Whether you call our obligation and calling to tend God’s earth “stewardship” or “Creation care,” it’s easy to feel like the concept is a little vague. This is especially true when it comes to producing food.
So I encourage you to watch this video of a webinar hosted by Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT) to get a sense of what Creation stewardship looks like on a small scale. In the video, Kirsten Robertson details how she creatively found natural solutions to replace the chemical dewormers she had previously been using on her goats and sheep at her family’s 10-acre farmstead in South Carolina.
As you’ll see, Kirsten brings both an engineering background and extensive grazing experience to her situation. I believe you’ll enjoy the thoughtfulness and logic of her presentation’s structure while also appreciating her tenacity and values. Please enjoy.
There are several things that struck me about the story of Kirsten’s creative stewardship journey.
The first was how it occurred to her to study how grazing animals in nature generally avoid dying from parasites.
In my interview with John Kempf, he shared one of his favorite Bible passages – Job 12: 7-10 That passage especially resonates with Kirsten’s story.
The passage reads: But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you, or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.
How often do our systems of producing food and even living itself come out of careful learning from Creation? They should.
The second was how Kirsten learned as she went. She didn’t have all of the details of her new systems in place when she stopped using chemical dewormers. She had to make adjustments. New insights came to her as she proceeded. Her faith and persistence were rewarded. Creation stewardship is a lively, interactive endeavor. It builds our wisdom muscles.
Another thing that stood out to me was how the characteristics of specific plants, like black locust and chicory, were helpful allies to her. What a wonderful example of how knowing the “players” in Creation is valuable and fascinating. I encourage you to launch into the study of Creation as a lifelong pursuit.
You can’t help but notice that Kirsten’s approach was complex. She made the farmstead landscape more complex in terms of layout and vegetation management. This is a far different from relying on chemicals while ignoring the factors that made the parasite infections happen in the first place.
The chemicals-dependent approach that she moved away from is a microcosm of our dominant food and farming system. Our tendency is to create “simple” industrial approaches built on our chemistry and engineering prowess without caring about the impacts of those approaches on our neighbors and Creation. We need humility to learn from Creation. We need to consider its needs and patterns.
Perhaps this is why the Bible teaches us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When we work with Creation, we should remember that God is looking over our shoulders and observing whether reverence for God is in our hearts.
And what I ultimately responded to in Kirsten’s story was the joy and life that emerged from it.
Stopping the use of the chemical dewormers allowed dung beetles to return with benefits for the soil. Diversifying her homestead’s landscape attracted other wildlife as well.
And that changed the direction of Kirsten’s life. She was once close to giving up on their farmstead. By learning from Creation and creatively applying its lessons, she ultimately found her enjoyment of life there resurrected.
I received a number of thoughtful responses to my last blog post entitled Longing for the Belonging of Church. For this I was grateful. What I had written was quite personal and, frankly, counter to what most Christians would think of as being Christian.
Below I share one of the responses. As you will see, the writer’s words, which he and I edited slightly for this blog post, also come from the heart. He communicates the challenges and joys of being part of a church while also being a voice in that church for the deep value of Creation to God. I admire his faithfulness and compassionate spirit.
Hi Nathan,
I enjoyed your most recent blog piece and especially appreciate your willingness to share your struggles with finding a church that reflects the whole of your Christian values.
I’ve been reading Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright, which is chock-full with both the hope of the new creation and a radically healed Earth. I’ve wept at the strength and conviction of his writing, words that I’ve felt strongly in my heart but could never articulate very well. I think you’ve mentioned that book as an influence also, yes?
One of things that attracts me to Wright’s writing is his conversational style, with portions sounding like they could be delivered in a lecture (and I think he notes that portions actually were). In this way, his writing reminds me of C.S. Lewis, coincidentally or not, who also had ties to Oxford.
Which brings me to a word of encouragement, from C.S. Lewis. One of the things I recall poignantly from Mere Christianity is Lewis describing Christianity as a large house with many rooms off the “main hall”. Each room (church, denomination, etc.), has its own characteristics (and flaws), but his observation is that fellowship and community develop within the room as people share life together. His encouragement is to “not stay in the hall” but to enter a room.
My heart aches for you and Mayumi not being able to find Christian fellowship together at a local church. I applaud your willingness to ask yourself hard questions in humility, like “Am I being unforgiving”—it’s a question many of us need to ask when we become frustrated with others, especially our leaders (in our churches, nation, world, etc.). I also find I need to remind myself of other virtues as well, like forbearance, humility, and charity (caritas/love), even when I don’t feel like being charitable toward others.
But I have found that if I’m willing to plug into a place and do it with some virtues, and find other people grounded in virtue, even if they don’t think quite like me about restoring the Earth, they’re at least open and curious to hearing about it, precisely because they’ve grown to know and love me as a person.
I’ve also left some communities because the fit didn’t seem right. But my overwhelming impression was that my leaving grieved those who stayed, because they knew I had something different to offer while I was there.
For myself, I’m a cradle Catholic and find both hope in figures like Pope Francis and frustration with lack of action and what I perceive as political bias on behalf of U.S. bishops and their lack of action on things like climate change. But I stay in the room, knowing that I’m slowly influencing others.
I thought I had our pastor on board for solar panels about five years ago. We still don’t have panels, at which I sometimes shake my head in exasperation. But he did recently announce that as part of our capital campaign (part of which involves solar) there would be a Care of Creation committee to ensure upgrades were as sustainable as possible—and he asked me to lead it. In particular, he also wanted to make sure that promotional materials that are distributed to every member of the church highlight the importance of putting our values of caring for the earth and future generations into practice. I don’t know a hoot about building sustainability and energy efficiency, but I’m glad to be at the table.
When I first met him, I never would have dreamed he’d designate a Care of Creation committee for the capital campaign. Although pastoral in person, he is also at times a strident conservative, which rubbed me the wrong way.
There was even a time when my wife and I and some close friends thought seriously about leaving that particular Catholic parish in large part because of what we perceived in some of his homilies. But we have stayed, offered up our frustrations in prayer, humbly tried to enter into a dialogue with him and others, and then rolled up our sleeves to make it more of a place where we wanted to stay. It’s far from perfect, but it’s our community.
A few weeks ago, our pastor, who frequently preaches on the theme of God’s love for us, went on to also say “God loves his Creation.” I beamed. I would like to think it was partly my influence in continuing to beat that drum. He still doesn’t preach on it much from the pulpit, but he did invite me to give a short reflection to the entire congregation on it this Lent, which is further affirmation that the Spirit is at work in both our hearts.
I think in part my influence was due to him being convinced that I wasn’t lobbying for something from the outside. I was committed to the community and to personal and collective spiritual growth. For example, I lead a men’s faith-sharing group (most of whom share my views on Creation care or have come to do so over time). I have also served on pastoral council, even being asked to be president. So I have some street cred, I guess.
I’m praying that you might find a church you can call home. Grapes can only grow on the vine. And the vine has to be grafted on a rootstock, which I imagine could be painful and feel binding and awkward at first for both rootstock and vine. But only when a vine is rooted in a particular place can it sustainably bear fruit.
I was driving home late last year on a familiar road when I saw a sign for a new church that I had not seen before.
There was no traditional church building in sight. But there was a barn with fresh red metal siding and a metal roof. That, I realized, was the church’s sanctuary. Intriguing.
Perhaps this was it. Perhaps the alternative approach to church architecture signalled an assembly of believers where Creation mattered, where people really believed God loves the whole world. Could this be a community of faith where Creation’s presence in the Bible was reflected in theology, culture, and way of living? Maybe this would be a place where I could belong.
After pulling away from church a number of years ago, I’ve longed for belonging around faith and Jesus. Seeing that new church in a non-traditional building brought that old familiar pang back to the surface of my heart.
When I got home, I promptly visited the church’s website. It was bright and well-designed. Its photos and text highlighted the church’s racial diversity. The faces, set against a background of wooden barn walls, were friendly, enthusiastic. Promising, I thought.
I found the “What We Believe” section of the website. Hope crashed into reality.
Not a word about Creation. Not a single word.
I have to admit this – in that moment, for a moment, I questioned myself.
Maybe I am wrong, I thought. Maybe there’s a good reason why so many churches don’t speak about Creation or care about it. And maybe staying away from church is a rebellion against God’s will. Doesn’t the New Testament speak clearly about the obligation and rewards of being with other followers of Jesus?
That old familiar pang pressed against my heart. Here I was again, feeling guilt for not going to church while longing for belonging in a faith community.
Am I Unforgiving?
Some new friends, who I met at a field walk last September at their farm, suggested a different way for me to consider my situation.
They are faithful believers who steward their land carefully and attend a church in Indiana. There they often find themselves alone in expressing a Creation care consciousness. They are not always understood.
During the field walk, we had bonded over our common convictions. I had shared my challenges in finding a church. They wrote this in a recent email:
For us, it’s forgiveness every single time we walk into our church. It can be a struggle for fellow Christians to understand our views, but we think it’s important to lend grace and forgiveness so we can continue to educate them on this matter. People are starting to listen, starting to realize the connection we have to all of His Creation. We pray that you can find forgiveness in your heart so you can go out to disciple this to His people.
These words brought me up short.
Was that the problem? Am I not being forgiving? Was that why I couldn’t fit in and make a home at a church?
Perhaps I needed to commit myself to forgiving fellow believers as they would need to forgive me for my own blind spots. If I repented of the judgments I was making, would I then be able to find a church where I could belong?
A Buck Outside the Window
More recently, I was having a conversation with a coworker at the nonprofit I work for in a room with a wide window. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement in one of our organization’s farm fields roughly 80 yards away. I couldn’t help myself. In mid-conversation, I turned to look closer. Through a row of trees between us and the field, I saw a deer. It was a young buck. The head it held high had a small set of antlers.
Then it strode through the row of trees and onto the lawn south of our office. This was midday. It was now in full view and less than 30 yards away in the middle of a subdivision* in a Midwest town.
By now, I was no longer pretending to be engaged the conversation. We both watched as the buck strode across the lawn. Its eyes were watchful. Its posture powerful.
He passed out of sight. The lawn seemed a wilder place even with him gone. My mind and heart were still absorbing the experience even as my coworker renewed the conversation as if nothing unusual had happened and without a word about the buck.
Ears to Hear
Jesus sometimes used the phrase, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Matthew 13:9, Mark 4:9, Luke 8:8, etc.)
In recent weeks I’ve encountered stories and insights that convince me that…… well, let me share them first and then share my conclusion.
The first came from an article in Christianity Today about Bono’s newly published memoir. In it, Bono shares his recollection of a conversation he had with Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham. Billy Graham, one of the most famous Christian evangelists of recent history, had invited Bono to visit him. Franklin had picked him up at the airport. From the conversation that Bono recollects, it’s clear that Franklin was dubious about whether the rockstar Bono was an authentic Christian.
“You … you really love the Lord?” (Franklin)
“Yep.” (Bono)
“Okay, you do. Are you saved?”
“Yep, and saving.”
He doesn’t laugh. No laugh.
“Have you given your life? Do you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?”
“Oh, I know Jesus Christ, and I try not to use him just as my personal Savior. But, you know, yes.”
“Why aren’t your songs, um, Christian songs?”
“They are!”
“Oh, well, some of them are.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, why don’t they … Why don’t we know they’re Christian songs?” I said, “They’re all coming from a place, Franklin. Look around you. Look at the creation, look at the trees, look at the sky, look at these kinds of verdant hills. They don’t have a sign up that says, ‘Praise the Lord’ or ‘I belong to Jesus.’ They just give glory to Jesus.”
Killer Whale Theology
In Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, ocean advocate Carl Safina opens the reader’s mind and heart to the complex world of killer whales.
Three things astonished me. The first is the very creatures themselves. There is, for example, not just one generic kind of killer whale. There are actually estimated to be eight types of killer whales. Some eat only fish, primarily salmon. Others prefer mammals. One type, much smaller than the type that eats seals off of ice flows, hunts penguins. Yet another type hunts sharks. Regardless of type, these are highly social animals with matriarchal leadership. Oddly, pods of the same type of killer whales will not socialize with other pods of the same type. They have their own cultures. Yet, killer whales in the wild have never been seen being aggressive to each other.
Their vocal communication capacity is amazing.
“Killer whales in a group can be spread out over 150 square miles – and all be in vocal contact,” write Safina.
Having huge nerve cells for hearing and generating sounds from skulls that are sophisticated technologies, killer whales (like other dolphin species and whales) inhabit a world we can only dream of. They live, in fact, by sound.
The second remarkable thing is how little humans have known about killer whales for most of human history. It was only in 1960, just over 60 years ago, that a researcher discovered that dolphins relied on sound for so much and that eyesight was a secondary source of information. And it’s been even more recently that people have differentiated the different types of killer whales and discovered that each killer whale has its own individual personality and remarkable social intelligence.
And the third most remarkable thing?
After detailing how powerfully effective killer whales can be as hunters, with some even hunting down 30,000-pound sperm whales, Safina writes this:
“Even stranger, then, that killer whales have overturned no kayak, emptied no rowboat, and slurped no human. It is perhaps the greatest behavioral mystery on our mysterious planet.”
Seeing Blue
In Joni B. Cole’s excellent and warmly witty book on writing – Good Naked – she has a chapter entitled “Seeing Blue.” In it she argues why each writer’s writing matters and is worth pouring energy into, even when it seems to have no immediate reward.
Here’s a paragraph in that chapter. It follows her statement that the Egyptians were likely the first civilization to create a word for the color blue and that research indicates few people until modern times really noticed it as a color (don’t worry – you’ll see the point in just a bit):
The claim that a culture with no word for a color it cannot see is supported by a contemporary study with the Himba tribe in Namibia, whose language has several words for nuanced shades of green, but nothing to describe blue. When shown a screen with eleven green squares and one distinctly blue square, the Namibians could not pick out the blue one. Yet, among the green squares that appear identical to a Westerner’s eyes, they could immediately identify the different shade. The ability to see or not see a shade speaks to its important to a culture. Now just imagine if every culture had the ability to see every kind of color!
Her point – every writer has the potential to help readers see something they could not see before.
What I also see in her words is this – our culture can blind us to truth that is right in front of us.
A Misfit Who Can’t Unsee Blue
The blue so many churches and so many church cultures cannot see is the life, beauty, mystery, and vulnerability of God’s Creation all around us. The blue that Franklin Graham and many other Christians cannot see is that Creation matters deeply to God and that care of Creation is part of the very core of what we were created for.
I can’t unsee that blue.
Nor can I force Christians who are happy with their churches to see that blue if they don’t want to see it. Nor do I believe that many churches, who are struggling with declines in attendance, will be open to changing their culture and theology around Creation.
So what is worse? Going to church and not belonging because I see a color in the Bible and Creation others won’t see? Or not going to church and missing the fellowship and singing of songs with other believers? Of longing for belonging to a group of people committed to God and Jesus in a whole way?
Right now, despite those old familiar pangs that emerge from hidden places in my heart when I see a church, I’ve come to accept that I am what Jon Terry called me in our conversation earlier this year.
A misfit.
That’s who I am.
Or, if one puts a more positive spin on it, you could label me an “edge walker,” a term Valerie Loorz calls herself in Church of the Wild.
Is there any reason to think such a path could be faithful to God?
When Jesus responded to the Pharisees who complained that he was healing people on the Sabbath (Luke 14:5), he asked them if they would not act on the Sabbath, despite the prohibition on work, if they heard a child or an ox stuck in a well.
When you imagine the scenario that Jesus presented to the Pharisees, you cannot help but hear the cries. Whether a child or ox fell in a well, there would have been heart-rending sounds – the pleading screams of the child, the plaintive bellows of the ox.
My ears can’t unhear the cries of Creation today. Nor can I unhear the lamentations of people whose lives are or will be in misery because of what is being done to Creation.
Pretending I couldn’t hear those cries or shutting my ears to those cries would be, in my mind, a betrayal of God.
I see the blue.
I hear, and I listen.
And what I hear (and oh how I wish I could hear the sounds of killer whale clans as they race through the ocean) resonates with the thread of Creation’s worth through the whole Bible.
So I need to act as best I can.
I pray that people out there who are like me will find each other and act out of the convictions we have from our faith.
Perhaps we will together form new wineskins?
And perhaps many years from now there will be people who drink the vintage of the wine from those wineskins and smile and nod and make more of their own and please God in the process.
*To be fair, the subdivision is not just any subdivision. It is the Prairie Crossing conservation community, where a significant amount of habitat has been set aside and managed for natural habitat. This makes the buck’s appearance just slightly less surprising. But still a remarkable moment in the middle of an afternoon.
My heart and mind are often painfully aware of climate chaos and the ongoing loss of the life of God’s earth
But I know those who follow Jesus and love God cannot help but to also be people who see light and hope. Everyday we are alive on this earth, we should seek out and hold onto gratitude for the goodness around us that comes from God. That awareness feeds our hearts and fuels our persistence.
As you begin a new year, I encourage you to take time to meditate on the year that has just past. What was good? Where did you sense God’s grace? What are you thankful for? What did you learn? In general? About protecting and restoring Creation as part of a whole Christian faith-life?
Here are just some of the things I discovered by looking back at my own year.
1. Bounty from the Garden: My wife Mayumi has been building the soil of our pesticide-free garden for more than 15 years. In 2022, she harvested a wonderful bounty – garlic, Asian pears, beets, kale, green beans, parsley, ground cherries, and even okra. During the height of the okra season, she was harvesting and cooking it in delicious ways almost every day. God’s Creation enables us to taste and see that God is good.
My wife Mayumi harvesting okra from our garden that she will cook later. Through her careful tending, the garden produced wonderful food again this past year.
2. Earthkeepers Podcast: Early in 2022, James Amadon and Forest Inslee interviewed me for their Earthkeepers Podcast, a production of Circlewood. Circlewood is an organization in the Pacific Northwest that is working to accelerate the greening of the Christian faith. I first interviewed James for this blog back in 2017 when he was still early on in his move from being a church pastor to becoming Circlewood’s executive director. I’m delighted to see that his gifts are bearing so much fruit. I was also honored that I would be chosen to be interviewed. Through the Earthkeepers Podcast, James and Forest are interviewing fascinating people on the edge of faith and ecology.
3. Good and Brave People: In 2022 I had a good conversation with the elder of a church in Davenport, Iowa. He had given a sermon about the Biblical basis and faithfulness of Creation care. He had been nervous but felt compelled to bring up the topic. We need more brave people like him.
Through my work and my own personal seeking, I continue to have the chance to encounter brave farmers. They are willing to go against the current of conventional practices and raise crops in ways that minimize harm to God’s earth. These same ways produce excellent, healthy products, from vegetables and meat to grains and flowers. Farmers like these put their livelihoods on the line in their choice of how they will raise food to sell. Their faith and values are profoundly inspiring to me.
This sign at Broadview Farm in Marengo, Illinois, highlights an area planted with sunflowers specifically to feed goldfinches. I’ve been fortunate to meet many farmers who keep the life of God’s world in mind as they plan the uses of their farm.
Over the past years I’ve had the opportunity work with and help a number of public conservation and forest preserve districts work to improve the sustainability of their farmland management systems. These are public organizations with thousands of acres of farmland which have largely been farmed with a chemical-reliant, production-first approach for decades. I have been blessed to work with staff who care deeply about the land and water under their management.They are creatively advocating within their institutions to move more earth-friendly farming requirements forward. They do this even when others in their institutions don’t get it. I admire them.
During a 2022 field walk at a farm field owned and managed by the Forest Preserve District of Will County, participants were shown a prairie strip planted perpendicular to the downward slope of the field. The strip provides habitat for wildlife while slowing erosion from farmed land.
4. Food Forest and Land Stewardship Near Galesburg: This summer, my wife, eldest son, and I visited friends who had purchased some beautiful land near Galesburg. Just one of the ways they are tending this land is by replacing conventional corn and bean fields with trees that will produce nuts and fruit. They have a long-term vision and love the land very much. Their willingness to try new things, work hard, and build community inspired us greatly.
Our friend Craig showing us one of the chestnuts he and his wife planted on their land near Galesburg.
5. Positive News in the World: In the midst of many negative forces, we cannot forget that Creation, when given the chance, can begin to rebound. Check out this story about the response of nature in New York Harbor, which used to be a cesspool of pollutants. A key point to remember is that in a world in which we are all tempted to sin, good regulations and laws are needed.
We can also forget that people can push for decency and goodness in their society….and succeed. Check out news of this ruling in Maryland that preserves the right of homeowners to garden and landscape in ways that enable nature to thrive. A brave couple made that happen.
6. Birds of the Garden: We had three surprise avian visitors this year to our largely naturally landscaped yard. Two were birds – a nuthatch and red-bellied woodpecker – that came to the bird feeder and thrive around trees. After 19 years, our yard has three bur oaks, a pin oak, and two hackberries that are all of decent size. I particularly appreciated the nuthatch. It is able to descend headfirst down the trunk of a tree with perky little movements. Its upturned beak is perfectly suited for seeking out food in the nooks and crannies of tree bark. It also, as this excellent article explains, stockpiles seeds in the bark of trees for accessing later.
The third bird was a red-tailed hawk. It somehow caught a rabbit, despite the restricted air space of our small property. The hawk consumed the rabbit on top of a rain barrel with little concern for the sensibilities of the people looking at it from their dining room.
This red-tailed hawk has the remains of a rabbit on the top of the rain barrel in our yard during a rain day. (Our son Owen snuck up close to get this picture)
7. Thought-Provoking Books: There were two books I read in 2022 about Christianity and Creation that were so thought-provoking that I read them twice – Victoria Loorz’s Church of the Wild and Norman Wirzba’s This Sacred Life. I’m grateful to the authors, their editors, and their publishers for producing these books.
This book was insightful and moving. it also used language far from traditional conceptions of Christianity. I
8. Inspired Words: I continue to find inspiration (and challenge) in reading the Bible. Thanks to my interview with John Kempf, I now have Job 12: 7-10 indelibly etched into my consciousness. How much better would we be faithful servants of God if we actually did ask the beasts, the birds, the bushes, and the fishes of the sea and were willing to listen and learn from them? What if we remembered that our lives and the livings of all living things are in the hand of the God? We are created kin.
What are you grateful for in 2022?
Write those things down. Talk about them. Feed your heart and soul with them. Share them if you would.
Are you using some of the monetary blessings you’ve received from God for Creation care?
Yes, recycling, greening your house’s energy, Creation-friendly landscaping, and eating foods that come from God-honoring forms of agriculture are all ways you can live a more holy, more whole faith-life.
But you should also look for ways to have impact beyond your personal sphere. Giving to organizations doing good work for God’s earth is a meaningful and satisfying way to do so.
Giving for Creation’s protection and restoration represents a tiny proportion of American philanthropy. According to Giving USA 2022: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2021, giving towards the environment and animal welfare represented just 3% of all American philanthropy in 2021. Just 3%.
What’s also striking is that individual giving still outweighs foundation and corporate giving by a long shot. Big gifts and grants by foundation and corporations may make you think your gifts aren’t significant. But they are. In 2021, 67% of giving came from individuals. If you include bequests, then the percentage grows to 76%.
Your personal giving matters.
It’s vital that Christians give more to organizations making a difference for Creation. Creation matters to God. Damage to Creation has been compounding for decades and even centuries. Fostering and fighting for healthy, vibrant Creation is a way to honor God. It also is indispensable for giving Creation and the people (that’s all of us) who depend on it.
We cannot say we love God and our neighbors and simultaneously stand by while God’s earth is spoiled. Our neighbors, now and in the future, need a living world if they are to have breath, health, food, play, and heart-opening spiritual wonder. And each living creature has its own value to God who feeds ravens and sustains lions.
I urge you to make gifts for the protection and restoration of God’s Creation as 2022 comes to an end.
To help you do that, here are some tips on thoughtful, impactful giving for Creation care. My wife Mayumi and I have been giving significantly to organizations and causes working for Creation for more than a decade. I also have worked for environmental non-profits for over two decades and served as a fundraiser for over 10 years. I believe you will find at least one useful nugget in what you read below:
Tip #1 – Budget (and Bank) for Giving
You’re unlikely to be a committed and effective giver, if you don’t plan to give.
In keeping with one of the key principles my wife and I learned from the Financial Peace University course of David Ramsey, we create a budget each month that reflects unique income and expense factors we can forecast. We specifically budget a set amount for giving to the church my wife attends and for general giving as well. Our total giving usually represents a little under 10%. We want to do better than that in 2023.
Each month we transfer the general giving allocation into a separate “Giving” bank account. Then, when we make charitable giving decisions, we transfer the gift money back into our checking account for offsetting the check we write or the credit card expense.
By budgeting for giving, we commit ourselves to giving. By holding the general giving funds in a separate account, we protect those funds from other uses. We also feel peace of mind when making the gifts because we know the money is there specifically for that purpose.
Tip #2 – Commit to Giving to Creation Care
If you’re still reading this (and I hope at least some people are!), then you care deeply about Creation. You care about the streams, oceans, mountains, prairies, rain forests, and even the teeming rhizospheres of God’s earth.
So don’t just have those abstract values. Apply those value to your giving. Carve out significant giving for Creation-related causes when you work through your giving plan for a year.
I would suggest this complementary tenet as well – the less your church does around speaking and acting for Creation the more you should give for Creation care beyond the church. Ideally, your church will be an outpost of God’s kingdom where our Creator God is worshipped and where people and Creation are cared for in creative ways. But if our human duty and joy of prospering Creation is neglected by our churches, then our whole faith will prompt us to want to compensate for that neglect.
Even if your church does integrate God’s earth into its life and culture, I still urge you to give for the care of Creation. Giving is acting. Generous giving for the keeping of God’s earth is a fruit of genuinely loving our Creator God.
Tip #3 – Be Organized and Do Your Homework
I keep a spreadsheet for tracking what we have given to different groups each year. The spreadsheet I’ve developed also allows my wife and I to figure out the best allocation of giving funds we have set aside. And when I come across new groups over the course of the year, I’ll add them to the spreadsheet to look into further at a convenient time. I also find a holding spot for flyers and solicitations.
However I hear of a group, I will begin my research with a visit to their website. Later, I may check out their social media feeds as well subscribe to their email newsletter. From a website you can get a pretty good idea of who the people are of the organization (including board members), what their programs are, and what their mission is. With most groups you will find an annual report on their website as well which should give a good and clear outline of what the group is doing.
In all that you read, look for purposefulness and tangibility. What are their specific strategies and programs? Do they seem well organized? What specifically are they trying to accomplish and how are they doing so? Be cautious about groups that have stirring language but do not communicate concretely what they are doing.
In short, take some time to do your homework before writing a check. But also accept the fact that sometimes you can’t fully know the true nature of an organization until you make that first gift and then have more contact with them.
Tip #4 – Give Across Several Categories of Creation Care
I suggest allocating your Creation care giving across the following four categories::
A. Christian Organizations Engaged in Creation Care: We like to support Christian organizations fostering a knowledge of Creation and a culture of Creation stewardship. Two excellent examples are Au Sable Institute and Plainsong Farm. Another group we are likely to begin giving to this year is A Rocha, a family of Christian conservation organizations around the world.
Located just north of Grand Rapids (Michigan), Plainsong Farm uses sustainable farming and Christian community building to experiment towards a healing practice of Christian faith fully integrated with the care of Creation.
To learn more about Au Sable Institute, visit its website and check out the interview with its executive director (Jon Terry) in our September 2022 blog post.
I look for organizations in this space that are: (1) clearly Christian in identity, (2) doing tangible things on the land and with people, and (3) unapologetically convinced that Creation is an essential element of the Christian faith-life.
B. Local and Regional Groups: By supporting conservation and advocacy groups who work near you, you support Creation where you live. Even if where you live doesn’t seem as wildly beautiful as the Rocky Mountains or the Amazon, your neighborhood, state, and region still need keeping and regeneration.
Every square inch of Creation matters.
It shouldn’t be hard to find a number of local groups to choose from. Land trusts are often a very good option as they protect land from development (through land purchases and holding easements) and steward the land they own. There are also often groups advocating for rivers and watersheds as well. One recent subscriber to this website’s email feed shared news of the river group he works for in his semi-retirement – New River Conservancy. I worked for Friends of the Chicago River for four years, too. Water and watersheds unite everything.
And, of course, there are many other options, like local chapters of the Audubon Society. If you have a friend who is involved in conservation in the area, I’d encourage you to talk with them and get their inside scoop on which organizations are doing the best work around you.
C. National and International Groups: I was tempted to make a distinction between national and international groups, but quite often groups working at a national scale also work beyond national borders. My main insight here is to look for groups doing on-the-ground conservation and protection of Creation and to also look for groups addressing laws and policies that shape how Creation is treated by individuals, states, nations, and corporations.. An example of an on-the-ground conservation group working at a national and international scale is The Nature Conservancy, which generally avoids policy issues and anything smacking of politics. Examples of more policy-level, advocacy-type organizations are the Natural Resources Defense Council and Earth Justice. We need both types.
One challenge is that the larger a group is the harder it is for the organization to tangibly and clearly explain their activities and impacts. Large organizations can make bigger mistakes and lose sight of their core mission and values. Larger organizations also find it hard to avoid doing fundraising in a bureaucratic, impersonal way. This tends to turn me off, but then I ask whether they are filling a unique niche and doing a great deal of good. If they are, I accept who they are. World Wildlife Fund and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society are examples of international groups that fill vital niches and work pretty hard at communicating their impact clearly. Are they perfect? No. But on balance they are doing good and unique things.
D. Where People & Creation Meet: Let me give you an example of this kind of giving. Check out People and Carnivores. This group primarily works in the northern Rocky Mountains where its staff offer creative solutions for preventing human-carnivore conflicts. The organization does this by devising and supporting the use of special technologies and hacks that keep carnivores from hurting people and people’s property in non-lethal ways.
This might seem a little less sexy than a group buying and restoring a 1,000-acre ranch. But, in my eyes, the group is tackling a dimension of a fundamental human-Creation challenge. How do we live with wild creatures, especially those who can hurt us, as humanity spills into previously wild places? The technologies and cultural work that People and Carnivores develop have bigger lessons for us all.
Another very local example that my wife and I also support is COOL Learning Experience. This non-profit, operating out of the First Baptist Church of Waukegan, Illinois, provides summer camp opportunities for children and youth who would otherwise not have those opportunities. What makes it fit in with the Creation care theme is that its leader – Barbara Waller – has integrated nature learning and appreciation into the program from the beginning. This is because Barbara loves Creation and wants all children, not just those who are well off, to have exposure to nature.
Preserving wide open and wild spaces and the nature that lives there is very important. But cultivating better nature-people relations in our everyday interactions is also critical. I would especially urge you to support organizations working to foster farming that treat God’s earth with care and respect. Agriculture impacts Creation and people in a multitude of significant ways. A good example of a nonprofit organization working in this space is the Land Stewardship Project. LSP, which works across the state of Minnesota, has an excellent newsletter and podcast.
My last point – listen to your heart in your giving choices and categories. What Creation issues especially resonate with you? Is it a particular place? Is it a particular animal or habitat? Is there a person who has a creative idea around Creation Care who could use some resources to further explore their calling? Express who you uniquely are and what aspect of Creation speaks to you through your giving.
Tip #5 – Patiently Discern, Learn, and Build Relationships
Mayumi and I tend to start our giving relationship with an organization off cautiously with a small first gift. We’ll then read their communications carefully and track how they handle their fundraising process from there. If we like what we see, we gradually increase our giving. If we don’t, we’ll likely end the relationship or plateau our giving.
Personal thank yous say a great deal about the organization’s commitment to appreciation to donors and to the culture of that organization. Conversely, a million followup fundraising requests are a big turnoff to me.
I also encourage you to pay attention to the content of the communications coming from the group. Well written? Communicating tangible impacts? Honest about challenges they are facing? Regular? Generally speaking, groups other than very small non-profits should have a regular newsletter (email or print) or at least an annual report. If the only thing you get is fundraising letters, then I would recommend terminating that giving relationship. This is something we’ve done a number of times. Don’t feel bad. It’s all part of the learning process.
I’d also recommend attending an event or webinar that the group offers. Those will give you a sense of the culture and character of the group.
Welcome calls and letters from the group’s representatives as long as they are respectful of your time and boundaries. Ideally, they will thank you and be curious about your interest in the work they are doing. Ask them questions in return. Why does that person work or volunteer for the group? What is the biggest challenge that group is facing around the issues it is working on? Listen for candidness and authenticity. Share that you are motivated to give by your faith. Down the road, the group may want to meet with you as a way to ask for more and larger gifts. That is normal. Determine what feels comfortable to you.
The biggest point of discernment needs to be paying attention to the language and rhetoric of each group. Fundraisers for non-profits are tempted to exaggerate what their group accomplished and to not acknowledge the degree to which accomplishments were the results of partnerships with other groups. Good groups give credit to their partners and don’t claim far more mission impact than they really are having. Even “statistics” can be deceiving. Again, this is oftentimes not intended to be deceptive. It can be hard to calculate exactly what impact an organization’s work has over time, and non-profits are pressured to generate metrics of impact.
Tip #6 – Rebuke, Instruct, and Forgive
I guarantee that any non-profit organization you support will do something that you disagree with or are disappointed by at some point.
It goes with being human.
We know from the Bible there is not one who is without sin. And when you put together lots of sinful people together in a complex organization, the likelihood of problems, issues, and mistakes rise exponentially. You’re probably not surprised by this when it comes to government or corporations. But I’ve found that when idealistic organizations committed do those kinds of things, people tend to be even more outraged.
What I encourage you to do is be a wise Christian when you experience the sting of disappointment.
This starts with assessing the situation carefully. Is the issue a human mistake in an organization stretched very thin? Did the organization apologize sincerely about the issue or mistake? Have changes been made? Is the issue systemic or just a fluke or something that can be addressed by changing a staff person?
Part of your wise Christian ethics should also be sharing your rebuke with the nonprofit. Let them know you are hurt, frustrated, or even angry by what they have done or not done. Proverbs is full of statements asserting the value of rebukes, advice, and instruction. Jesus also rebuked people and groups frequently. A rebuke expressed out of love and common values is actually a gift. It gives the organization, especially one you have given to repeatedly, the opportunity to repent, learn, and get better.
A Christian is also ready to forgive when forgiveness is asked for and even if it is not. Once you have shared your rebuke and expressed your hurt, give it to God and decide with calmness and prayer whether you should continue to support the group. You may want to put a pause for a year and see if they change. You may want to give less. You may decide to stop altogether. It all depends on whether that issue was minor and temporary or major and systemic.
In short, don’t stop giving because of one small mistake. And don’t keep giving regardless of how serious the organization’s problems are. Apply wisdom and the fruits of the spirit and look at the situation as a whole.
Tip #7 – Be Generous Once You Find a Really Good Organization
Once you’ve given to an organization a few times and you have a good sense of their efficacy, professionalism, and commitment to good philanthropy, then I’d encourage you to ramp up your giving over time.
It’s good, of course, to give any amount. But impactful gifts around issues and topics that you care about are more meaningful. They also simplify your giving and records. We give a variety of small gifts, some medium-scale gifts, and several larger gifts each year. When we give a large gift to an organization we’ve gotten to know and believe in, it feels really good. It really does. And, it feels even better, when there is some kind of personal expression of gratitude from the group.
And when you find a really good organization with good leadership, staff, and programs, consider making monthly gifts to them instead of one lump sum at the end of the year. This makes their budgeting easier – imagine if all of your annual income came in December! Also consider including them in your estate plans.
Happy to Help!
Would you like to talk through your plans and questions in giving for the stewardship of God’s Creation? I’d be happy to talk by phone.
When I began writing this blog post, it was not my intention of offer to talk with readers about giving. But I’ve realized in the writing of this that I am more experienced in non-profit organizations, fundraising, and philanthropy than I realized. I would like to help people like you be effective and happy in your giving for God’s earth.
You can reach out to me at wholefaithlivingearth@gmail.com.
P.S. If you have a charity you especially like, please share it as a comment so we can all learn from your experience. Happy giving!
Nathan believes that a whole Christian faith includes an imperative for us, individually and collectively, to actively show God’s earth mercy and compassion every day. For more than 15 years, he has worked for non-profit conservation groups that restore and protect natural habitats, change the relationship people have with nature, and promote sustainable farming. To learn more, click here.
