Corhaven is a 17 acre slice of earth, given to our community to steward well for the purposes of God which includes stewarding well the land itself.  Peter Harris is the founder and international director of A Rocha (their motto “Christians in Conservation”), a well known and long standing organization which has led in the evangelical environmental movement and many community based conservation projects around the world.  I came to his breakout session because I’m keen on finding Corhaven’s niche in providing a place not only where we can care for God’s creation, but also invite others into the resource God has given us for learning, experience, and acts of discipleship related to stewarding God’s world.

This isn’t a direct quote from Peter, but it’s close enough:  “It’s a different world in the US in the church’s embrace of environmental stewardship as Christian discipleship. There’s been dramatic change in this in the last 20 years.   There are now 40-50 environmental organizations that are specifically Christian in the US working on these issues.  The Spirit of God is doing this around the world, and the internet has helped an immense amount.  It’s a bushfire.  At the same time, it’s no longer possible to ignore that we’re living in a crisis, and the poorest of the poor bear the brunt of it, with the mortality rates to demonstrate it.”

It’s this last line that connects creation care and justice.  To be pro-creation is actually to be pro-life, to care for creation is to care for people.