Environmental Missions Prayer Digest

November 2013

Here's the new banner under which we are beginning to operate:

Loving Christ and his created
(which is the essence of environmental missions) is:

"the most important missions mobilization of our time"

We hold to this conviction by virtue of what environmental missions means for finally reaching the least-reached with the gospel, and by virtue of what the gospel means for a world which is in a very real and severe global ecological crisis. We also believe that the Triune God is ready to confront what the Cape Town Commitment has called the "toxic idolatry of rampant consumerism," an idolatry which is at the root of much of the ecological crisis. Idolatry is combated by building a compelling vision of the True and Living God. In our case, we declare that the gospel is not "consume less" nor "reduce, reuse, recycle," however much we wish to promulgate those good messages. No, the gospel message is "feed on Jesus." He who came not to be served, but to serve, has also come not to consume in fiery judgment, but rather to be himself consumed. Only the Bread of Life satisfies. "We feed on so much else to fill up the empty places of our soul. . . . Our hunger will consume the entire world and each other, and in fact is doing so." And so we proclaim, "The gospel is the invitation to come and feast upon the person of Jesus. Consume him who has given himself up for our consumption."

Pray for the mobilization of Agabus Teams

Environmental assessment teams who also want to know the "people of the ecosystem"

Jesus loves that Muslim people group who resides in the beautiful Sunderban region of coastal West Bengal. According to the Joshua Project, Christians comprise only 0.007 percent of what's called the Southern 24 Parganas district. They are unique Muslims in that they also worship idols, in their case, the goddess Bon Bibi to whom they look for protection from man-eating tigers. The Sunderbans has the largest percentage of man-eaters in the world. Biologists have theorized that these tigers are made more aggressive due to the salinity of the water in which they wade.

The Environmental Missions Prayer Digest profiled these unique Muslims back in January 2012, but now they are a classic illustration of how the most important missions mobilization in our time must begin with mobilizing

1. Knowledge of the ecosystem, even down to the salinity of the water;

2. Knowledge of the "people of the ecosystem"-- that is, beyond the typical religionist people group profile that would argue "Muslims are never idol-worshippers." We need to know how a people group affects and is affected by their ecosystem.

With this two-fold knowledge, the team which would seek to serve this people group and ecosystem can then be mobilized.

The environmental assessment teams which Eden Vigil will organize will be called "Agabus Teams" after

This painting by Louis Cheron (1660-1725) depicts the scene in Acts 21 where Agabus prophesies over Paul's impending arrest.

the prophet in Acts 11 who "predicted by the Spirit that a great famine was coming upon the entire Roman world" and inspired the church to organize relief for the poor of Jerusalem. Agabus Teams will be comprised of Christian professionals, university professors, and students. Conducting short term trips, they'll collect environmental and sociological data and bring it back for the analysis which will form the basis for a new environmental missions project.

Please pray:

1. Next week, Eden Vigil will be on the campus of Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA. Please pray that we can form an Agabus Team from there that can travel in the next nine months to a proposed project in an increasingly-desertified North African country.

2. Eden Vigil also hopes to recruit a partner, an ecologist well-respected in missionary circles, who can direct this entire Agabus assessment initiative. Please pray as we approach this person, and then as God wills, that the Lord will direct him or raise up another.

3. Please pray for the widespread mobilization of knowledge of ecosystems and people of the ecosystems--in other words, not just for the Agabus Teams which Eden Vigil may, by God's grace, raise up but also for every assessment and survey effort which forms a good basis for the mobilization of an entire environmental missions project.

4. And pray for the insight, discernment, and wisdom behind these assessment efforts, that they might additionally yield what author Wes Jackson calls "the genius of the place."

Lowell's book-- now available at missionbooks.org (click here)

Thank you for praying,
as you love Christ and his created.

Lowell Bliss
Eden Vigil

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