Youth & Our Environment

Since after Christmas I have been teaching Youth Catechism at church. I’ve been talking about creation and how, as Christians, we are responsible for taking care of the world. When I was in Bible College I had a teacher, Tom Smith, who changed the way I thought about the world around me. He taught a class called Christians and the Environment, and he talked about the fact that we, as Protestants, had the view that “it’s all going to burn anyway,” but that we shouldn’t think that way. God demands justice for those who are weaker than ourselves, including the widowed, orphaned and alien.

So when I was given an opportunity to help teach the youth and I looked at the materials available, I was excited to see that there is the aspect of the relationship between creation and us. So far we’ve learned that God loves creation, we are kings and queens of creation, and we are priests of creation. Tonight I’m teaching about threats to creation. I’m struggling with the idea that everything I know I’m afraid the teens will already know. They are an age that is being bombarded with the fact that the generations before them have abused the world and it is their responsibility to clean up the mess and start taking better care of it.

Keep in mind, I have been nervous before every class so far. While I’m so excited to be teaching the youth, I’m afraid that I’m not qualified enough, or that I haven’t prepared enough, or I don’t know enough. I’ve been told that so far they are really enjoying coming. I hope they are learning something, too. I have.

Everywhere I look now, I see how the media is striving to educate the public on the use of energy and how we can be more “green friendly.” Sometimes I wonder why Christians haven’t been the ones behind this revolution of thought seeing as we had been given the mandate to take care of creation in the first place. Or, maybe, there are Christians behind the revolution, but it’s just that I haven’t seen them.