One day I was checking my church mailbox and I was pleasantly surprised to find a copy of the September/October 2022 edition of “gather” the magazine of Women of the ELCA. In the magazine there was an article written by Anna Madsen entitled, Take off your shoes. Humus and humanity go hand in hand calling us to be good stewards of God’s creation. I found out later the magazine placed in my mailbox was by a congregational member knowing I was the leader of our church’s Creation Care team. She specifically underlined a key part of the article rewritten below.

I’m left to wonder: What would happen if we took what Luther said, what is written in Exodus, and what is written in Matthew, and pulled it all together?

What would happen if we indeed did see God in the trees and the bushes and the dirt and the waters?

Would that change how we treat the earth?

Would that make us cherish rather than tarnish?

Would we care for creation because in doing so, we’d care for our Creator?

This effort, by our Bethlehem member, reminds me we need to continue raising awareness within our congregation to care for God’s creation. This awareness sometimes gets buried.

In our daily lives it is so easy to take God’s creation for granted. We all get absorbed in our day-to-day activities. This also happens in our church lives. There we also focus on the many good God’s work activities that provide great community service but we, many times, overlook that caring for God’s creation is also a stewardship responsibility.

With all the climate impacts and extremes, we are experiencing in the form of severe drought, flooding and temperature variations increasing global warming, God seems to be saying “Hey look what you are doing to my creation! You need to give more attention to caring for the creation.”

            My formal training as a civil engineer did not provide the basis for caring for our creation. It was not until I started working as an employee with the resource professionals at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources that the awareness lightbulb started to get bright. We have limited natural resources and need to be good stewards of God’s creation. As a result, one of the main focuses of the DNR is to provide educational resources to the public to build an awareness of the need to protect our resources.

            This should be no different for church congregations. Bethlehem’s Creation care team has that as our focus: to build a congregational awareness in caring for God’s creation.

            Over my thirty-four-year career as a DNR hydrologist I met with many members of the public that were purchasing, developing, or just purchased water frontage and came to my office to ask what they can do with their property. In most cases, I am convinced that members of the public want to do the right thing - if they only know what the right thing was. Building awareness seems to be the key.

Finally, the effort of placing a magazine article in my church mailbox, by a Bethlehem member, is a good reminder we need to continue raising awareness within our congregation to care for God’s creation. This I see as a good role for a Creation Care team. Otherwise, awareness gets buried.