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Monday-moring quarterbacking Sunday’s morning church
It isn't my purpose to have a "religious" or "devotional" blog here, but I've mentioned before that I'm a Christian and that my faith is important to me. There's a whole story that I won't get into about exactly what that means and why it's important to me. Suffice it to say I've grown, I think, throughout the years, from a somewhat "narrow minded" fundamentalism to a more "mainline" Christian faith.
In light of that, I was extremely happy to see our pastor yesterday devote the sermon to this week's upcoming Earth Day. His remarks focused on calling attention to our task as Christians and as human beings in general to care for the earth and treat all of creation with a sense of joy and respect. Or, in the words of the Old Testament Psalmist in the Scripture text he read and preached from:
"Praise him [the Lord], all his angels; praise him, all his host! Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created. He established them forever and ever; ..."
For many years, I watched Christian leaders preach AGAINST environmental, "earth-friendly" themes, saying the most important goal was to preach about salvation, preach to rescue people from eternal damnation in hell. All the while, people by the millions were turning away from such messages because they completely ignored -- or usually ignored -- the realities of living in THIS world, right now, with the air, water, and other resources we must manage.
Certainly it was refreshing to hear a pastor preach about things like "stewardship" and mean the wise management of our world and our world's resources, instead of meaning "give us more money"! Great to be part of that sort of church, I think.
Technorati Tags: Earth Day, Christian stewardship, managing earth's resources, take time for living
