Project Description

Books – A Rocha’s Authors

A Place at the Table: Faith, Hope, and Hospitality | Jo Swinney and Miranda Harris

Structured around the stages of a meal, this book is written in part by Miranda Harris (co-founder of A Rocha), whose tragic death in 2019 was a shock to many around the world, who found her approach to hospitality and community a life-long inspiration. Miranda’s daughter, Jo Swinney, writes alongside her to explore the transformative way in which sharing food is at the heart of a shared life.

Planetwise: Dare to Care for God’s World | Dave Bookless

Written by Dave Bookess, A Rocha International Director of Theology, Planetwise is not another book on green issues to make you feel guilty. In these pages you will find solid biblical theology and, most importantly, hope that God can take your small and insignificant efforts and multiply them in his great plan to β€œreconcile all things unto Himself.” Besides honoring him, living simply can be an exciting adventure.

Since its publication in 2008, Planetwise has been translated intoΒ French,Β German,Β Chinese, Dutch,Β Spanish, Korean, and Japanese.

Making a World of Difference | Dave Bookless

Our world is not as it was created to be; from environmental decay, suffering, and political extremism, to conflict, poverty, and social and economic instability. But God is calling us, the church, to respond to this! Making a World of Difference tells you why, shows you how, and gives you hope that you can make a world of difference. It includes solid, biblical teaching on key topics – such as the climate and nature emergencies – and offers a theology of justice. It is complete with carefully crafted discussion questions for one person or a small group to use.

Also available in French, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese, throughΒ Renew Our World – Resources

Under the Bright Wings | Peter Harris

Under the Bright Wings tells the story of how Peter and Miranda Harris founded A Rocha in the Algarve, Portugal in 1983. β€œIn the developing ministry of A Rocha an exciting, contemporary form of Christian mission has come alive.” – The Rev Dr John Stott

Kingfisher’s Fire: A Story of Hope for God’s Earth | Peter Harris

A Rocha’s co-founder Peter Harris painstakingly retells in these two books the story of A Rocha, from one field study centre in Portugal to a family of wonderfully varied community conservation projects in eighteen countries. Under the Bright Wings covers the first ten years of pioneering and establishing the movement, and Kingfisher’s Fire recounts the rapid expansion of the second decade, with many wonderful stories of remarkable people, tears, laughter, and vision.

Planted: A Story of Creation, Calling, and Community | Leah Kostamo

Planted is not a β€œhow to” book, but a β€œhow so” book in which the reader is invited to travel with Leah Kostamo, A Rocha Canada co-founder, on the wild ride of salmon saving, stranger welcoming, and God worshiping as she and her husband helped establish the first Christian environmental center in Canada.

Doing Good Without Giving Up: Sustaining Social Action in a World that’s Hard to Change | Ben Lowe

Ben Lowe, Executive Director of A Rocha USA, explores the Christian’s call to follow Christ and do good in the world, even when success does not seem achievable. Not solely creation care focused. Includes study questions.

Postcards from the Middle East: How our family fell in love with the Arab world | Chris Naylor

Chris and Susanna Naylor set off for a new life in the Arab world – living first in Kuwait, then Jordan and finally Lebanon, where they began the works of A Rocha in the Middle East. In a region never far from the news, they discovered their expectations – of war, terrorism, desert sand dunes, men in white robes and veiled women, camels and Kalashnikovs, indeed their own reasons for being there – were to be constantly challenged. As they found out, the reality bore little resemblance to their pre-conceptions. Postcards from the Middle East is a tale of love from one family’s experiences: a story of work, schooling, friendships, worship and shared family life, lived out in precious communities against a back drop of world-changing events and spectacular scenery.

Chris Naylor served as the Executive Director of A Rocha International, until his, and his wife’s, tragic death in 2019.

Books – Theological Perspectives

The Bible and Ecology:Β Rediscovering the Community of CreationΒ |Β Richard Bauckham

Bauckham discovers a tradition of a β€œcommunity of creation” in which human beings are fellow members with God’s other creatures and true reconciliation to God involves the entire creation. Short, reliable, and engaging,Β The Bible and EcologyΒ is essential reading for anyone looking for a biblically grounded approach to ecology.

For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation CareΒ |Β Steven Bouma-Prediger

This award-winning book provides the most thorough evangelical treatment available on a theology of creation care. β€œAuthentic Christian faith requires ecological obedience,” writes Steven Bouma-Prediger. He urges Christians to acknowledge their responsibility and privilege as stewards of the earth.

Creation Care, A Biblical Theology of the Natural WorldΒ |Β Douglas Moo and Jonathan Moo.

The Bible reveals a God whose creative power and loving care embrace all that exists. Yet the significance of the Bible’s extensive teaching about the natural world is easily overlooked by Christians accustomed to focusing on what the Bible says about God’s interaction with human beings. Father and son team Douglas and Jonathan Moo cast a joyful vision of the world as God’s creation, inviting readers to rediscover who they truly are as creatures called to love and serve the Creator, and delight in all God has made.

Creation Care Discipleship: Why Earthleeping Is an Essential Christian PracticeΒ |Β Steven Bouma-Prediger

Although our planet faces numerous ecological crises, including climate change, many Christians continue to view their faith as primarily a “spiritual” matter that has little relationship to the world in which we live. But Steven Bouma-Prediger contends that protecting and restoring our planet is part and parcel of what it means to be a Christian.

Making his case from Scripture, theology, and ethics and including insights from the global church, Bouma-Prediger explains why Christians must acknowledge their identity as earthkeepers and therefore embrace their calling to serve and protect their home planet and fellow creatures. To help readers put an “earthkeeping faith” into practice, he also suggests numerous practical steps that concerned believers can take to care for the planet.

Bouma-Prediger unfolds a biblical vision of earthkeeping and challenges Christians to view care for the earth as an integral part of Christian discipleship.

Refugia Faith: Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth |Β Debra Rienstra

Christian spirituality and practice must adapt to prepare for life on a climate-altered planet. Rienstra applies the concept of refugia – a place of shelter – to human culture and faith, asking, in this era of ecological devastation, how can Christians become people of refugia, not only in the biomes of the earth, but in our human cultural systems and in our spiritual lives?

Salvation Means Creation Healed: The Ecology of Sin and GraceΒ |Β Howard A. Snyder

The Bible promises the renewal of all creation–a new heaven and earth–based on the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For centuries this promise has been sidelined or misunderstood because of the church’s failure to grasp the full meaning of biblical teachings on creation and new creation. The Bible tells the story of the broken and restored relationship between God, people, and land, not just God and people. This is the full gospel, and it has the power to heal the church’s long theological divorce between earth and heaven. Jesus’ resurrection in the power of the Holy Spirit is the key, and the church as Christ’s body is the primary means by which God is reconciling all things through Jesus Christ. Jesus’ ultimate healing of all creation is the great hope and promise of the gospel, and he calls the church to be his healing community now through evangelism, discipleship, and prophetic mission.

Earthkeeping and Character: Exploring a Christian Ecological Virtue EthicΒ |Β Steven Bouma-Prediger

Addressing a topic of growing and vital concern, this book asks us to reconsider how we think about the natural world and our place in it. Steven Bouma-Prediger brings ecotheology into conversation with the emerging field of environmental virtue ethics, exploring the character traits and virtues required for Christians to be responsible keepers of the earth and to flourish in the challenging decades to come. He shows how virtue ethics can enrich Christian environmentalism, helping readers think and act in ways that rightly value creation.

Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation CareΒ |Β Edited by David Paul Warners and Matthew Kuperus Heun

Beyond StewardshipΒ is intended to equip Christians to live better in this world by helping us all think more intentionally about the relationship we have with the nonhuman creation in which we are necessarily and thoroughly embedded. It responds to the questions β€œWhat if God didn’t place humans on earth to beΒ stewardsΒ of creation but something else?” and β€œIf not stewards, then what?”

The chapters inΒ Beyond StewardshipΒ were written by scholars from diverse disciplines who share a deep passion for a flourishing creation. Each chapter begins with a compelling story that draws the reader into new ways of thinking. Each author then looks beyond stewardship from the context of his or her own discipline and experiences.Β Collectively, the essays inΒ Beyond StewardshipΒ offer an expanded and enlivened understanding of the place of humans in the context of God’s creation.

God’s Good World: Reclaiming the Doctrine of Creation | Jonathan R. Wilson

The doctrine of creation has often been neglected in Christian theology. Distinguished evangelical theologian Jonathan Wilson exposes what has been missing in current theological discourse and offers an original, constructive work on this doctrine.

The book unites creation and redemption, showing the significance of God’s work of creation for understanding the good news of redemption in Jesus Christ. Wilson develops a trinitarian account of the life of the world and sets forth how to live wisely, hopefully, peaceably, joyfully, and generously in that world. He also shows how a mature doctrine of creation can help the church think practically about contemporary issues, including creation care, sexuality, technology, food and water, and more.

Shalom and the Community of CreationΒ |Β Randy S. Woodley

Materialism. Greed. Loneliness. A manic pace. Abuse of the natural world. Inequality. Injustice. War. The endemic problems facing America today are staggering. We need change and restoration. But where to begin? Randy Woodley offers an answer: learn more about the Native American β€˜Harmony Way,’ a concept that closely parallels biblicalΒ shalom.

Major Study Reports

Tearfund Canada & A Rocha Canada

For All the Earth: 2023 Survey Result

Tearfund Canada, in partnership with A Rocha Canada, conducted a survey geared towards young Christians about their beliefs surrounding creation care. The survey involved 742 young Christians along with focus groups over 120 people. The findings show that young Christians hold a strong concern for climate change and nature loss, and are compelling the church to take action.

92% of young Canadians surveyed stated that they believe caring for creation is an essential act of discipleship. They also believe it is an essential aspect of the Church’s mission.Β Download the full Survey Report

Key Findings

    • 65% of respondents attend church weekly or more, and 77% attend at least once a month
    • 91% are worried about climate change and nature loss
    • 92% believe that caring for creation is an essential act of discipleship and the Church’s mission
    • 84% of young Christians said they have friends that are concerned about climate change
    • 75% want mentoring from their church to help them cultivate Christian hope as they face the world’s future

β€œYoung people who follow Jesus are urging us to care for God’s good earth now. Let’s stand with them and future generations by passionately protecting and preserving our precious planet.” – Ken Shigematsu, Pastor of Tenth Church, Vancouver

β€œThese results are a clear invitation to Missional thinking to lead both transformation of communities and creation flourishing – a consistent pattern in scripture that addresses the longing expressed in the survey.” – Rev. David Wells, General Superintendent – Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada

A similar survey was conducted among 630 Christians aged 14-19 from across the UK in 2020 by Tearfund and Youthscape. The result reflected the same picture as the Canadian one. For more, download the report Burning Down the House: How The Church Could Lose Young People Over Climate Inaction.

Tearfund,Β 2022

Abundant community theology: Working towards environmental and economic sustainability

Seeking a global theological perspective on environmental and economic sustainability

β€˜Our true role as humans requires that we think differently about ourselves, and then live differently with others and with theΒ planet.

β€˜That we share more abundantly and more generously. That collectively, we tread more lightly on the earth. That we hoard and consumeΒ less.

β€˜And that we recognise we live in an abundant community of creation, in which love – not dominion – pervades all weΒ do.’

So concludes the Abundant Community report, which seeks to provide a global, theological perspective on environmental and economic sustainability (EES).

Drawing on the input and contribution of countless theologians, thinkers, writers and practitioners of various sorts from many countries around the world, the report represents the culmination of a lengthy process in which Tearfund commissioned consultations around theology of EES in Africa, Asia,Β Latin America, Europe and North America.

To download the full report, visitΒ Abundant community theology: Working towards environmental and economic sustainability (EES)

Tearfund, 2023

Restorative revolution: A movement of the church to transform wealth, power and communities for a flourishing world

What stories will be told of the 21st century?

This is a pivotal moment for churches and Christians to recover our place in God’s restoration story and realise our collective power to shape a fairer future. The church is the most powerful agent for change in the world. Together, we can act with courage to shape a flourishing world where each of us has the economic agency and power to meet our basic needs, while protecting the earth’s life-support systems. This is the restorative economy.

This research report is an invitation into the story of what is possible when millions of Christians across hundreds of thousands of churches follow Jesus with our whole lives. A story about how small seeds can sow global restoration in the hands of God.

The full report is available in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. It is accompanied with a six-part bible study series to encourage reflection on the church’s power to shape a fairer world, also available in English, French and Spanish.

Articles

Creation Care,Β Lausanne Movement, by Dave Bookless, Jasmine Kwong, Seth Appiah-Kubi, & Jocabed Solano

The Pollinator,Β Lausanne/WEA Creation Care Network, various authors

Care for Creation by John Stott

Caring for God’s World from an address by John Stott

Creation Community and Our Inheritance by Miranda Harris

Creation and the Gift of Time by Eugene Peterson

Creation: God’s Covenant with the Earth by Peter Harris

Jesus Died to Save the Planet, byΒ Paul Kunert

Paul is a businessman and chartered accountant with many years’ experience in the electricity sector in Africa. For many years he’d seen climate change as a secondary issue for Christians, until the truth about ecological breakdown and God’s purposes in Christ for all creation dawned on him.

Paul’s essay is compelling and biblical. Chris Wright, of Langham International, says: β€œThere is a prophetic, Jeremiah-like urgency to this essay, calling the church to wake up and get serious about this issue. But, also like Jeremiah, Paul Kunert calls for repentance and holds out hope.”