Praying for the Environment By Phil EvansPhilip Evans - 3 Apr 2008

If you pick up a newspaper or tune into any news show at the moment you’re highly likely at some point to catch a story or a report based on the subject of climate change. To many people in the world, this is the single most important issue facing our planet. Christians have long been involved in this cause, but for the mainstream it’s been seen as an issue secondary to other ‘spiritual’ matters. 

I heard an evangelist recently sharing the gospel, and he said that there comes a time in our lives when we learn something new about the world and ourselves. We’re then faced with the challenge of aligning our lives with the new information we’ve learned. Certainly, this is the dilemma that plays a key part of any Christian’s walk with Jesus.  Living under the rule and reign of the King means we familiarise ourselves and adapt to life in his kingdom.

Last September we met together as the Guildford Boiler Room community to begin a year long study of God’s Story. We’ve taken the year to read through the narrative in the bible starting from Genesis and finishing in Revelation. As the story unravels, we’ve learned of God’s relationship with people, people’s relationship with one another and our relationship with our environment.
 
At the end of our time of teaching on the first part of Genesis, we discussed the implications of what we had read.

"Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
Genesis 1 v 26 (NASB)  

Genesis is a rich text loaded with meaning and precedent for our understanding of the world. One of the main things to shine through to me was the command from God to steward the earth’s resources. Here at the opening scene of the bible, we see God commissioning his people to take the call of environmentalism with great seriousness and responsibility.   God gave us dominion over the planet, but instead we can't help looking back and thinking that we’ve gone further and now dominate it instead.   I’ve recently become a member of the Green lobby in the UK and what I’ve found most interesting is the lack of Christian presence in this important arena.  Surely someone is responding to God’s command of stewardship?  So why aren’t more of us leading society in necessary change and raising awareness of key issues? 

As we’ve been reminded over recent months, 24-7 is a prayer movement. Prayer is the rhythm we walk to and we believe that, “God can do nothing except through prayer” (John Wesley).
 
But do we pray for the problems facing our planet? Certainly we pray for the poor, we pray for the lost and we pray for own relationship with God. But how do we pray for God to intervene in the problem of global warming? Do we believe that it is a problem?
 
Justice is one of the six values outworked by 24-7 Boiler Rooms and communities.  Climate change and the stewardship of the earth’s resources is a key part of this value. As with the vast majority of the world's problems, it’s the third world that gets hit the hardest. Climate change is affecting the world's poorest people's which is why Christian social justice organisations such as Tearfund in the UK are getting involved with this issue.
 
Much of the talk in the media has laid responsibility for climate change with governments. Other groups have put emphasis on individuals and our lifestyle. How do Christians respond? If we look at our lives as one whole then we must approach the area of environmentalism in the same way as we would say money or kindness to strangers. Prayer is a strategic weapon that the fight against global warming cannot do without.
 
Below I’ve included some prayer points we may wish to consider for our own prayer lives or prayer rooms.
 
Prayer Points:

• In the UK, the Climate Change  Bill is currently making its way through the Houses of Parliament before becoming law in June 2008. Pray that the environment will be the real benefactor of this bill.
• May 19th – 31st International Convention on Biological Diversity, Bonn.  
  
• June 5th World Environment Day  
• July 7th-9th G8 in Japan  
  

Take a corner of your prayer room and collect newspaper cuttings, magazine articles, pictures and images of the world or wildlife. Pray for governments who make decisions about these huge issues. Ask God to show you where you are currently being wasteful with the resources that pass through your life; 'to whom much is given, much will be expected'