In the news

Below are a few links related to care for God's earth (one part of Christian Stewardship). What have you done for God's world this week?

• Government study: Climate change affects water, agriculture
• More seminaries linking religion, environmental concern
• Congo Basin - world's largest protected wetland
• Conservationists killed in Virunga Park, D.R. Congo (page 3 of the magazine PDF)

An incentive for Bible reading

Have you tried reading through the Bible but failed to read consistently? If so, Logos may have a helpful tool for you.

The Logos Global Bible Reader (GBR) software (now in beta) lets you pick a Bible reading schedule. When you open the program, you see Bible passages. You login to the reader, read the displayed passages, and then click on "Done Reading" when you finish.

The incentive part of the process is that you are part of a world-wide Bible reading community. Logging on via a free account at Logos, the Global Bible Reading program shows your general location on the globe with a red dot. When you select "Done Reading", your dot changes to green.

The program never identifies you by name, but just seeing red dots changing to green helps motivate you to "go green" by reading the Bible passages.

The program also fosters a sense of community by letting you post a comment about a passage and to read comments from other readers worldwide.

If this sounds interesting to you, surf on over to Logos, create a login account, and download the Global Bible Reader software.

Do we truly follow Christ?

Sometimes it seems that United Methodists are not truly united. Not that we all need to be of one mind on all issues, but it often seems that we deliberately strive for unloving discord.

Most often the strife is about either social and environmental issues or else spreading the Gospel. It need not and should not be an "either-or" proposition. It needs to be a "both-and" one. We need to bring the light of Christ into a world of darkness. But we also need to realize that a strong faith and truly following Christ expresses itself through Godly actions. That certainly includes social and environmental actions.

People who truly follow Christ consider themselves caretakers of God's earth. They wouldn't dream of spoiling God's wonderful planet, harming his people, or ignoring the plight of his plants and animals. True followers of Christ would not ignore mistreatment of any of God's children. They would also prefer to use their own riches to help others rather than to add more "bling" to their possessions.

Those who truly follow Christ have an "attitude of gratitude" that shows in their everyday actions, their generous giving, their love for all God's creatures, and in their love of others who are not like them.