting to the soul and more importantly will help you worship our Lord and Savior.
We are very excited about the launch of our store and hope that it is an aid to you as you seek to care for God’s creation. By purchasing these items through our store you help to support our ministry. Your support is much appreciated.
To find the store simply click on the store tab above or click here.
Definitions: Carbon Footprint
Feb 12th
A series that seeks to clarify the jargon, terminology, ideas, and any other confusing whatnots that separate us and keep us from understanding important things related to creation care.
Carbon Footprint
We often hear this “carbon footprint” term thrown about as if we should all know what it means, what our footprint is, and what the footprints of our products, businesses, etc are. I feel like I hear it all the time without explanation. So, say goodbye to the jargon. Today we are going to clarify what the heck a carbon footprint is and why you should care. At least that’s my goal. (I at least get credit for trying, right?)
According to Encyclopedia of Earth, “a carbon footprint is the measure of the amount of greenhouse gases, measured in units of carbon dioxide, produced by human activities.” I’m not sure how much that helps clear up confusion. Basically, much of what we do in our lives (heat our homes, cook our food, drive to work, construct buildings, make clothes, etc) comes at a cost to the environment. This cost is often measured in terms of these greenhouse gases (or GHGs). Greenhouse gases basically wind up trapping heat within the earth’s atmosphere. Of course, if no heat were trapped, we would be quite cold to say the least. However, when these build up in excess, the earth heats up too much causing problems. Now, carbon footprint measures how much of these gases are emitted for different things. So a car can have a carbon footprint as can a banana that has traveled from Ecuador or clothes from China or your computer. Also, you can have a carbon footprint. This is the measure of your impact on the environment. Of course, it gets much more complex than this with primary and secondary footprints and more.
One of the confusing things about all this is that although carbon footprint measures greenhouse gases (GHGs) produced, it is most often measured in terms of carbon dioxide. But for starters, simply consider the footprint of an item it’s score. The lower the score, the less of an impact you are making on the environment. So fewer emissions are the better option. Ultimately, the value of knowing your carbon footprint is in being able to benchmark where you are and seek to reduce that number. In the same way you can compare the footprint or emissions of various products (i.e. cars) to determine which will have the lesser impact.
If you would like to determine what you carbon footprint is, there are plenty of calculators online which can help you with this. Here is one that I like to help you get started (carbon footprint calculator).
Did this help clear things up for you? Do you still have questions? Comment and we will do our best to help clear the air.
Are there other terms you need defined? Let us know and we will obliterate the confusion in an upcoming post.
Also consider:
