From celebrating World Wetlands Day and engaging in community advocacy to raising butterflies and growing herbs and spices, Dorchester Presbyterian Church in Summerville, South Carolina, shows love for God’s Creation.
The pain from hurtful words can result in issues of self-esteem, or it may cause one to make wrong life choices. Words spoken to intentionally cause pain to another — or unintentionally — can chip away at the life God envisions for all.
One of the evening psalms among today’s lectionary readings is Psalm 8, which includes some of the most wondrous words in the Bible:
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
On a cool Arizona Sunday evening, mission co-workers Miriam Maldonado Escobar and the Rev. Mark Adams gathered with group of Christians on the border between Agua Prieta, Mexico, and Douglas, Arizona, for a prayer pilgrimage in solidarity with the “Not Another Foot” movement to call for an end of the massive border wall spanning the entire Southern border of the United States.
Presbyterians for Earth Care has a new program and toolkit to promote the creation of Earth-care teams at the presbytery level to address issues such as climate change.
Count the stars. Open your eyes and see the well of water. Take a stone and use it as a pillow.
During my first year as a new pastor, I decided I would write a curriculum for our children that would focus on common outdoor experiences that they and the main characters in the book of Genesis had. The first lesson focused on God’s covenant with Abraham in which he was told to look at the sky and count the stars to get an idea of the number of his descendants. The next centered on Hagar and what it was like to be hot and thirsty and to discover a water source to quench your longing. The third week focused on Jacob’s falling asleep outdoors with a stone as a pillow. Week four’s curriculum was never written because by then I had discovered that the children in my suburban congregation had never counted stars on a dark night, quenched their thirst in a cool stream or slept out under the sky.
From the Pope to the Southern Baptist Convention, faith leaders across the globe have issued urgent calls to care for God’s creation, our global neighbors and future generations by conserving energy. Hoosier congregations are answering these calls. Last year First Presbyterian Church joined five other faith communities from Gary to Jeffersonville in applying for state grant funds to install solar panels on their church roofs. These five congregations—a community church, a Baptist church, a Friends Community, a Disciples of Christ church and First Presbyterian—installed more than 58 kW of solar panels, enough to supply one-third to one-half of each church’s electrical power.
