The first RE:FORM Conference 2009 promotional video is out. Click to watch this fast-moving video that really captures the heart of what RE:FORM is doing.
This year’s conference will be at the Cedar Ridge Community Church just outside of Baltimore, MD on September 16-18. Check out this month’s edition of Charisma magazine to read a feature news story about the conference.
This year’s format will be the more equipping and engaging than in year’s past and will feature some great practitioners who are equally adept at imparting vision and inspiring you to take action in your church.
Registration is now available at our new RE:FORM website, as is hotel and accommodations information.
Main session speakers includes Mark Foreman (pastor of Northcoast Calvary Church in Carlsbad, CA), Leroy Barber (director of Mission Year in Atlanta and local church pastor), Tri Robinson (RE:FORM founder and senior pastor of the Boise Vineyard), and back by popular demand, Rob Morris (founder of Love146).
Stay tuned for more information on workshops and tracts on the issues of human injustice, environmental decline and the spiritual confusion that exists in our world today.
Filed Under (Creation Care) by Raymond Randall on 18-06-2009
Christianity Today has a new site called BuildingChurchLeaders.com. The site has a new resource called “Growing a Green Church.” The resource is a pack of nine, one-page assessments, designed to help church leaders evaluate different aspects of their church’s emphases on creation care and impact on the environment. They created the assessments by adapting excerpts from a few books on creation care as well as a manual for churches published by the EPA’s ENERGY STAR for Congregations division. There are a lot of practical ideas and strategies packed into this concise document. Check it out! — Raymond Randall, head of Northland’s Creation Care Task Force
Filed Under (Creation Care) by Robert Andrescik on 29-05-2009
Tri Robinson, who spoke at Northland’s C3 conference, and partnered with Dr. Hunter to create the Creation Care for Pastors Toolkit, has just opened up a new blog. Here are details:
Through our Let’s Tend the Garden website, many of you have signed up for our environmental newsletter. However, as we began to explore social justice issues surrounding the environment, we discovered there needed to be a broader platform to address these issues and how they were all interconnected. That platform is now here and it’s called RE:FORM.
RE:FORM is the new networking ministry of the Vineyard Boise that seeks to link like-minded churches with agencies and parachurch organizations that are already involved in addressing seven identifiable areas of world crisis: Environmental decline, social justice, poverty and world hunger, poor health and disease, education and illiteracy, corrupt and immoral leadership, and spiritual deadness and confusion. We recognize in some way or another, these issues are all related. We also know that while you may not be able to address all of them through your church or organization, a little collaboration goes a long way in making a greater impact in reducing the affects of these crisis.
So, we proudly present to you the RE:FORM blog, which we hope will be a regular gathering point for those who care about these issues to discuss different topics, share ideas and join together to make a difference in these areas of crisis for the purposes of seeing God’s Kingdom advanced.
DULUTH, Ga. (Associated Baptist Press) — A member of President Obama’s advisory council on faith-based partnerships says pastors are key to winning the hearts and minds of evangelicals when it comes to caring for the environment.
Joel Hunter, pastor of Northland Church in Lakewood, Fla., said May 13 at a conference promoting “creation care” that it is important to get pastors “equipped and empowered in order to care about this issue.”
Hunter, author of A New Kind of Conservative, said pastors care passionately about people and about serving Christ, but many are insecure about losing their jobs.
“A lot of pastors feel like they are two bad sermons from, ‘Do you want fries with that?’” Hunter told evangelical leaders meeting May 13-15 at Cross Pointe Church in Duluth, Ga. “So we stay away from controversial subjects unless we see them as necessary for spiritual maturity for our people and unless we know facts.” Read the rest of this entry »
This educational mini-documentary reveals how faith, science, art, and conservation voices are joining together to discuss the threat of climate change to wildlife and talk about hope for the future. It features several Christian leaders including Northland’s senior pastor, Dr. Joel C. Hunter.
SustainLane.com is the web’s largest people-powered guide to sustainable living. The hub of SustainLane Media’s offerings, SustainLane.com is filled with personal accounts of how-tos, news, and local business and product reviews for sustainable living.
The site connects interested consumers with the tools and information on everything related to green, including:
The largest directory of local, green-friendly businesses in the United States with over 20,000 small business listings;
Consumer-generated how-tos, news and product reviews of new green offerings in the marketplace; and
A community of likeminded individuals willing to share information and personal experiences with each other.
The Flourish Conference—May 13-15, at Cross Pointe Church, Duluth, GA—will be a tremendous time of learning and collaboration for pastors, church leaders, congregants and students who are either engaged in furthering the concept of actively caring for God’s creation, or those who are curious what this idea is all about. Featuring Dr. and Mrs. Joel C. Hunter, the speaker list is a “who’s who” in the evangelical community and promises to deliver great teaching. More and more churches and denominations are starting to realize that Scripture calls us to care for His creation more than we’ve been doing, and this conference will dispel the myths about Creation Care, provide examples of practical application, and be a time of encouragement for those on the forefront of this topic.
This site is to serve pastors who are interested in a growing emphasis within the Christian community called “Creation Care”: applying biblical principles of stewardship to the environment we share with all living things. The organizers of the site explain: “We like the word “creation” even better than the word ‘environment’ because it includes all that makes the earth a wonderful place, and it reminds us it’s all a gift, a sacred trust from the hands of the Creator.”
At www.creationcareforpastors.com, you can order copies the creation care starter kit for busy pastors. This includes a booklet titled Creation Care: An Introduction for Busy Pastors, and Saving God’s Green Earth by Tri Robinson with Jason Chatraw, two pastors who have implemented biblical principles of stewardship regarding the creation in their local church.
Could I really have a concern or passion for our environment, and our earthly resources? Surely not, because that would clearly mean I would have to forsake my chosen political party; abandon my affinity for capitalism; scoff at the cable news channel and AM radio talk show hosts I’ve enjoyed for years; endure the ridicule of my Christian friends who think I’ve gone off the deep end; and maybe even adopt a tree or lease a pontoon boat with which I can circle oil tankers during spring breaks with my family. That all seems so unappealing and unrealistic; yet recently God has been leading me to be a better steward of His creation. Read the rest of this entry »
The first RE:FORM Conference 2009 promotional video is out. Click to watch this fast-moving video that really captures the heart of what RE:FORM is doing.
