Caring for Creation

"The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." Genesis 2:15

By Kim Barnes

In late 2006, the Baltimore Presbytery established a Care of Creation Task Group under the umbrella of its Peace and Justice Committee. I was asked if I would serve on this task group and, since it concerned a passion that I believe God has given me, I accepted. Today is Care of Creation Sunday at Central and a good time to share with the congregation an overview of what has been accomplished by the task group.

The first goal of the group was to develop a Vision and Mission statement, which is summarized here:

To reach out to all congregations in the Baltimore Presbytery - to encourage, assist, and provide resources to help them better understand: our love for all of God's creation; the complex ways in which all of creation is interconnected and interdependent; and our responsibility as stewards to care lovingly and justly for creation.

The second goal was to conduct a survey of all of the congregations in the Presbytery to learn how congregations are already caring for creation and find out what resources and information were needed. The results of this survey are now helping to guide the task group in their next steps to assist congregations in our presbytery to take affirmative steps in caring for God's creation. The first resource is a website containing the information we have compiled thus far is up and running. Please view this information by logging on to the website: www.baltimorepresbytery.org/CareofCreation.htm.

If anyone would like more information about the Care of Creation Task Group or to learn more about what we can do as a congregation in support of this ministry, please feel free to contact Kim Barnes.

What Are You Doing?

The question is, "What are you doing to help care for and protect God's Creation?" The following are some simple ways to "do your part."

• Are you using canvas bags instead of paper or plastic for grocery shopping? Some stores give a few cents credit for bringing your own bag.
• Do you reuse those envelopes that come to you from sources to which you are not responding? Put a label over their address and use it again.
• Do you use both sides of paper when making copies and when printing from your computer? Your computer will do that for you.
• Do you turn off the lights when you leave a room?
• Do you turn off your TV and computer completely? Your new digital TV does not turn off unless it is unplugged. Use a power strip to turn everything off.
• Did you take your toxic chemicals to the hazardous waste collection site recently or did you put them in the garbage?
• Do you recycle paper, glass, aluminum and recyclable plastics or do you put them in the garbage?
• Are you drinking bottled water? Presbyterians for Restoring Creation learned that the production of water bottles is toxic and just 14% of those bottles get recycled. Also, it takes 450 years for plastic bottles to disintegrate.
• Are you using compact fluorescent light bulbs? If every American home replaced just one incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb, we could save enough energy to light 2,500,000 homes for a year.

Have you been doing your part to care for God's creation?