Creation Care Matters

The beginnings of NUS Varsity Christian Fellowship’s (VCF) new standing committee aren’t very complicated. At the latest VCF Townhall, under “Topics you would like to discuss”, I wrote, “creation care standing comm when?” Understandably, it threw the Exco into a frenzy, given that I couldn’t even be present to elaborate on my suggestion. Kezia Khoo had to explain on the spot what that meant.

As the name suggests, creation care is living our lives in a way that loves creation, from a recognition that loving God’s creation is part of loving God. And from what I observed through orientation and other VCF events, there was plenty of room for improvement in the area of creation care.

God placed the issue of climate change on my heart since young, for the impending destruction of His creation and the suffering it will bring to countless lives. This led me to participate actively in the environmental scene, where I actually began by initiating an environmental committee within my secondary school.

In my experience, there are frustratingly few avenues for youths who “have a passion for the environment” to engage in Christ-led change-making. Without conversations about creation care in church, pursuing social change within non-religious forms of environmentalism can drive a wedge into our spiritual lives. When I spoke to a fellow Christian core team member (in a non-religious environmental youth organisation) about this, she mused that she had never really made the connection between her faith and her civic work. Is He not the ‘Lord of all’?

More pressing is how the Church lags in acknowledging and addressing environmental issues. Scripture describes the tender care that God showers on the lilies (Lk 12:27), birds (Matt 6:26), and even the desolate wasteland (Job 38:26-27). His beauty is revealed every sunrise. He gave the world to us. Can we love God through His creation the same way He loves us through it? Can the church more actively strive towards being good stewards for His glory?

Furthermore, what message do we send to others through our attitudes towards creation? When non-believers observe our damaging actions and attitudes towards creation, would they not be turned away? Do we demonstrate that in our hearts, we truly believe that it was a good God who created a good creation? Moreover, environmental issues overwhelmingly affect the poor and underprivileged. Creation care therefore is missional.

For VCF to build up VCFers to be effective salt and light to the world, creation care has to be a key area of focus. So, after discussion within the Exco, we formed a standing committee and began working earnestly.

We hope for a future where VCF (and the world at large) keeps the environment a focal point behind every decision, action, and event, stemming from a deep and personal love for Christ. With God’s grace, the creation care standing committee will plan events, collaborate with the other standing comms, and make creation care theology more accessible across the ministry. As with all standing committees, we work towards the day when a committee dedicated to creation care will no longer be needed. Until then, we work in faith.

Please pray over this committee and for God to raise people who will serve. We started searching only in January but God has already moved in such amazing ways. It has been amazing to discover how interconnected people are, and to meet an incredibly diverse collection of people in new and unexpected ways! God is so good. Pray also that the work we do finds favour in God’s eyes, and that it will glorify Him.

Kezia later told me this was “a dream she didn’t dare dream this year in VCF”. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting my suggestion to be taken seriously either. I’m a Year One student. I don’t have the knowledge she has to ‘not dare’. This standing comm is only here because God put Kezia in the VCF exco, and God made me so eccentric as to write five irritating words in a questionnaire one evening.

Do you have a vision for how student movements can steward the earth until the Lord returns?

– Jodie Teo, NUS Environmental Studies, Year 1