Why the Church Should Flourish

By Jim Jewell, co-founder, FLOURISH

I’ve been involved in many Christian causes and organizations over the last 30 years, many of which I still heartily support and advance. In recent years, I’ve added my voice to a new concern among Christians: environmental stewardship—taking care of God’s creation in a balanced, biblically informed way. I am concerned enough that I am helping to start a new organization, called FLOURISH, to equip the church to act on these concerns.

Some in the church and among my own friends and family have asked if creation care is important enough to be a major focus of the church. Yes, I do believe this is a vital issue for Christian churches and families, and one that is informed not primarily by current politics or policies, but by the teaching of scripture, deep traditions of the church, and even practices and values of our parents and grandparents. Modern trends have given us even more reasons to act. Further, genuine efforts to find balance in our lives and in the way we care for the environment fit well with many priorities and programs of the church and can give our evangelism and discipleship efforts more focus and effectiveness.

Perhaps the best way to present rationale for establishing FLOURISH is for me to present a Top Ten List of reasons why we as American Christians should make environmental stewardship a primary concern:

#10. As Christians we are called to be the very best citizens, and we can be obedient as families and churches by working to better the micro-environments of our communities. This may include activities such as planting trees, working for pedestrian and bike paths, or cleaning area watersheds.

#9. We are commanded to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves, and the current disruption of many of the delicate balances in the created world around us is causing health problems, and poses the potential of even greater problems for all of us. These dangers are particularly acute for our most needy neighbors, for those living in urban environments, and for our children. Did you know that childhood asthma rates in children are four times what they were 20 years ago?

# 8. Reducing our dependence on foreign oil is important not only for national security; it will also address religious freedom issues. Our reliance on oil makes us dependent on undemocratic, despotic foreign regimes that restrict the religious liberty of their peoples, and threaten the stability of democratic allies such as Israel.

#7. Pollution has become a serious life issue. When coal is burned, mercury is released into the environment. Mercury in the air eventually settles into water or onto land where it can be washed into water. Once deposited a highly toxic form builds up in fish, shellfish and animals that eat fish. More than 600,000 newborns each year-- approximately one in every six babies-- are born with harmful mercury levels in their blood. It is unacceptable for our expectant mothers to have to avoid many kinds of fish because we have polluted our waters so badly that their contamination is dangerous to unborn children?

#6. Learning to care for creation and to balance our activities prepares us for missions. The work of our missionaries around the world almost always includes an understanding of how to live on the land, maintain productive harvests, and assure sufficient healthy water. In many areas missions is a blend of evangelism and creation care.

#5. The daily lifestyle habits that lessen damage to the world around us also build faithfulness and family values—practices such as honoring the Sabbath and making it a day of rest, dampening our consumerism, and increasing family time that is relational and close to home.

#4. Through a range of energy-saving changes, churches and families can save a lot of money, which can in turn be used for the programs and missions of the church, for which it is intended. If America’s houses of worship – totaling more than 300,000 – cut energy use by just 10 percent, it would result in an annual savings of $200 million. Prestonwood Baptist Church, a megachurch in Plano, Texas, did a major energy overall and has saved more than $1 million on utilities and water.

#3. Effective evangelism is set on common ground with our unchurched neighbors. Many of them care about the environment, and when we conduct visible and active campaigns to protect and better the environment, this public service puts us side-by-side with others in our community, and enhances our contact and our witness.

#2. The works of God’s creation are, as Romans 1:20 tells us, evidence of God’s attributes. The natural world tells us so much about who God is that Paul says humankind has no good reason for not knowing its Creator. It would be irresponsible for us to allow our actions to diminish that witness.

And the #1 reason the church should make environmental stewardship a primary concern: God told us to. In the creation story God puts man in the Garden to tend and keep it (Gen. 2:15). That responsibility continues to today.

As you know, during the last several years there have been calls for Christians to support various national and international plans and policies to protect the environment. The majority of believers have responded favorably to the view that caring for God’s creation is a biblical imperative and an important part of Christian discipleship in the 21st century. A recent Barna poll indicates that 90 percent of evangelicals in America would like to see Christians do more to care for God’s creation.

Unfortunately, many of the calls for environmental stewardship have come from secular voices that traditionally have been critics of classic Christianity and that still advocate some positions that are contrary to biblical values. Even our evangelical brethren who have championed environmental concerns have made it appear that Christian response to the problems facing us have to be political and must begin with controversial government action on climate change.

This has resulted in overreaction by some of our leaders who have told the followers of Christ that even the most fundamental care for God’s creation is unnecessary and misplaced passion, and that it is laudable to do nothing to address these dangers.
That’s why we are starting FLOURISH, a ministry to equip churches and families to care for creation and advance their witness in our communities, our nation, and the world. For too long we have allowed liberal messengers of the environmental message and contentious government policy discussions to paralyze our faithfulness in creation care.

FLOURISH intends to stand astride the unhealthy chasm between those who prescribe only political solutions and those who would do nothing. We will offer prudent and biblical solutions for individuals, families, and churches—including a variety of training and study materials that will equip pastors, small groups, and youth groups to teach on these topics and to be involved in hands-on activities and missions.

We will be leading a communications effort on creation care in the Christian community through Web-based communications, a quarterly magazine, radio, and other efforts. And we will be providing a turnkey service—the Greater Light Project—to churches to help them audit their use of energy and other impacts on their local environments, and to assist in their efforts to make necessary changes.

Our inaugural project will be the Flourish National Pastors’ Conference on Creation Care to be conducted May 13-15, 2009, at CrossPointe church in Duluth, Georgia (northeast of Atlanta). We intend to gather hundreds of pastors and church leaders at this conference, to continue this conversation in earnest and begin the invigoration of our witness and service in creation care.

Environmental problems, like all others, are of course the result of sin. We often carelessly and unnecessarily damage the world around us because of our sin, and the only complete solution will be found in the life-changing, sin-conquering power of knowing Jesus Christ and in living out that knowledge through the new life he brings. The Christian church bears this truth and, rather than being the tail-end of environmental care, can be the best hope for real progress.

Flourish: An Invigoration of the Christian Environmental Movement

While we are maintaining the Rooftop MediaWorks public relations firm, I am involved this month in the start-up of a new non-profit organization called FLOURISH--a non-political outreach to help churches and families strengthen their environmental stewardship as part of the expression of their commitment to Christ and witness to the community.

During the last 30 years I have been involved in many organizations and causes as an employee, consultant, donor and friend, which has provided me with opportunities for tremendous ministry, growth, pain, and perspective. I am grateful to God for these experiences, which have far exceeded my wildest expectations.

In recent years, I’ve added my voice to a new concern among Christians: environmental stewardship—taking care of God’s creation in a balanced, biblically informed way. That's why I am helping to start FLOURISH--to equip the church to act on these concerns.

Our inaugural program will be the Flourish National Conference for Pastors and Church Leaders in May. Please consider recommending this to your pastors, or other pastors or leaders who you know will benefit.

FLOURISH will focus on four areas of ministry:

• Communications, including the publication of a quarterly Christian environmental magazine, and a variety of Web-based communications.

• Church engagement, including the development of comprehensive church materials and new programs that will enable local churches to teach and practice the principles of creation care domestically and in conjunction with missions around the world.

• Church stewardship initiatives to assist local churches with efficiency projects, energy audits and alternatives, lighting upgrades, and other church-wide actions to become better stewards of God’s creation.

• Collaborative associations and projects with creation care partners, individuals, and churches.

Thousands of churches in America are looking for teaching on the care for God’s creation that is theologically sound and that can fit into the programs and priorities of the local church. We believe that we can invigorate the Christian environmental stewardship movement in America so that it is focused on local churches and families, depoliticized, integrated with other ministries of the church, involving meaningful actions and programs domestically and internationally, and including teaching and programs to meet the challenges of urban environments.

Jim Jewell
CEO and Co-Founder
FLOURISH

Rich Cizik's Enduring NAE Legacy

“I have worked closely with Rich Cizik over the last three years on evangelical responses to climate change, and our firm has represented the Washington office of the NAE on a variety of issues. Rich’s work on behalf of evangelicalism over the decades has been vital to its influence and impact during this time.

Perhaps his greatest contribution in recent years has been the broadening of the evangelical public agenda beyond a few traditional issues; this has been historic and it will be an enduring legacy. The evangelical community is not monolithic, but it does have a center, and Rich’s misstep was not broadening the agenda but-—as a representative of the NAE—-suggesting a shift in that center on traditional evangelical issues of gay marriage and abortion. Rich has a creative and expansive mind and a large heart and his days of public impact are not over. I look forward to his next role and his continuing prophetic voice as an evangelical leader.”

Jim Jewell
Managing Partner
Rooftop MediaWorks

Help the Monks: Freeing Tibet as a Christian Act

See my thoughts on Tibet and dangers to the Chinese debutante ball at Stones Cry Out.

--Jim Jewell

Pro-Life, Pro-Family and Pro-Creation Care in South Carolina

Our friends at the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) were in South Carolina last week to support the understanding that a growing number of evangelicals now support action to curb climate change. Although non-partisan and not endorsing any candidates, the group is open with its appreciation of the positions of Gov. Mike Huckabee and Sen. John McCain on federal legislation to curb global warming emissions.

Human Events writer John Gizzi covered the EEN visit to SC, still amazed that pro-life, pro-family evangelicals are pro-creation. He'll get used to it. Gizzi writes:

Columbia, S.C.: The ten twentysomethings on the steps of the Capitol brandish buttons reading "Stop Global Warming." They admire Sens. John Warner (R.-VA) and Joe Lieberman (D.-CT) for sponsoring major legislation to deal with the issue of global warming and believe the European Union has done an "incredible job" in addressing this subject. They love the Endangered Species Act and several hope for "the rebuilding of cities so the poor people don't have to spend so much on their cars to get around."

A rally for Greenpeace? A reunion of Al Gore's presidential campaign workers? No, this was a gathering of strong evangelical Christians, to a person pro-life and believing marriage is between a man and woman. But, tired of being linked only to those issuesand believing that we should be good stewards of the planet as much as being for life and traditional marriage, these young Christians have mobilized into the Evangelical Environmental Network.

Call Him Sunday; Adelaja Focuses on the U.S.

Who would you guess is the pastor of the largest church in Europe? The rector of a soaring cathedral in England, the bishop of a historic diocese in Italy, or the pastor of a solid Lutheran church in Germany? None of the above. It is the Nigerian-born pastor of the independent charismatic God's Embassy in Kiev--with 25,000 members in the capital city and 100,000 members throughout Ukraine.

His name is Pastor Sunday Adelaja, and as he focuses on expansion in the U.S., he is the newest client of Rooftop MediaWorks.

Here's more information:

• Sunday Adaleja (pronounced add-Elijah) is using the one-year mark prior to the 2008 presidential elections to challenge the evangelical church in the U.S. into more enthusiastic involvement in the political process during this election cycle. He speaks from experience: No fewer than 600 parishioners from the membership of his Ukraine church ran for public office in the last elections. One is now the mayor of Kiev, a city of four million; another is chief justice of the Supreme Court of Ukraine.

• Adaleja’s church in the Ukraine was instrumental in national transformation by helping to spearhead a peaceful political and social revolution known as the “Orange Revolution” that changed the political landscape of Ukraine. In the 2004 Revolution, more than 4,000 Embassy of God members prayed and fasted in the 12-day standoff before the first presidential runoff was judged invalid. They also donated food, clothing, and tents to the thousands of demonstrators camped in Kiev's freezing Independence Square.

• In light of his involvement in confronting the corruption of the Russian-supported candidate in Ukraine and organizing his church in the Orange Revolution, Adelaja provides an expert perspective on the Russian election in December and on the machinations of President Putin.

• Church growth experts consider Adelaja’s Embassy of God to be one of the fastest-growing and most influential churches in the world. The local church in Kiev has 30,000 members, and there are some 600 affiliated churches in 30 countries, including the U.S.

Adaleja is announcing new endeavors in the U.S., including:

• God’s Embassy currently has 22 churches in the U.S., and is planning a major expansion next year.

• The Synergize! Pastors Conference on January 29-31, 2008 at Mount Paran Church in Atlanta will feature more than 35 renowned pastors and leaders, who will teach on strategies to build churches and reach unchurched people. The organizers say there are one billion Christians on earth today and have as their goal to bring the second billion to faith in Christ.

• A new book by Sunday Adelaja, Church Shift, will be released in the U.S. on February 8, 2008. This book is accompanied by a workbook that helps local churches affect society.

--Debbie Payton

EVANGELICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS AREN’T THREATENED BY SECULARISTS

Just before arriving at an environmental stewardship conference at the Boise Vineyard church, I read a column by Bryan Fischer, executive director of the Idaho Values Alliance, on the Renew America Website that purports to contrast the worldviews of the Judeo-Christian tradition and environmentalism. His goal is to show that evangelicals could not work on environmental issues without, eventually, being co-opted by the often-secular environmentalists.

In the process, Fischer demonstrates that he knows very little about many environmentalists and even less about evangelicals who see creation care as a part of their Christian stewardship.

Fischer is correct when he writes that there are profound differences between the worldviews of radical environmentalists and biblically faithful Christians. Where he is wrong is in his assumption that Christians who are concerned about the environment have a different worldview than other evangelicals. We agree with the fundamentals of Judeo-Christian tradition that Fischer lists; in fact, they form the heart of our contention for creation care.

• We must worship the Creator God, not the creation.
• We must protect the environment in obedience to God and for the good of His people, now and for generations to come.
• We are pro-family and we believe that God wants us to raise up thriving families, and to nurture children to become followers of Jesus. We don’t believe in any of the population control rhetoric of some on the left.
• We believe that God told man to tend His garden, to be good stewards, and to reconcile all creation to Himself.

Those of us who are evangelical in our convictions and worldview feel no pressure whatsoever to adjust our beliefs to match those of secular environmentalists. In fact, we’re challenging those who have strayed from God and sought solace in nature to recognize the Creator God, and to understand that environmental degradation is an offense to God and a great danger to His children.

We have a wonderful soapbox to call on the world to worship God, to protect the vulnerable people who will be most threatened by pollution and climate change, and to care for the whole of God’s magnificent Creation. When was the last time we had a chance to made that declaration in the New York Times and other national mainstream media?

Evangelical environmentalists stand astride a great divide between the secular environmentalists who have ignored the Creator and evangelical critics who have ignored His creation. We call for the church to “be still and know that [God] is God” and that “[He] will be exalted in the earth” (Ps. 46:10,12). He calls for us to put that truth into practice.

That is the message of the Tending the Garden conference this week in Boise, and it is a bold proclamation of the evangelical creation care movement, a movement that is growing in numbers and influence and is not at all in danger of being absorbed by secular environmentalists, whose worldview provides no hope and no future.

--Jim Jewell