Reach Volume 19, Summer 2021

ISSUE 19 | SUMMER 2021

wildfires, droughts and other climate related issues are becoming increasingly fficials say they hope for significant change within the primary industries con

udies show that local wildlife and their habitats provide a greater proportion

raph of energy solutions that the public will support regardless of the structur reditions are treated as gospel in the sense that essential services will be at th

IN THIS ISSUE...

LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR WHERE MISSION AND CREATION CARE MEET

CONTEXTUALISING THE GOSPEL MISSION IN A CHANGING CLIMATE

THE REALITY OF ECOLOGICAL GRIEF

www.pioneers-uk.org Reach

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Contents 02 THINGS ARE HOTTING UP A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

03 MAKE YOUR OWN DUST! 04 CONVERSION, MISSION AND THE GROANING CREATION

06 LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR 12 MITIGATION IDEAS 14 PRESERVING EDEN 16 WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR? 17 THE REALITY OF

ECOLOGICAL GRIEF

18 CONTEXTUALISING THE

Things are Hotting Up In November this year, hundreds of heads of state and climate experts will meet in Glasgow for the UN Climate Change Conference, commonly referred to as COP26. Their goal?

To decide where we go from here. After the historic Paris Agreement in 2015 (where 196 countries agreed to take action to reduce the effects of climate change by limiting the global rise in temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels), COP26 was set as the first milestone at which member nations are expected to ratchet up their commitment to making changes that will help mitigate climate change.

So what in the world does this have to do with Pioneers? Or with Christian mission? Or with Christian faith, for that matter?

Well, I’m glad you asked. You can find my answer on pages 6-11 of this edition of Reach...and you’ll find even better answers on the rest of the pages! I’m fully aware that climate change is a controversial topic - which is one reason why it’s so important for Pioneers to join the conversation. The hope is that, whatever your feelings about climate change, you will be encouraged and challenged and blessed. And most of all, we hope that thinking through these issues will inspire you toward greater involvement in God’s mission to the unreached.

GOSPEL FOR A CHANGING CLIMATE

Happy reading!

20 RESOURCES All unattributed photos are either owned by Pioneers or free for public use. The following photos were taken from unsplash.com: p2: Kunj Parekh; p9: Aiman Ahmed; p19: Raychel Sanner; p22: Rayia Soderberg. All icons are either owned by Pioneers or are licenced from Envato Elements.

The Warming Stripes COOLER

WARMER

The cover photo is actually a graph created by a University of Reading professor of climate science named Ed Hawkins. The stripes represent, in living colour, the rise in global temperature between 1901 and 2019. You can get a closer look at showyourstripes.info.

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Make your own dust!

BY STEPHEN, DIRECTOR OF PIONEERS UK

Three scientists addressed God, “Hey, God, we’ve come a long way and we don’t need you anymore.”

God: “Oh, really?”

One of them replied, “Yes! Now we’ve broken the genetic code, we can do anything. In fact, how about a contest to see who can make a human the fastest? You versus us.

What do you say?”

God (amused): “Sure.”

Very excited, one of the scientists went and grabbed a handful of dust to start. Instantly, a bolt of lightning struck the ground. Looking up, the scientist asked, “What was that for?”

God replied, “Make your own dust!”

Ever since Amanda suggested dedicating a Reach to the subject of creation care, I’ve had the thought ruminating away, ‘What might be the connections to planting the church amongst the world’s least-reached?’

I kept coming back to ‘dust’!

I choose to believe that the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. I picture God kneeling in the garden he himself had planted and getting his hands dirty physically forming Adam from Eden’s earth. Many times, I have spoken the words from Ecclesiastes at gravesides, From dust we came; to dust we shall return.

I am challenged by Jesus’ instructions to shake the dust from your feet of the towns who do not welcome the life-transforming message of the gospel. And I have been deeply moved to picture Jesus stooping and writing with his finger in the dust of the ground when confronted by angry men seeking the condemnation of a woman caught in her life of sin.

There’s something truly significant about even the dust of God’s created universe. From the vast panoply of the heavens to the very dust of our earth, the whole of creation declares the glory of God. Elizabeth Browning got it right when she wrote, ‘Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God, but only he who sees takes off his shoes.’ God’s whole creation is very special and deserves our care.

Creation also speaks to us of how we should care for its pinnacle. God help Pioneers to bring the dew of the Lord to those who dwell in the dust that they may wake up and shout for joy. ~ Reach

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Conversion, Mission and the Groaning Creation

BY DR DAVID SMITH

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ot a single day passes without some fresh evidence of the gravity of the crisis confronting the created world in the early twenty first century. As I begin writing this my newspaper reports the loss of many species of fish and marine life from the waters of the Tropics as rapidly warming seas cause the collapse of huge fish populations. At the same time, these conditions enable alien species, such as algae to thrive. Closer to home the evidence accumulates before our very eyes of the loss of native habitats and the reduction in once-familiar bird species, together with the decline of bees and insects which have been crucial within food chains and are integral to eco-systems. This global crisis has triggered rising concern and alarm across the planet, but especially among young people who increasingly worry about the prospects for a sustainable future both for them and their children.

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The key question here is what this issue has to do with the Christian faith, and especially with the missionary calling of the disciples of Jesus Christ? To dismiss the problem as being unrelated to Christianity is profoundly wrong since to do so risks the further marginalisation of faith as something irrelevant to the most pressing and urgent concerns of humankind. ‘Mission’ already appears to many thoughtful people as an antiquated concept associated with the colonial past, and if its contemporary advocates treat creation care as a distraction from their central concerns they will further undermine its credibility in the eyes of a generation prepared to take to the streets to protest the continuing rape of planet earth.

Even more significant is the plain fact that indifference to the future of God’s good creation is completely unbiblical since it goes against the grain of both the story of creation in the Hebrew Bible and distorts the New Testament vision of the calling of the People of God. Even to talk of ‘creation’ is to be reminded that this is God’s earth, the fruit of His creative handiwork in which He took delight from the very dawn of time. The earth and everything in it was gifted to the human family both as the source of life and well-being, and as the object of human care and delight. This theme can be traced through the Bible from beginning to end, showing up in some unlikely places. For example, when Job protests his innocence and faithfulness to God, he says: ‘If my land cries out against me and all its furrows are wet with tears, if I have devoured its yield without payment or broken the spirit of its tenants, then let briars come up instead of wheat and weeds instead of barley’ (31: 38-40).

This extraordinary image of the land weeping and groaning as the result of human injustice and greed may have been in Paul’s mind when he penned the wonderful eighth chapter of the letter to the Romans which may be the most crucial statement on creation care in the Bible. We cannot explore this text in detail here, but just notice the piling up

of phrases describing the integral relationship between the redemption of human beings and the renewal of the created world. That world shares with believers both the agonies of the Fall, and the joyous anticipation of ultimate restoration and transformation in Christ. The created world, Paul writes, ‘waits in eager anticipation… was subjected to frustration… will be liberated from its bondage to decay… is groaning as in the pains of childbirth’. Can any Christian who takes the Bible seriously read this passage and still treat creation care as being marginal, a passing fad with no relevance to mission?

It is sometimes said that the primary object of Christian mission is conversion and that nothing should ever deflect us from that central concern. I would agree with this claim, provided that our understanding of conversion and its consequences conforms to the description of integral mission we discover in Romans. Alas, we have too often overlooked the fact that the Letter to the Romans is a missiological document from start to finish. It is addressed to an urban church in the greatest city the world had ever seen at a time when the triumphant Roman Caesars claimed to have ushered in the era of universal peace and the renewal of all creation. The poet Virgil celebrated the arrival of a ‘golden age’ when imperial Rome would end war and bring human history to its destined conclusion. He praised the Emperor Augustus as the son of God under whose rule ‘this glorious age shall begin when any lingering traces of our guilt shall become void, and release the earth from its continual dread’!

Did Paul have this imperial propaganda in mind when he penned Romans 8? The commentator Robert Jewett writes that the apostle ‘cuts through this propagandistic nonsense to refer directly to the sufferings that believers should expect in following a suffering Christ’.1 That suffering arose from believers’ refusal to accept Roman idolatry and to insist

instead that the true source of redemption for both the human family and the created world was found in the man from Nazareth nailed to a Roman Cross! In other words, biblical creation care was an essential element in the radical message of the gospel and it provided both a challenge to Roman propaganda, and was the true source of the good news of the renewal of all things through Christ.

I conclude that creation care is not only integral to the faithful practice of mission in the twenty first century, but that it provides common ground between Christians and the millions of people across the earth who search with integrity and passion for answers to the big questions posed by our ecological crisis. This also means that it offers an opportunity to bear testimony to the Christ whose redemptive work points toward the renewal of all things, and in seizing this opportunity we may discover a path toward the renewal of Christianity itself in the discovery of the new paradigm of mission for which we have been searching. As Robert Jewett so beautifully puts it: ‘Paul intends the beleaguered believers in Rome to discern in the growing triumph of the gospel the initial evidence of the glory which will one day fill the creation. In the glowing faces around the circle of early Christian love feasts, the anticipatory evidence of this restoration could be seen’.

Dr David Smith is a former missionary to Nigeria and holds a PhD in Secularisation and Evangelicalism from Aberdeen University. He has served in leadership roles in several UK theological institutions and has made a significant contribution to missiological studies.

David’s most recent book is Stumbling Toward Zion: Recovering the Biblical Tradition of Lament in the Era of World Christianity.

The quotations form Robert Jewett are from his magnificent commentary on the Letter to the Romans: Romans: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007).

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love thy neighbour intersect with climate change, and what can we, as those who are called to go to all nations and make disciples, do about it?

BY AMANDA, EDITOR

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hen I decided to make creation care the theme of this edition of Reach, I frankly didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I knew that it was too important an issue to ignore, but I was wildly unaware of just how vast and far-reaching an issue it is. Thankfully, it quickly dawned on me that as a mission sending agency, our primary area of concern within the huge issue of climate change zeroes in on one question: Where does the Great Commission

Theologians and thinkers far more capable than I have very ably and clearly expounded on the many godly reasons that motivate Christians to look after what God has made.

Some suggest that the non-human parts of God’s creation will benefit—may even be an intended recipient of—His redemptive plan, citing passages like Psalm 19:1-6 (creation declares God’s glory), Hosea 4:1-3 (creation suffers because of sin), and Isaiah 11:1-9 (creation will rejoice in God’s salvation), amongst many others. Other Christian thinkers remind us that humanity’s original (and ongoing) vocation, clearly stated in Genesis 1:26, is to act as guardians and caretakers of all that God has made. Still others remind us that if God thinks the things he has made are “good” (Genesis 1 again), then it is our responsibility to honour and respect the Creator by looking after His creation. “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,” after all. So, they say, we should take care of it.

Photo: Flooding, Bangladesh, 2017 © Aminul Shawon, Bangladesh Red Crescent Society 66

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Admittedly, when I decided to get involved in caring for the environment, I had absolutely no clue about the theological reasons for creation care. I got involved with caring for the environment because: 1) the man I fancied (who I later married) was keen on environmental issues and I wanted to impress him (tick!); and 2) looking at the rationale for caring for the environment, I simply felt it was the right thing to do.

If you believe the scientists—and I didn’t see much reason not to—the earth is in trouble, and as a member of the only species who has the advantage of moral reasoning, I felt I had a responsibility to help protect it.

So I happily did my duty—recycling, litter picking, eating less meat, trying to stay away from single use plastics, donating to environmental charities, signing the occasional petition, etc.

‘After all’, I thought, ‘hundreds of plant and animal species are going extinct, the oceans are polluted, and sea birds and fish are filling their stomachs with plastic, thinking it’s food.’ I felt that I needed to do my part to rectify this. But while all of my environmental activity was good, I didn’t realise I was missing a key component. Then one day, a friend uttered a sentence that changed everything for me. She said:

problem withclimate climate change change isis that “The“The problem with that it it disproportionately the poor.” disproportionately affectsaffects the poor.”

With all of my focus on the oceans and the animals, I had never once considered that people are the part of God’s creation that ultimately need creation care. The poor and vulnerable of the world are the primary victims of climate change, especially from the perspective of my faith in Christ, and VERY especially from the perspective of my calling to share the love and truth of Christ with the unreached—those who don’t know Him and don’t have a way to hear about Him. Pioneers’ stated purpose is to “mobilise teams to glorify God among unreached people groups by initiating church planting movements in partnership with local churches.” But

who are these unreached peoples amongst whom we are seeking to initiate church planting movements? Much more often than not, they are the very same poor and vulnerable peoples who are most (and most disproportionately) affected by climate change.

It follows, then, that creation care and mission to the unreached are inextricably linked. In fact, I dare say, they’re two sides of the same coin. As the ‘very good’ pinnacle of God’s creative expression, mankind has not only been given the vocation of caring for the plants, animals, land, sea and sky, but also the blessed command to “Love one another.”

“Creation care and mission to the unreached are inextricably linked...”

So how is caring for the plants, animals, land, sea and sky related to loving our unreached global neighbour? Maybe this story will help: Amina is a single mother of three in Bangladesh—an overcrowded, low-lying country, in which only 0.3% of the people identify as followers of Jesus. The family recently fled their coastal village in southwest Bangladesh and are now living in a slum in the capital city of Dhaka, where Amina begs in order to feed her children and get healthcare for her youngest daughter who has a severe respiratory illness. Four years ago, four cyclones (what we call hurricanes) ripped through the Bay of Bengal in quick succession. In the first, Amina’s husband drowned trying to rescue their youngest child from a flash flood. The second and fourth cyclones flooded her village with salt water and washed away her crops. In previous years, when cyclones were fewer and less severe, the village had been able to recover from the occasional cyclone storm surge, but the frequency and intensity of these storms had given them no time to recover.

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Amina struggled to grow food the next year in the salty soil, and their well and rivers had become polluted, which led to her daughter’s respiratory trouble. Each subsequent year the village flooded again, and finally Amina had no choice but to flee to higher ground, knowing that there would be no land for her to farm, but hoping that life would improve for her family in the city.

Where did these devastating cyclones come from, and why were there so many more of them than normal? Large amounts of harmful greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have been released into the atmosphere by human activity over the past several decades.

These greenhouse gasses act as a blanket, surrounding the earth and trapping heat that would otherwise dissipate back into space. As the earth heats up, the polar ice caps melt, meaning that they have less capacity to do their work of reflecting the sun’s heat away from the earth’s surface. So instead of the ice caps reflecting the heat, the ocean absorbs it and becomes warmer. Warmer oceans create the conditions for more frequent and more intense weather events, like cyclones. So as the water in the Bay of Bengal heats up, the frequency and intensity of cyclones ramps up, and Amina

and her family are caught in the crosshairs.

You may be surprised to hear that climate change is not the cause of Amina’s troubles. After all, cyclones have always ripped through the Bay of Bengal. Low-lying coastal villages have always been prone to flooding. Respiratory diseases and natural disasters have always been killers. Nothing that has happened to Amina is new…and none of it is caused

by climate change. These extreme weather events (and the myriad other threats to human life and well-being, like disease, poverty, civil unrest, hunger, economic collapse, displacement, etc.) would exist with or without climate change. Climate change simply magnifies the threats that are already there. Like the coronavirus pandemic, climate change is what’s called a Threat Multiplier. It takes the problems faced by the poor and vulnerable and makes them worse—it makes them less bearable and often less survivable. So, in the case of Bangladesh, the usual threats that come with the occasional cyclone are magnified and multiplied when climate change quadruples the number of cyclones.

“Climate change ... takes the problems faced by the poor and vulnerable of the world and makes them worse.”

Unfortunately, extreme weather is not the only threat that climate change can multiply. Take Nigeria, for example: there has long been ethnic, political and religious tension between nomadic cattle herders in the North and farmers in the Middle Belt. But what happens when climate change causes the North’s water sources to dry up, resulting in desertification and soil degradation? The cattle herders naturally head south to try to find greener pastures for their cattle. Unfortunately, the fertile land they have found in recent years is also the Middle Belt farmers’ carefully cultivated ancestral land.

Competition for the fertile land has exacerbated the ethnic, political and religious issues that were already there, resulting

Institute for Economics & Peace. Global Terrorism Index 2020: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism, Sydney, November 2020. Available from: http://visionofhumanity.org/reports (Accessed 15 June 2021).

2 Joshua Project. Country:Maldives. Available from https://joshuaproject.net/countries/mv (Accessed 15 June 2021).

3 United Society Partners in the Gospel. Faith in a Changing Climate, page 10. Available from https://issuu.com/uspg/docs/climate_

change_web. (Accessed 15 June 2021).

4 Oxfam. Extreme Carbon Inequality, December 2015. Available from https://oi-files-d8-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-

public/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-inequality-021215-en.pdf (Accessed 15 June 2021).

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in thousands killed, tens of thousands displaced, and Nigeria suffering under one of the highest rates of terrorism in the world.1 Climate change didn’t cause the conflict; it just created the medium in which the conflict could flourish.

In other places, climate change threatens the very life and livelihood of our global neighbours. In low-lying island nations like Maldives, (which the Joshua Project lists as being 100% unreached)2 or the Marshall Islands or Tuvalu, the most immediate issue is not civil unrest or extreme weather (though they experience their fair share of devastating storms). Warmer oceans mean that the sea life that used to swim close to land and close to the surface has moved into deeper, cooler waters—this makes food harder to come by, and risk of accidents at sea higher. For these low-lying islands, climate change also means a rise in sea level, bringing not only more frequency of flooding and more infrastructure damage in extreme weather events, but also threatening to submerge them altogether, meaning the death of culture and community, as islanders must relocate to survive. This is a particular grief for the people of these island nations because

their identity is inextricably tied to the ‘vanua’, the land.3 Loss of the land means, in many ways, loss of self.

The examples could go on: loss of crops and decimation of the economy in agrarian nations like Burkina Faso due to a steadily lengthening dry season; the unpredictable rainy season in Mali, resulting in the disappearance of vegetation and a decreasing ability to predict when and how much to plant; major changes to the monsoon patterns in Nepal, resulting in flooding, landslides and droughts; peatland fires in Kalimantan Indonesia due to widespread deforestation, resulting in toxic haze and severe respiratory illnesses.

Again, climate change doesn’t cause threats like severe storms, civil unrest, drought, floods, or disease. Instead, it multiplies their effects, making it more difficult to escape, withstand, or recover from them. And sadly, the effects of

Loss of the land means, in many ways, loss of self. climate change disproportionately affect those who are poor and vulnerable.

Climate change might never affect someone in my position. Because I am not poor, live in a country with good infrastructure and have strong interpersonal connections, I will always have a safety net against the worst effects of climate change. Even if the dystopian environmental scenario some scientists predict happens in my lifetime, I’m likely to be shielded by my community, my heritage, my latitude, my two prosperous passport countries, my education, and any number of other advantages.Someone in my position is not particularly vulnerable to the worst effects of climate change. Climate change disproportionately affects the poor and vulnerable, simply because they’re poor and vulnerable.

Sadly, the effects of climate change are disproportionate in a second way: The world’s poor have, on the whole, had very little to do with the causes of climate change, and yet they are the ones who suffer most intensely. The 2015 Oxfam study on Extreme Carbon Inequality indicates that the poorest half of the world have contributed only 10% of the harmful greenhouse gasses that are causing climate change. Conversely, the richest 20% (that’s you and me) have Reach

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World population arranged by income

Percentage of CO2 emissions by world population Richest 10%

Richest 10% responsible for almost half of total lifestyle consumption emissions

Poorest 50%

The poorest 50% responsible for only around 10% of total lifestyle consumption emissions.

dread because we think it means that we’ll have to give up burgers, hot showers, international travel, and family road trips. We envision a climatologist standing in judgment over our lives, declaring them evil and demanding that we return to the 18th century.

Let me set your mind at ease. The changes we make to help mitigate climate change do not have to be scary, make us miserable, or require a complete life overhaul. I dare say, they might even lead to a better quality of life for us as well as for Amina. We’ve dedicated a couple of pages later in the magazine to sharing some mitigation ideas and resources that will help you on your mitigation journey, so keep reading!

Source: Oxfam, 20154

contributed a whopping 68%.4 Put very simply (though it is far from a simple issue), the poorest half of the world are paying the price for the destructive—or at best, uninformed— choices of the richest.

There is no need to dwell on the—now, irretractable—life choices we’ve all made that have contributed to climate change. Climate change can’t be ‘fixed’. The greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere will be there for hundreds of years to come, the ice caps will continue to melt, and the seas will rise. The good news is that climate change can be slowed, stopped and even reversed, and every good choice we make from here on out will contribute to that shift, meaning that Amina’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren could very well live in a safer, more stable world than she does.

So within God’s sovereign plan for His world, and seeking Him in all things, what are the good choices we can make to care for creation and therefore care for the unreached peoples we are called to love?

When we talk about tackling climate change, we talk about two approaches: adaptation and mitigation. Mitigation is about answering the question, “What can I do to keep from making climate change worse?” This question fills us with 10

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The second approach to tackling climate change is adaptation.

Adaptation is about answering the question, “How can we help the poor and vulnerable withstand the inevitable effects of climate change?” This is where Pioneers’ Core Value of Innovation and Flexibility helps us realise that creation care and mission can be two sides of the same coin. Pioneers has always operated under the idea that church planting should be tailored to the context in which it’s being done. We therefore encourage our field workers to try new things in their efforts to reach the unreached with the love and truth of Jesus. This means Pioneers church planters are engaged in all sorts of activities as a means to building relationships, finding people of peace, and establishing churches amongst the unreached. We have fitness coaches, English teachers, adventure guides, exporters, university professors, farmers, even scuba divers on the mission field—all serving as church planters, all using innovation and flexibility as they seek to make Christ known amongst the unreached. So it makes sense that we would also have church planters who are seeking the good of the unreached through helping them adapt to climate change in practical ways.

In North Africa, where climate change has caused Lake Chad to lose 90% of its water in the last 60 years, Pioneers church

amount of greenhouse gasses produced by our life choices, and by giving financial and prayer support (and practical support too) to those who are working to provide adaptation solutions to those in need.

Residents of Kalimantan Indonesia wear masks to protect against smoke from peatland fires. © Aulia Erlangga/CIFOR.

planting teams are working as water engineers—helping drill wells so that people in rural areas can have safe drinking water again. They are bringing both water and the gospel and are currently seeing the beginnings of a church planting movement.

For those of us who follow the example and call of Jesus, caring for what God has made comes with the territory.

Whether our motivation is a belief that the natural world will be a recipient of His ultimate redemption, or simply a desire to honour what God has made; whether we care for the earth because we believe that we are God’s chosen caretakers, or because we feel that a lack of care for creation is a lack of care for our neighbour—as those who are

called of Christ to show the unreached who He is, our care must mirror His. We must show them the Jesus who relentlessly spoke the truth and also compassionately met the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of everyone who asked for help.

Pioneers missionaries in rural settings worldwide are helping educate farmers about how to adapt to changing weather patterns and introducing hardier, fast-growing crops. Others are going one step further and creating jobs within the agriculture sector which will shield these subsistence farmers from economic collapse (resulting in poverty, hunger and disease) when the rainy season doesn’t behave normally.

What does Amina (and the billions of people like her) really need? She needs to know the life-giving love of Jesus. She also needs healthcare for her daughter, and crops that can withstand erratic weather. She needs drinking water that hasn’t been polluted by sea water. She needs a village that is resistant to flooding. She needs someone to come alongside her and teach her better farming methods, and maybe even someone to teach her a trade in addition to farming. She also needs the rich of the world to make choices that will slow, or even reverse the climate change that is exacerbating all the problems she already has. She needs to know that she’s worth every sacrifice we make for her family’s well-being.

That’s when she’ll see Jesus most clearly. And that’s when we will be most like Him.

Pioneers missionaries, and others around the world, are on the front lines of helping the poor and vulnerable adapt their lives, their work and their infrastructure so that they will be able to withstand the effects of climate change. We can help too, by looking for changes we can make to reduce the

Amanda has been with Pioneers UK since 2014, serving first as a mission mentor and now as the communications team leader and creation care officer.

For more of Amanda’s thoughts on creation care, visit her blog: www.triangletreehouse.wordpress.co.uk.

Church planters who are also water engineers in West Africa, South Asia and Oceania are pioneering water purification techniques so that people in situations like Amina’s can purify polluted or salt-inundated water supplies, meaning less disease and less need to leave their homeland.

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mi . ti . gate (something bad) v. tolessmake serious, severe or painful

The effects of climate change are going to be with us for a long time, but 2 Timothy 1:7 makes it clear that we don’t need to be afraid - rather, we’ve been given a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind with which we can make wise and compassionate choices to help ease the struggle our global neighbours face every day.

The key is to start small and go slowly. Choose one change at a time and give yourself a chance to adapt. Once your new change feels ‘normal’, choose something new. Before you know it, you’ll be a mitigation pro!

ENERGY 

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GET INVOLVED The best thing about helping mitigate climate change is getting your hands dirty - literally! Here are some great (and fun) places to start:

plant indigenous trees litter pick, especially near waterways & on beaches plant bee-friendly flowers plant a home vegetable garden create a compost bin/heap

Energy consumption is, more-or-less, the root of the problem.

Here are some ways to change the way we use it:

make your next car electric or hybrid move away from gas for cooking and heating use LED lightbulbs make sure your home is well-insulated turn off lights and electronic devices when not in use walk or cycle whenever possible fly less (try trains and boats for an adventure!) when you have to fly, offset your flight at climate stewards.org switch to clean energy like solar and wind (bigcleanswitch.org)

MONEY Money talks. Here’s how to make sure it’s saying what you want it to:

£

Ensure your pension is being invested ethically, and if it’s not, make a change.

Switch to a bank that is divested from fossil fuels, or ask your bank to divest.

Support charities and NGOs who are committed to creation care.

USE YOUR VOICE Helping other people understand the problem and make changes is one of the most important things we can do to mitigate climate change.

Check out Christian climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe’s TED talk - The Most Important Thing You Can Do To Fight Climate Change: Talk About It Talk to friends and family about climate change. Tell them what you’re doing to help mitigate it, and encourage them to make changes too.

Talk to the government by: Signing petitions Writing to your MP Voting

CONSUMPTION The things we buy speak volumes about our values. Here are a few things you can do to become an earthfriendly consumer:

FOOD try not to waste food eat less meat and dairy try to eat local, ethical & organic eliminate single-use plastic like carrier bags & water bottles

HOME & PERSONAL ITEMS avoid fast fashion retailers buy high-quality, repairable clothes and appliances buy second-hand when possible buy chemical-free and plasticfree personal care items

“God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

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Preserving Eden

BY MARK H, PIONEERS UK MISSIONARY TO NIGERIA A quarter of a century ago, when I could still try to pass myself off as (reasonably) young, I found myself lying on the ground in the most easterly forest in Nigeria, on the Cameroon border in Taraba State, without the strength to sit up, let alone move.

Fortunately I wasn’t alone, and my new companion Newton Isaac [sic] was forest born and bred. After consuming half a dozen of the best bananas in the world (to this day I cannot summon up enthusiasm for the fruit that goes under that name in the UK), I was as right as rain and resumed the trek. I had a tent for the overnight trip, but somehow food had not entered into the planning in any serious way.

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It was my first time bird watching in real tropical forest, and also the first time that particular forest had ever encountered a bird watcher. That shouldn’t have been possible at the end of the twentieth century, but this forest was so out of the way that it was even beyond the limits of certain maps of African forest (a very big cheese in African ornithology still wasn’t aware of real forest in the area just a year ago). New-birder-meets-virgin-forest proved an explosive combination: when I had finished poring over my copious notes, surrounded by all my bird books, no less than four species emerged as apparently unknown to science. Quite understandably, the experts didn’t take me seriously. And they weren’t altogether wrong: one, by dint of putting its eye-spot where it belonged, did turn into a common species. But another, which I have sighted a few more times, on one occasion with someone else, has refused to turn into anything known, though it is still holding out against having its photo taken.

Photo © Danielle Vivier / CC 3.0 Unported

At the end of this year I hope to return with a team to the other end of that belt of forest, a couple of hundred kilometres to the west, where our last trip turned up two more distinctive birds that look to be a new species and sub-species. Eden Creation Care Initiative, a Christian conservation organisation I helped found, is pursuing the study and protection of these threatened forests as part of a forest project which brings together three other African countries, all under the wings of A Rocha, the leading global Christian conservation network. We hope to secure photographic and other evidence that will firmly establish the biological distinctiveness of these isolated forests and lead to their protection being prioritised.

What has all this got to do with my calling to do and teach theology in the midst of the Nigerian Church, large and vibrant yet deeply challenged from within as well as without? It all flows from the Gospel of his Son that

God has been helping me understand in more depth.

In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, in which we who believe in him truly share, God has judged and destroyed his entire sick and fallen creation and brought that same creation out again, new and eternally perfected in righteousness. Being ourselves new creation amid the old, it is our responsibility to show the transformation this brings in every aspect of our lives, including the way we relate to the non-human creation that God has saved/ is saving/will save along with us (an observant reader of Paul will see that he mixes up his tenses, for the very good reason that the new creation which begins in the resurrection cannot be located anywhere in our time, for it has a time of its own). But there I am starting to delve into matters it is taking me a whole book to expound…

The calling of the Church, whether in Nigeria or the UK, includes looking after the world God has entrusted to our care. And that is not just so that it survives the crisis unthinking human greed and selfishness have brought upon it in our day (good enough reason though that is); we Christians are so to shine in our care of creation that others will understand that it is God who made this world, and that he cares for it so deeply that it shares in our salvation (read Romans 8:18-25 for more on that). It is an aspect of our calling on which there has hitherto been little teaching in Nigeria, but when that omission is made good, many are responding with enthusiasm. ~ Mark and his wife Isabelle have been serving with Pioneers/Action Partners in Nigeria for 31 years. He is currently completing a book which maps out a path toward reuniting and empowering the Church in an authentically biblical Gospel. They have three grown-up children, two sons and a daughter. To learn more about Mark’s work with Eden Creation Care, visit https://nigeria.arocha.org Reach

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Who is my neighbour?

BY HARRIET, PIONEERS UK’S MISSION MENTOR FOR THE AFRICAN DIASPORA Lengo shakes her leg to remove the pebble that that has lodged itself between her foot and her plastic sandals that are now as hot as the ground she walks on. She is careful to keep her head upright so as not to lose her balance. She hastens her steps to catch up with the other women walking consistently in silence, hardly noticing her delay. She is a 22-year-old woman who lives in Lembakuli village in northern Kenya.

Lengo remembers a few years before when fetching water was a chore the women looked forward to. It gave them the opportunity for some banter, a much desired and well-deserved break from their other chores in the field or home where they are often alone with the children. Fetching water has however become the most painful chore of all as they have to walk 7 miles to the water source and endure another 7 miles back with water on their heads. The heat

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of the sun does not help matters at all and though they start at dawn when it is cooler, by the time they fill all their jerricans from the slow trickle coming from the water hole the sun is already too hot for their long trek home. All the water holes around their homes have dried up as a result of the drought. Rainfall has been less and less in the last few years and sometimes altogether absent. Water is not their only problem.

On the other side of the vast country, nearer Mt Kenya, Mutugi examines his once green field that was full of the promise of a bountiful harvest. Now there are only shreds of pale green thread, the only evidence that anything had been planted on this field. Unlike Lengo, Mutugi has not had to worry about water, for rain has been abundant.

Together with his wife, they worked hard as they usually did, preparing the land and planting and weeding their maize field. Just when the crop was beginning to show its first fruit, a swarm of desert locust invaded their field devouring their crop with almost organised thoroughness.

Mutugi had only read about locusts in books and the Bible, he had never seen this.

The issue of climate change and the environment has been a heated debate among evangelicals in the West and around the world with very little progress towards a consensus. Some maintain it is a sign of the end times for which there is no solution nor should there be an effort towards a solution to events that are orchestrated

by God himself. Some in this camp see the issue of climate change as an issue that is influenced by the wider culture of environmentalism and humanism. On the other extreme, we have Christians who maintain that environmental justice is the core of the gospel. There are still many who view environmental issues as care for the creation, mandated by God and an expression of biblical stewardship, and that it is part of the gospel message.

Politics play a big role in these evangelical debates on the environment. While these debates are necessary and useful in establishing the correct attitude and reaction a believer ought to have, perhaps it is even more important to consider the other side of the argument. It would be easier if people felt the changes caused by climate change in their day to day lives. Who pays the price for climate change at the end of the day? Would the knowledge that someone somewhere experiences the effects of environmental degradation in very specific ways change how we argue as believers?

Who pays the price for climate change at the end of the day?

Research points to the fact that an increase in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane causes a higher absorption of heat from the sun by the earth’s atmosphere.

This, in turn, results in climate change characterised by an increase in temperatures, which causes a rise in sea levels and a change in rainfall patterns. The outcome of all these changes is an increase in droughts, famine, floods, locust invasions, and other effects of global warming.

For lower-income countries, this means an increase in food insecurity, severe stress on water resources as well as outbreaks of waterborne diseases. Air pollution from greenhouse gases also causes respiratory diseases. It is estimated that annually there are approximately 10.2 million premature deaths globally as a result of pollution.

Greenhouse gases are produced by fossil fuels and the burning of biomass. According to research by Lancet, 85% of airborne pollution is caused by coal-fired power plants, mining, chemical productions and vehicles. Higherincome countries contribute higher levels of emissions Reach

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of these greenhouse gases. While low-income countries do contribute to the problem as well, especially through deforestation, it is needless to say that the people that suffer most from the effect of the increase in greenhouse gases are also the people that benefit less from the gains of their production.

Both high-income and low-income countries have made some attempts to mitigate the effects of climate change caused by human activity. Ten African countries began the great green wall of Africa, an initiative to plant trees across the Sahel region to reduce the advance of the Sahara desert towards the south that has been happening progressively.

However, It is arguable that high-income countries are in the position to make the greatest difference if there is the will to take action.

The biblical Christian goes back to the scriptures and bases their convictions on it. Stewardship of creation is one of the first responsibilities that God gave human beings.

God speaks to us through scriptures and also through the magnificence of his creation which he mandated us to care for. In addition to this, Jesus clearly stated that loving one’s neighbour was one of the greatest commandments, second only to loving God. If at all there is a possibility that greenhouse gases produced mainly in the West for the comfort and convenience of some do indeed make life harder for people elsewhere whose lives are already hard and who benefit least or not at all from these productions, then it could be argued that a biblical Christian will want to examine their lifestyle choices and the policies they support to be sure to practically love their neighbour on the other side of the world.~

Harriet is Pioneers UK’s mission mentor to the many African diaspora Christians in the UK. Before arriving in the UK in 2019, Harriet and her husband Sam were mission mobilisers in their native Kenya.

Harriet recently earned a master’s degree in mission from All Nations Christian College.

Overall water risk identifies areas with higher exposure to water-related risk and is an aggregation of factors like available quantity, quality and regulation.

Overall Water Risk Low Low to Medium Medium to High High Extremely High No data 18

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Source: World Resources Institute, Aqueduct 2014

Water Risk!

The World Resources Institute (wri. org) regularly produces data on the status of water sources worldwide. This map indicates the places in the world where water availability and security is threatened. Most of the high risk places are also located within what missiologists have called the 10/40 Window, that portion of the earth between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator where a majority of the people are considered unreached by the gospel.

could perhaps rightly say to us, “Your today steals our tomorrow”.

The Reality of Ecological Grief

BY JULIE, PIONEERS UK’S BOARD CHAIR

In 1986 as a medical student I spent three months in Bangladesh. What struck me then was how every little bit of that densely populated waterlogged land was used, mostly as rice paddy fields. The majority of people were extremely poor subsistence farmers. Sometimes at night I would lie crying and praying for the people I had been with that day. I didn’t know about climate change then. But if sea levels rise by three feet then 20% of Bangladesh will be permanently submerged.

Unless action is taken to limit climate change it will be a desperate situation, especially for the poorest of the poor. If I allow myself to think about Bangladesh then I feel desolate.

As a psychiatrist I was interested to discover the term “Ecological Grief”. It is defined as “the grief reaction stemming from the environmental loss of ecosystems by natural and man made events”. It is a mental health response to climate change characterised by feelings of anger, hopelessness, loss and powerlessness.

It is real and it tends to affect young people more because climate change will affect their future. They

However, one could also argue that ecological anxiety is a perfectly rational response to the unfolding situation of environmental catastrophe. It is important to remember that a sign of good mental health is a capacity to respond to reality.

We actually have many of the solutions to combat climate change but have failed to act due to selfishness, greed and apathy. These are primarily spiritual problems which I believe need spiritual transformation and this is where Christians can and should take a lead.

As Christians there are perhaps extremes we can fall into. One is to be paralysed by ecological grief and so to avoid thinking or doing anything about it. Or maybe we feel that if Jesus is returning soon we need only focus on the world to come. Another is human pride, thinking we can get ourselves out of this mess with new innovations and radical political action.

I believe a better way is to recognise Jesus as the Hope; both for us as individuals and for our broken world. Jesus can help us in our ecological grief; not necessarily by removing our worried feelings but by His Presence in us inspiring us to sacrificial acts of love for our environment. Caring for Creation is a Gospel issue – may we as Pioneers UK demonstrate our concern for God’s world as we reach the unreached!

Julie is currently serving as chair for the Pioneers UK board of trustees, and is the board’s creation care officer. She has recently retired after many years of work as a psychiatrist. She has also recently helped her church in North Yorkshire achieve a Gold Eco Church award.

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As we minister in parts of North Africa and the Middle-East among peoples of the Arab world who are also affected by this changing climate, the question then arises of how we can best support some of these people to meet their practical needs whilst continuing our call to share the gospel to meet some of the spiritual needs of the region. For example, how can the love of Christ be demonstrated to farmers or isolated rural communities living in increasingly hot and dry conditions?

Contextualising Ministry

Contextualising the Gospel for a Changing Climate

BY PHIL, NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF AWM-PIONEERS

T

he impact of rising temperatures on earth will affect the world’s poorest first. This includes those people living in desert or arid lands, where agriculture and farming may be key to their livelihoods. Or for those whose livelihoods are based around rivers, some of which already exhibit signs of drying up.

Those living and working close to the seas will in future face the prospect of having to migrate as sea levels rise, flooding communities and cities. *names changed for security reasons

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There is an opportunity to tailor our approach to mission as we not only recognise creation care as a missiological issue but as we minister among those affected by humanity’s failings to steward well God’s creation. I have been struck over the last ten years how many workers have already been contextualising their ministry to share the gospel whilst meeting practical needs of the region.

Christophe* has served in a rural community initiative in an irrigation project, helping to train local people how to cultivate the land using modern techniques that can take advantage of the climate conditions they have. In serving the local community, there have been opportunities to share the heart of why he is doing this, why he is loving his neighbours in this way.

Josh* and his young family moved into a remote rural community of one Northern African country.

In partnership with other groups they were able to be part of digging and establishing wells in the community. Supplying the surrounding villages with

clean drinking water, serving the health needs of the people for years to come.

Living Water We know that it is living water that many thirst for.

Jesus promises to quench this thirst. The provision of a well naturally brings to mind John 4 and an opportunity to share of the living water that Jesus offers. Good, refreshing news that millions have yet to hear.

I Object!

Climate change and the need for creation care are not universally accepted in the Church. Whilst Pioneers do believe that creation care has been mandated in God’s Word, you may disagree with us, and we want to acknowledge those differences.

Here are some common objections:

Through Josh’s family and the team around them, after years of service, they have seen local people become believers, the first of their tribe or people group. One of these believers has been prolific in his evangelism and we celebrate a church planting movement being established and growing there today.

As we continue to remember the poor, as we continue to go to the ends of the earth and as we continue to share the gospel and make disciples, may the Lord raise up many more workers for His harvest in years to come, wise to the issues of our day and compassionate to the needs of leastreached peoples. ~

Phil is currently serving as National Director for our sister charity, AWM-Pioneers, and has almost completed his master’s degree in Contemporary Missiology from Redcliffe College (now part of All Nations Christian College). He lives in Nottingham with his wife and two young children.

• Creation care is just New Age nature worship with a Christianised label.

• People who are worried about climate change are being alarmist - the earth has always looked after itself and it always will.

• The world is going to end anyway - why bother?

• We shouldn’t be worrying about nature humans are more important. Creation care is a distraction from sharing the gospel.

• I’m not an activist. I prefer to leave environmentalism to the activists.

• I’m just one person - my choices (good or bad!) don’t make much difference.

• It’s too much work; worrying about the environment is inconvenient!

Do you have some objections? Maybe you disagree with climate change in general, or feel that Christians shouldn’t be focussing on it. Or maybe you have a different objection. We’d love to keep the conversation going, so if you disagree, don’t hesitate to speak up! Feel free to email us anytime at hello@pioneers-uk.org.

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Jenny

Lois

“As a busy parent with a young family I have lots of opportunities to practice living a greener lifestyle, but also lots of challenges! We’ve taken the approach of trying to make one small, manageable change and practicing it until it becomes a habit, before taking up something else.

We’re going for progress over perfection!

In the last year we’ve started to get most of our toiletries, fruit and veg, meat and toilet roll delivered from ethical companies. I try to chat about these things with the kids too and invite them to be involved.”

SusieI have begun

ndemic “Over the pa in my to litter pick e m ti e k ta ed to job!) I contact ig b (a . y it un co m m nd joined cil member a un o c l a c lo in a ity litter pick un m m o c a h in wit step is year. Next st la r be o ct O lp in l church to he a c lo y m g in involv ity.” in our commun g in k ic p r te lit

Mark

ther than “I use silver foil ra ssible, I po er ev cling film wher table s ge ve d an bu y loose fruit urch’s ch my of and am pa rt s to aim ich wh ct Re:Store proje ise rw he ot ’ ts ke use su perm ar ll. dfi lan oid av d wa sted food an me s ke ta e bik My electric than my arou nd town, rather die sel ca r!”

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C h r i st i n e

“I feed the “He re in Portugal, many of us bir w ild flowers. ds, and planted ng have bee n taking part in tryi butts to con I have 3 water se to tame the plastic mountain. garden. I ma rve water for my k I found coffee in a GLA SS jar, to utilise ca e my own compost rd replace d liquid soap with a and green ga board packaging rden bar in a ceramic dish , bought waste. I joined and kitchen a block butter to put in my work on the local parkgroup to an pla stainless stee l butter dish and fl nning to plant bulbs, d am o w wild e rs put loose fruit and veg in non- vegeta and maybe a community ble patch by next year.” plastic net bag s (also useful for from ies berr rasp protecting my marauding birds)!”

Kim

PIONEERS AT HOME HOW ARE PIONEERS’ STAFF AND TRUSTEES HELPING CARE FOR GOD’S WORLD?

Dorothy

“A group of us a ct as v wardens , which oluntar y involves our valle patrolling y a few times a reporting yea a maintena ny problems, re r and pairs or nc flora tha e needed, or fa una and t has a ppe work ha s been d ared. A lot of one by v to enha olunteers nc informat e the valley, such as ion boar ds, bird boxes.” and bat

“I’ v e b e e n m a k i ng my own a tt e m p t s a t g o i n g l o w t o z e ro w aste, b ut still i n t h e p ro c e s s (It ’s s u p e r h a rd !) I r e c e n t l y stu m ble d on a ‘C o m m u n i t y R e fi l l e r y S t a t i o n’ n e a r m y fl a t w h e re yo u c a n b r ing your ow n re u s a b l e c o nt a i n e rs t o b u y e c o -f r i e n d l y h o u s e p ro d u c t s like liquid soa p s , s h a m p o o, oil, a n d oth er ho m e n e e d s .”

Chris

“We use bar hand soap, shampoo and conditioner, which reduces the use of plastic tremendously. Thoug h they are a bit more expensive, if used properly, they last a long time and can save money in the long run. We also use reusable nappies and wipes. Nappies are awful for plastic consumption and fill up loads of landfills!”

EDUCATE THYSELF It’s been said that ‘knowing is half the battle’. So why not strap on the old thinking cap and brush up on your climate change knowledge? Here are a few resources that we really like:

Global Weirding Search: Global weirding with Katharine Hayhoe A great place to start your eco-education is with Christian climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. Katharine’s YouTube channel Global Weirding provides a solid foundational explanation for all things climate change.

Christianity & Climate Change Search: Tearfund Christianity and Climate Change Katharine has also hosted a 9-part climate change series for Tearfund called Christianity and Climate Change.

Highly recommended!

+ How can we encourage our churches to become more creation-friendly? Here are a few organisations that would love to help!

Find out what’s happening in Christian conservation projects around the world and get your church involved. www.arocha.org

www.ecochurch.arocha.org.uk A Rocha’s award scheme to help churches become more ecologically responsible.

www.operationnoah.org A Christian charity working with the church to inspire action on the climate crisis.

What is a Carbon Footprint? (BBC) The BBC have made a basic video explaining this term we’ve been hearing a lot the last few years. Go to: www. bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-56822950

What is Climate Change? (Met Office) Search: Met office what is climate change If anyone can speak to the details of climate change, it’s the Met office! They’ve put together an easy-to-understand webpage about climate change that will help you get up to date with the science, the issues, and how it is affecting us in the UK.

Fancy a good read that will also speak to climate change from a Christian perspective? We recommend Ruth Valerio’s Saying Yes to Life, Debbie, David & Jamie Hawker’s Changing the Climate and Dave Bookless’ Planetwise.

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