Caring For Creation In Your Own Backyard

Why should New Age trends and philosophies shape the ecological agenda? Loren and Mary Ruth Wilkinson believe that it's time Christian families took a biblical position on environmental issues. In this wonderfully creative and practical book, they offer more than a hundred simple things you and your family can do to make God's earth a better place in which to live. But more than this, they show you how to celebrate God's creation through the seasons of the year. If you have wanted to get involved in environmentalism but felt overwhelmed or confused by the philosophies shaping the ecological movement, here is a book to help you sort through the confusion. It offers biblically-based answers and practical ideas that will not only help the environment but will enrich your life. In Caring for Creation in Your Own Backyard, you will discover a host of smart and simple things to do at home with your children, neighbours, and community. Learn how to: ?Shop for a better world ?Make creative and ecological meals that everyone enjoys ?Save money and energy through recycling and re-using ?Support businesses that care for creation?and much more! Loren and Mary Ruth Wilkinson have worked in both city and countryside putting principles of caring for creation to work. They live on Hunterston Farm, Galiano Island, British Columbia. Loren is Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Philosophy at Regent College. He is editor of Earthkeeping: Christian Stewardship of Creation. Mary Ruth teaches as a sessional lecturer at Regent College.

Why should New Age trends and philosophies shape the ecological agenda? Loren and Mary Ruth Wilkinson believe that it's time Christian families took a biblical position on environmental issues. In this wonderfully creative and practical book, they offer more than a hundred simple things you and your family can do to make God's earth a better place in which to live. But more than this, they show you how to celebrate God's creation through the seasons of the year. If you have wanted to get involved in environmentalism but felt overwhelmed or confused by the philosophies shaping the ecological movement, here is a book to help you sort through the confusion. It offers biblically-based answers and practical ideas that will not only help the environment but will enrich your life. In Caring for Creation in Your Own Backyard, you will discover a host of smart and simple things to do at home with your children, neighbours, and community. Learn how to: Shop for a better world Make creative and ecological meals that everyone enjoys Save money and energy through recycling and re-using Support businesses that care for creation?and much more! Loren and Mary Ruth Wilkinson have worked in both city and countryside putting principles of caring for creation to work. They live on Hunterston Farm, Galiano Island, British Columbia. Loren is Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Philosophy at Regent College. He is editor of Earthkeeping: Christian Stewardship of Creation. Mary Ruth teaches as a sessional lecturer at Regent College.

Each eight-week study is based on articles written by today's leading Christian authors and published by Christianity Today magazines. These remarkable studies foster deep, authentic, and relevant discussion that will challenge and grow any small group.

Although our planet faces numerous ecological crises, including climate change, many Christians continue to view their faith as primarily a "spiritual" matter that has little relationship to the world in which we live. But Steven Bouma-Prediger contends that protecting and restoring our planet is part and parcel of what it means to be a Christian. Making his case from Scripture, theology, and ethics and including insights from the global church, Bouma-Prediger explains why Christians must acknowledge their identity as earthkeepers and therefore embrace their calling to serve and protect their home planet and fellow creatures. To help readers put an "earthkeeping faith" into practice, he also suggests numerous practical steps that concerned believers can take to care for the planet. Bouma-Prediger unfolds a biblical vision of earthkeeping and challenges Christians to view care for the earth as an integral part of Christian discipleship.

At a time when loneliness and isolation have reached unprecedented levels, it has never been more important for Christians to embrace the practice of hospitality. For many, it is a lost art - a practice we have forgotten, neglected or distorted beyond all recognition. Amid material comforts and rife individualism, practising hospitality can often hold unrealistic expectations and insurmountable pressure. But what if the practice of hospitality was simpler and yet more profound than we imagined? From the simple act of preparing vegetables to the warm welcome of a stranger, co-authors Miranda Harris and her daughter Jo Swinney re-define hospitality for the modern age. Drawing on biblical insights and a deep well of experience - most significantly within the community in the A Rocha family - this is a warm invitation to embrace the loving kindness of others. To be hospitable doesn't require culinary excellence or matching cutlery - it doesn't even require a home of one's own; true hospitality offers a welcome into imperfection and messiness, a place to belong and be embraced. Following the progression of a meal, from its planning to the moment every guest has departed, A PLACE AT THE TABLE is a heart-warming invitation into a life of thoughtful food preparation, shared meals and meaningful conversation.

Addressing a topic of growing and vital concern, this book asks us to reconsider how we think about the natural world and our place in it. Steven Bouma-Prediger brings ecotheology into conversation with the emerging field of environmental virtue ethics, exploring the character traits and virtues required for Christians to be responsible keepers of the earth and to flourish in the challenging decades to come. He shows how virtue ethics can enrich Christian environmentalism, helping readers think and act in ways that rightly value creation.

This book brings together the interdisciplinary reflections of Christian scholars and poets, to explore how ecological virtues can foster the flourishing of our home planet in the face of unprecedented environmental change and devastation. Its central questions are: What virtues are needed for us to be better caretakers of our home planet? What vices must we extinguish if we are to flourish on the earth? What is the connection between such virtues and vices and the flourishing of all creatures? Each contribution offers insight on ecological virtue ethical questions through disciplinary lenses ranging from biology, geology, and economics, to literature, theology, and philosophy. The chapters feature the legacy and lessons of senior scholars reflecting on a lifetime of earthkeeping work, highlight global concerns and perspectives, and include compelling poetic reflections. Focusing on the way in which human vices and virtues drive so many of our ecological problems and solutions, the volume engages timely issues of environmental importance – such as environmental racism, interfaith dialogue, ecological philosophies of work and economics, marine pollution, ecological despair, hope and humility – encouraging fresh reflection and action. It will be of interest to those working in theology and religious studies, philosophy, ethics, and environmental studies.