Things We Ignore, Part 3

3) "Creation Care" or whatever you want to call it, no matter how much you object to it, has definite Biblical warrant. Pollution is not Christian. It never has been. God cares about His Creation. His first charge to us in Genesis was to assist Him in this.

It's taking me forever to post this series. Funny to read earlier how I was thinking of making this a daily blog. This is something I want to do, but I'm not there yet, am I? Here's the strange thing: the following is a testimony to God's timing on such things.

So, let me just pause here to say that if you're reading this, you're getting some advance information about me. The pastors and session of the church know the following, and have for a little while, and now you do. Just days from now, I'll be telling the church, so it's not that much of a scoop, still...

Anyway, I'm going to the South Pole. Yep. I'm going to be deployed by the Air Force to Antarctica for 50-55 days from late September to mid November of this year! I'm going in support of Operation Deep Freeze, a military mission of the Air National Guard and the Navy supporting the National Science Foundation in the nearly inhospitable climate of Antarctica. Now there's a lot I can write about concerning this, but let me here focus on what the scientists will be doing. For the most part they are researching the state of our planet and life itself. So, many weeks ago when I proposed this blog series, I had no idea that I would definitely have more to write about it in the coming months. My ministry will be to a community of scientists, contractors, and military support personnel that can grow up to a thousand people. I'll even have a chapel, the southernmost church building in the world. I'll be alone as chaplain and counselor except on weekends I'm told, when Catholic priests from New Zealand will join me to offer their services.

I thought I was just going to talk about Genesis 1-2 here, affirm Creationism, affirm the subsequent Creation Care Theology that necessarily flows from it, and leave it at that. How typical of God to bring His Word to life in a tailor-made way. I, of course, know that I will, for this comparably short deployment miss my home and church more than anyone at my home and church will miss me. God will use my absence to bless the church. I know that sounds funny, but I've been watching Him do that since I became pastor in 1998. I've always been both a chaplain and a pastor. Goodwill, especially her leaders, have always supported and sent me. It's helped our church. Now, maybe God is calling us to help others on a greater scale. A few of us have felt the tug to do a special work at Goodwill concerning hunger. Battling hunger involves working with Creation. The world's food supplies are one of the pressing issues of the 21st century. This is above political or ideological preferences. Our world is all tied together and Christians are called to be first in line to help.

Someone at our church said it best: "Creation Care means caring for people too..."

Pray for me as I learn more about Creation and caring for people this fall, in a place just about as far away from home as one can get and still be on the planet.