(Guest Writer - Katie Corbett, VA) It is 5:04 am, and I am sitting at my computer reliving the past hour of my life. My church is participating in a campaign called “50 Days of Unbroken Prayer.” They claimed each Wednesdays during the 50 days, and I picked the 4:00 am spot. (It is crazy, I know.) As I walked into the room to pray, I was unsure of what God was going to be teaching me, but when I left 54 minutes later I felt the message was clear: I cannot be consistent with temporal things but allow spiritual things to fall to the wayside.

Humans are a desperate people who need to spend consistent time with the true lover of our souls. I am a woman in desperate need of my holy God. As I went through the steps of the ACTS method of prayer (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication) I was constantly being brought back to the idea of consistency. Over and over God kept whispering to me, “Why are you so consistent with this and with that, but consistency with me is an afterthought?”

Why do I allow the giver of true and awesome love to be pushed aside? Am I really that busy? I doubt the Love of my soul is filling up my day planner with everything except him. At this moment, I feel him asking me to come to him…all the time. This great big God, who is so beautiful and mighty, wants to spend time with little, insignificant me. He is so consistent with me. Don’t I owe Him the same?

So, I started thinking of all of the things I do on a daily basis. It’s not like I am unable to make a commitment or be consistent. Some areas of my life draw amazing consistency. I will almost always find time to run three miles a day even when life gets hectic. It doesn’t seem strange to me to wake up early before work and go exercise. How is it that I will exercise my physical body almost daily, and yet I sometimes fail to spend more than a few minutes with my Father?

Every morning, I spend time dressing and putting on make-up. I spend a good 30 minutes just staring at the mirror every morning focusing on my physical beauty, but I often allow the beauty of God’s redemption to go unnoticed that day. How can I refuse to leave the house with out mascara, but I rush out the door without spending time with the Father?

How much can be learned in one hour? Well, if I go by what God has taught me this morning in that empty hotel room, the answer is a heck of a lot. I wonder what will happen if I am willing to rearrange some stuff and get consistent. What will happen if I apply what he has taught me in the past hour? What amazing things will God bring forth in the hours to come? I can’t even begin to imagine, but I can’t wait to find out.

(Guest Writer – Rand Clark, CO) I begin with a confession… I am not a brilliant theologian, but I try my best to understand. I am not a scientist, nor to do I begin to suggest that I understand half of what they tell me. I am not a significant pastor and I really have no desire to be such, except maybe to those who God has allowed me to touch. I am a church planter and most days it is all I can do to rely on the Holy Spirit to live as He would have me to live

In recent days, the issue of environmentalism and creation care has again been brought to the table for discussion within the SBC. I was asked to consider the SBE&CI prior to its release a few weeks ago. I reviewed it but chose not sign it for my own reasons, even though I continue to be in support of the debate and dialogue it has sparked.

This issue is important to me and many others like me. Even this morning, sitting in a coffee shop writing down my thoughts I have had conversations with five others about the environment and my faith—some consider themselves followers of Jesus and others do not.

I am not in a position to make broad statements about these issues and their implications within our denomination. I can only share from my experiences and tell you the story of how the church I lead engages in this dialogue.

In our community context, the environment holds a position of high importance. We did a very unscientific survey, but went to 60 homes (2%) in our neighborhood and asked them on a scale of one to five how important was taking care of the environment. We were not shocked when the data showed the average response to be just over four.

They are not the “tree huggers” that live in the bush to protest expansion. They are soccer moms who recycle and use compact fluorescent light bulbs. They spend their free time in the mountains, at the park, fishing, skiing, camping, biking, hiking, etc. In fact, in our community we often say that the biggest barrier to God is His creation. They love creation but have no relationship with the Creator.

Because of this, we have not found the environment to be a distraction from the Gospel but the exact opposite. It has been a platform for the Gospel! It connects to a value within our community and affords us the opportunity to share Jesus.

I frequent a local coffee shop to use their internet and spend time with people. Last week I was waiting for my coffee and talking with one of the baristas. I don’t even really know how it came up but I had an opportunity to share with her about an environmental project our church was promoting. It was simple, global event that encouraged people to turn off their lights for one hour that Saturday night.

Her first question after I shared about the event was, “Why are you promoting this?” I told her that my church was interested in helping people take care of God’s creation so we involve ourselves in activities like this and encourage others to join us. Her response… “Wow, I didn’t know churches did that sort of thing.” That sparked about a 10-minute conversation about faith in which I was able to share with her about Jesus Christ. Since then, we have continued the conversation about both the environment and faith in Jesus.

For the same event, we used our connections at the local Chamber of Commerce to connect with businesses in our community. I had a similar discussion and reaction from one of the staff members at the Chamber. I have never had a spiritual conversation before with her, but because this event connected to one of her values, I was able to have an extended conversation about my church and why we champion God’s creation. Again and again people’s response is the same: “I never thought the church or Christians cared about this stuff.”

Last year, we passed out 1,000 environmentally friendly light bulbs to our community. I was stopped a few weeks later by a young couple regarding the light bulbs and our church. The wife told me that she liked what we were doing so much that she took the bulb to her church, a Mormon congregation, down the street. This led to a 45-minute conversation about the differences in our faith. Because we share a common value—concern for the environment—I got to share about Jesus.

For me and my congregation, the issue of faith and the environment is not a political issue (although I fear that for too long it has been made into one, thereby damaging our witness in the culture). It is not even a scientific one, for “experts” cannot agree on what the science is telling us about our impact on the world. For me, it is singularly a Biblical issue. God is the Creator of everything, and He has asked us to be good stewards of it.

In a culture that relies upon humanistic “good works” to carry them into the next life, taking care of the environment is topping the list of “do’s and don’ts” that they believe they will be judged against. I see people that are on wife number four but wouldn’t be caught dead driving anything other than their beloved Prius. This provides a perfect opportunity to connect with people and share our faith.

Ask someone why they recycle, drive a hybrid, clean up trash along a trail, or use energy efficient light bulbs or appliances and tell you it is the right thing to do, they want to reduce their carbon footprint, it saves them money, etc. If you are doing it with them, I bet they will ask you the same question. My response to them is, “I worship the God that created all of this. Because I have a relationship with Him through His Son Jesus, I take joy in being able to help take care of what He created.”

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Rand Clark is the Pastor of Genesis Church, a church plant in Castle Rock, CO. A graduate of UCLA ('95) and Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary ('08), he has been in ministry since 1995. Genesis Church uses the platform of community transformation and creation care to effectively build networks for evangelism.

The grip that the Republican party has on evangelical Christians is loosening as younger evangelicals are coming onto the scene. In addition to traditional values, younger evangelicals believe their faith calls them to support a wide range of issues like human rights, poverty, AIDS in Africa and the environment. Unfortunately for the GOP, Democrats have conquered the high ground on many of these issues.

This is the topic of my recent column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, WWJD? Vote for Obama, more and more young evangelicals say.

It was unheard of for a Christian to vote Democrat in latter part of the 20th century--or at least not spoken about in public. But if you are like me, many of your conservative Christians friends are considering switching sides or simply not voting for the first time in their lives. In my column, I site a Relevant Magazine poll that illustrates this is actually a sweeping trend. When asked "Who would Jesus vote for?," the number one reponse from thousands of avowed "conservative" Christians was Barack Obama.

What do you think about this trend and who are you personally supporting in this election?

It is no secret that Baptist "news" outlets have found it difficult on occasion to actually report the news. (At least, in a classical sense.) Some of these "news" outlets can be more accurately described as "commentary" because their "news stories" represent a particular angle--perhaps an angle that is given to them from an office down the hall.

Never was this more apparent than in the "reporting" on A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change by Baptist Press. Nearly a week after the story broke, Baptist Press ran a heap of articles (I lost count at 15) on the subject. Only one opinion piece could be interpreted as representing an opposing side. At one point, every story on their main page was related to this topic--a move that has been politely called "heavyhanded." Baptist Press even received a lashing from SBCOutpost regarding a slanted and condescending title to a "news" story; it was changed later that day.

Over that week, I sent several emails to the Editor of Baptist Press asking to share my point of view or explain the other side of the "news" being presented. Even though he and I had spoken on several occasions during the month leading up to this, I never received a response to these emails. I think it is fair to say that no self-respecting "news" organization would print stories calling me by name without allowing me to share an opposing view or at least respond to my emails. That is unless the "news" organization was merely offering commentary.

Yet, The Christian Index released a series of stories this week that gives me hope. The architect, Joe Westbury, posted articles both for and against and printed our interview in transcipt format. (You may remember that Westbury was the one who went against the grain and broke the NAMB story that caused such an uproar and ultimately resulted in the release of that agency's President.) Gerald Harris, Joe Westbury and The Index staff prove that Baptist journalism is alive and well in Duluth, GA. I know I speak for others who appreciate what they are trying to do. Here's to hoping others will follow.