Our new summer series begins this Sunday, Staycation - What's God Doing Around You?
This week the message is centered around the theme of “Created.” We are inviting you to live the unhurried life this summer and look all around you for God sightings. It is as simple as seeing God’s presence and beauty in one another and in the created world around us and in our community. We will also look at how God has given us the responsibility to care for His Creation and cultivate His love, joy and peace in our relationships and in our world.
It’s exciting to be able to feature our friend and resident artist, Lindsay Walker-Edwards. God has gifted her with the ability to express creation through her paintings that even speaks of the purpose for which we have been created. This week on my Renew Vlog I will be talking with Lindsay about her creative process and how we've been created to create with our Creator and what it looks like to be stewards of the creation God has put all around us. We especially love how she and Mike are teaching the next generation this way of Life with God. Click on the links below for this week’s videos and don’t forget to share it!
Pastor Tammy
Encounter: Find a quiet place to spend a few minutes with these scriptures and watching the video links below. Read Genesis 1:26-28, 2:15 along with Exodus 35:31-33, Job 12:7-12, Psalm 19 and Romans 8:22-23. Begin to think about or journal any words or phrases that speak to the responsibilities and gifts God gives His people to create and care.
Reflect: Spend a few minutes looking at Lindsay's painting. What do you see? In Genesis, God put humans in a garden to cultivate and care for the creation. In Exodus, a person is gifted by the Spirit of God to be creative in crafting. We have been created in God's image like these humans were to reflect the image, the nature of who God is. Although their contexts were much different than ours today, what do you see as your "garden" to cultivate and care for? How are you being creative with your gifts and abilities? In what ways do you care for creation?
Spiritual Practice: Lindsay encourages us to be free to try painting, drawing or some other form of creativity as a way to "be" with God and open to fellowship in the presence of the Trinity: Father, Son & Holy Spirit. She uses a blank journal, painting on one side as she sits with God and scripture and then writes what comes to mind as her image becomes more clear. There is no pressure to do this "right." It's your time to draw close and be open to what God, the Master Artist reveals in and through you. Most of all, have fun, there's no test or grade given:)
Gather: Discuss the scriptures above and your answers as you reflected on our work to care for and allow our creativity to express God's love, joy and peace in this world. Is there something coming to mind that we could do together to bring life where there remains darkness. Begin to pray as a group and then pass on anything you hear together to Pastor Tammy who is gathering a team of people to enlarge our outreach and mission goals.
Further Reading:
Resources and Readings:
Makoto Fujimura: Refractions
The Artist’s Way - Julia Cameron
Francis Shaeffer - Pollution & The End of Man
EarthWise: A Guide to Hopeful Creation Care
Stewards of Eden: What Scripture Says About the Environment and Why It Matters Sandra L. Richter
Serving God, Saving the Planet: A Call to Care for Creation and Your Soul Matthew Sleeth
Our Angry Eden: Faith and Hope on a Hotter, Harsher Planet David Williams
Caring for Creation: The Evangelical’s Guide to Climate Change and a Healthy Environment Mitch Hescox & Paul Douglas
The Green Bible
The Life of Trees
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