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.
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!
My tendency, as you’ve seen from my past blog posts, is to think big picture. I learn towards theology, ideas, trends, analysis of verses,patterns of people marring God’s Creation, and patterns of people regenerating God’s Creation through ingenuity and commitment and faith.
In this post, I go in a different direction. I share some moments in my life in the month of April that relate in some way to God’s earth.
April 10 – I volunteer along with other residents here in the Prairie Crossing conservation community to burn several sections of the prairies and other habitats of our community’s common areas. Our burn leader – Jim O’Connor – takes extreme care in the planning of the burns so that homes are never in danger. Jim also keeps track of when areas are burnt. It’s not good to burn at the same time of the year every time. Prescribed burns are essential to keep prairies healthy.
April 16 – This is the same area six days after the burns on April 10. Look carefully in the bottom left corner of the image. Can you see the mound that has a different texture than everything around it? And can you see the robin just to the right of the mound? The mound is that of a colony of prairie ants (likely Formica montana). With the weather warming, the ants had begun to appear on the surface. And that had drawn the robin which had been scarfing them down like a famished guest consuming a tray of hors d’oeuvres. Prairie ants play an important role in prairie ecology and provided a useful, high-protein, high-fiber diet supplement for the robin early this cold spring. I wonder what King Solomon would make of this.
April 19 – Many residents in Prairie Crossing have native habitats on their own properties as well. Here Jim O’Connor (yes, he is everywhere) and Bill Pogson (not in the picture) are helping me burn the natural habitats of our yard. Further down the alley we have a small open prairie. Here we have three oaks whose leaves burn nicely, contributing the fire ecology of the habitat. Prairie Crossing HOA regulations require us to have at least 3 adults carry out any burn and to also make sure that the weather is suitable for a burn that day. Burning together with neighbors brings us together. After the burn was completed (and perhaps inspired by the beer), Jim expertly recited portions of a Robert Burns’ poem.
April 21 – Any ideas what this is? A lunar landscape perhaps? It’s been a wet month. Rain the previous day turned some eroded soil along the edge of Harris Road near our non-profit organization’s office into mud. These are worm trails visible early on a weekday morning. The ephemeral trails were ever so faint traces of creatures whose lives are usually invisible to us.
April 21 – Another burn in a Prairie Crossing common area. My friend and neighbor Bill Pogson uses a drip torch to spread the flame. Earlier we had burned to the right of the image so the flames you see that are being pushed by the wind will only go a short distance and then run out of fuel. I had more work to do at the office that Friday afternoon, but I felt I needed to help out as good burn weather can often be rare. Glad I did. The needs of people and nature don’t always fit in nicely with our plans for a day.
April 25 – It’s a weekday night, and Mayumi and I need to figure out what to make for dinner in a hurry. We had leftover basmatic rice I had made over the weekend, so Mayumi created a quick stir-fried rice dish with organic peas, onions, carrots, and pasture-raised eggs.
April 25 – Gus, one of our two cats, enjoying a nap in covers we’ve pulled up around him. I believe our love of our pets and how our homes feel much better with plants in them remind us of something profound we see in Genesis – we are meant to be in a state of shalom with the rest of life.
April 26 – Our small garden at the south end of our home. You can see the compost bins in the background. To the right of the bin is a choke cherry and a shagbark hickory, both native woody plants. And at the right edge of the image is an Asian pear tree. The abundance of vegetation you see in the garden itself is winter rye, a cover crop that my wife Mayumi planted last fall to build the soil. The winter rye stayed green all winter, and with all of the rain, it is now growing quickly, which means it is pumping dissolved sugars (liquid carbon) into the soil which feeds the microbes and fungi there. This is our first time using cover crops in these beds. We keep trying to learn.
April 27 – It’s not exactly in my job description, but on this Wednesday I led a tour of our farm and Prairie Crossing for ~40 students of AP Human Geography classes from a local high school. Here my colleague Meg Runyan explains how she gets 8,000+ plants germinating and growing in our greenhouse for our annual organic plant sale. Earlier I had shared why it makes such a big difference to human health and nature how food is farmed. One of the teachers said at the end of the tour, almost as an aside, that just reading about sustainabilty has little impact and meaning. Youth need to experience what it actiually looks like.
I also gave a sermon to the North Suburban Mennonite Church and Christ Community Mennonite Church on the Sunday after Earth Day. In preparation for the sermon I reviewed my notes from a book I had found inspiring some years agao –The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church by Alan Hirsch. A quote I found that I couldn’t squeeze into the sermon that I still find compelling and want to share is:
“To say this more explicitly, there is no such thing as sacred and secular in biblical worldview. It can conceive of no part of the world that does not come under the claim of Yahweh’s lordship. All of life belongs to God, and true holiness means bringing all the spheres of our life under God.”
One of the ways we can live out a whole Christian faith-life, whether as families or as communities of faith, is to restore and maintain natural habitat on our own properties.
Whether or not we do so matters.
Without natural habitat – without food to eat and places to find shelter – much of the wildlife of God’s earth cannot survive.
Restoring habitat usually and primarily means replacing lawn with vegetation that is native to your particular place. But if your property already has areas that you do not keep as lawn or garden, then restoring habitat can also involve removing invasive plant species and, again, planting more native plant species.
To inspire you, I want to share the video below of a presentation by Stephen Barten entitled “Backyard Wildlife: If you Build It, They Will Come.” He gave this presentation for the non-profit group Chicago Living Corridors through the Barrington Library in October.
Stephen, a veterinarian and award-winning wildlife photographer, has been restoring his family’s property in the Barrington area for the last 25 years. In the ~75-minute presentation, he shares photos and trailcam footage of 70 species of mammals, insects, reptiles, amphibians, and birds that have been seen on their property.
If you’re like me, you’ll be gobsmacked by the sheer variety of creatures Stephen documents.
That experience of sharing their world with a wide vairety of creatures is something Jesus and the other people of the Bible would have understood. From bears and jackals to the white stork and partridge, the Bible is full of many references to wildlife in the air, on the land, and in the sea. We need to visualize the many shepherds in the Bible interacting with livestock, wildlife, and complex vegetation ecologies all of the time. We know, too, that King Solomon paid a great deal of attention to plants and wildlife as well. I suspect Solomon and Stephen would have a great time discussing their observations together, despite being native to two very different places.
You will also appreciate the insights Stephen provides about a number of the different species of wildlife he encounters. He even shares tips about living with some of that wildlife, like what to do if you find a fawn.
Stephen and his family do benefit from living within two blocks of a lake and from living in a wooded area with few homes. If you are living in a dense city area or subdivision, you will likely not be able to attract flying squirrels and mink no matter how much habitat you restore. But you will still see God’s creatures and help sustain them.
Now is the time to plan for what you will do with your personal property or church’s property in 2022.
Study the habitats of your area. Figure out where you will source native plants for planting in the spring. Get help from someone who knows those plants in designing your habitat. Remove and treat invasive woody brush (like Stephen describes in his presentation). Start small to get the knack of it all. Plan to plant some native plants (even just a few oak trees) in the spring. Get ready by spring.
There are a wide variety of resources available for learning about native plants and restoring habitat to your property. The organization Wild Ones is a good place to start. I would also highly recommend Doug Tallamy’s book Bringing Nature Home. (And if you don’t have your own property, volunteer to help create and restore habitat at your church or another place.)
Will your property look a little different from your neighbors?
It may.
But work to retrain your eyes and cultural assumptions to be in line with God’s perspective. Ask yourself this question – what kind of culture and values does a yard (or a church landscape) really communicate when the plants there almost completely deprive the life of God’s earth life itself?
A well-designed yard that includes habitat and a bit of well-placed lawn, on the other hand, communicates something very different. That yard communicates that the people of that place care about God, the life of God’s world, and their human neighbors, too.
Enjoy. Learn. Grow. Embrace challenge. Show your love of God. Create habitat.
P.S. My wife and I have devoted much of our small property in Grayslake, Illinois, to native plants and maintain the prairie sections with occasional prescribed burns. We’ve been delighted to see cedar waxwings, cardinals, squirrels, chipmunks, voles, chickadees, goldfinches, toads, a variety of bees, monarch butterflies, hummingbirds, house wrens, rabbits, Cooper’s hawk, and a red-tailed hawk eating a rabbit. And, honestly, we’re still learning as we go.
Here is an image of the habitat around our small home just after a late summer rain. Native shrubs and trees are great additions to your home landscape. This section of our yard includes native trees like hackberry and bur oak. There are also native shrubs like elderberry, serviceberry, nannyberry, and witherod viburnum. A native habitat landscape in Arizona would, for example, look very different. Please share images of the habitat you create on your property with me at wholefaithlivingearth@gmail.com.
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.
