Favorite old hymns include How Great Thou Art, For the Beauty of the Earth, I Come to the Garden Alone, This is My Father's World. It is time for our living to embody our singing, and A Hopeful Earth will help us do so.

A Hopeful Earth uniquely looks to the life and teachings of Jesus for instruction in faithful stewardship of our world. The temptation of Christ, the sermon on the mount, the man who built many barns, Lazarus at the gate of the rich man, the woman at the well, the miraculous feeding of the multitude with loaves and fish -- from these texts we learn God's intent that we love our neighbors and this planet, our earthly home.

The book is dialogically written by Bishop Sally Dyck of the Minnesota Area and her niece, Sarah Ehrman, an young educator specializing in environmental science with high school students. A study guide will help you use the book with groups in your church as you engage the dynamics of faith and science with the perspectives of younger and more seasoned generations.

We have a Creation Care Team in the Mississippi Conference. I hope we will create eleven District Teams this year and that local churches will use this resource to grow in our awareness of God's gifts in creation, of the crisis before us and of ways to care for the earth.  

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