A Worthwhile Endeavor

     I can almost taste it! Graduation is in my sights. It will be the culmination of five years of work.
     For some reason, though, I will feel no sense of closure until I walk across the stage with diploma in hand. More importantly, I want this project to be as good as it can be. From the moment I started the program, I have tried to focus on completing a project that could be a practical blessing to the Church. Yeah, sure there are some selfish, ego-driven motivations in the mix, but I genuinely wanted to complete a project that would be relevant and timely.
     I selected the themes of social justice and Creation Care, and how focusing on these disciplines can help us to live more faithfully in a consumer culture.
     Have these themes been the most important themes for me personally throughout my adult Christian life? Have I come to some level of mastery of these themes in my own life?
     Not really.
     As an "evangelical Christian," I gravitate toward spiritual conversion of people's hearts as the first order of Christian mission. If God can change people's hearts and people can accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, then everything else will fall in place. This is my default setting for understanding Christian mission and it probably always will be! But this project has challenged my understanding of Christian mission. I am seeing more and more that apart from good works, such faith is dead and useless (Matthew 25). If we neglect to care for The Least of These and to care appropriately  for God's creation (as its primary stewards), then we have missed the boat!
     Am I a better Christian than I was before I started this project? Probably not, but I understand more clearly what God expects from his Church (and individual believers). Hopefully I can grow into this new understanding, and hopefully others will be inspired in the process.