Blessing the Earth
How are you blessing the earth? In worship this summer we have been reading the beginning of our story in Genesis. The covenant that God made with God’s people, beginning with Abraham and Sarah, is that because the Lord God blesses us we will be a blessing; all the families of the earth will be blessed by God’s people (Genesis 12:1-3). Through Jesus we have been grafted on to this story. This is our story. So we also are meant to be a blessing to all the people of the earth. That’s why in the United Methodist Church, our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ who transform the world. We are to help care for and renew everything and everyone that God created. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, understood God’s grace as power — the power to live a transformed life, the power to transform the world. He never doubted that we are saved only by God’s grace through faith. But Wesley believed God calls us to participate, to be fruitful. That is, God saves us by...