Do you ever think about the place where you live – the place we call Mother Earth? I live on the earth, but I don’t tend to think much about it because it’s so BIG! And because the earth is so big, and because I’m so small I don’t think much about the consequences of my actions that concern the earth.

But as I’ve studied and deeply pondered the earth and our stewardship of it, I have been completely stunned to find that, until now, I have never really read my Bible in such a way that I’ve noticed what it says about creation, about our stewardship of the earth and it’s resources, and about the curse that has been placed on the earth, not by God . . . but by us, and our actions.

So this morning and over the next couple of weeks I’d love it if you’d join me in looking at how God sees the earth and how he calls us to see the earth, and I’d like to look at how this whole process deepens our relationship with God, each other, and with the earth itself.

Now, before we get going, you have to know that I am not traditionally known as a Tree Hugger or an environmentalist per say – I’ve done a bit of recycling and I’ve tried to conserve some, but most of what I do environmentally, up until now, has been because it benefits . . . me. I turn off lights because it costs me less. I recycle because I don’t have so much trash to take to the dump, and so that costs me less. The reasons why I conserve and recycle are primarily because it’s good for me.

What I’ve learned in the last few weeks, as I’ve really gotten into God’s perspective on caring for the earth is that it’s really changed me. It’s moved me. I’m different. I look at the world differently, in a good way. It has blessed my life.

Environmental issues have traditionally been seen as a political agenda or maybe a social action, “Green” group, but I want you to know up front that this is not my platform or my agenda. I come to you, trying to listen to God and because I have been trying to see the earth, and what we do with it, from God’s perspective.

I believe that if you keep an open mind about these issues that God will move you to a new way of looking at the world in these next couple of weeks, and it will transform you in a good way. It will strike you in such a way that it will bless you; it will bless God; it will bless others, and it will bless the planet in which we live.

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I’d like to show you a video clip of what may be the greatest athletic performance of all time. Because we live close to Chicago and because we don’t have much to cheer for in Detroit, many of us have watched athletic greats like Michael Jordan – arguably the greatest basketball player that ever lived, and Walter Payton- arguably the greatest football player that ever lived, so we’re used to watching great athletes, but what you’re going to see right here may be a clip of the greatest athletic performance that I have ever seen, and it will get us into the message. Feel free to cheer, if you want to do that, because this is very exciting stuff! Take a look: Read the rest of this entry »

Note: This was a song service in which song and sermon where interwoven.

I was a union electrician for 20 years before I became a pastor. And one of the things that I learned as an electrician was that most people who were in a trade took their trade very seriously. There were words like craftsmanship and quality and excellence that were the foundation of our trade. We each prided ourselves in doing high quality work. We prided ourselves in being craftsman. People who did low quality work were kind of looked down upon.

I learned as an apprentice electrician that the quality of your work was like your signature. If you did low quality work somebody would walk by and say, “Are you going to put your name on that? In other words, is that workmanship something that you’d put your name on? The work that you’ve done is that something that you’re willing to put your name on for the entire world to see? Is the work that you’ve done something that you’re proud of, and something that you want to represent you?

In the trades, the quality of work that you did was a direct correlation to who you where. The quality of the work that I did was my signature. It said something about who I was. Read the rest of this entry »