Who are Renew our World?
We're young people sold out for Jesus.
We're Christians from around the world with a passion to see God's kingdom burst out into our nations. To see an end to poverty, to halt climate change, and to break down structures of inequality in our everyday.
We live in an amazing, wondrous and beautiful place. When we go about our day, we don’t very often grasp this. Most of our daily life is average and ordinary, at least on the surface of it. However, maybe we need to renew our approach to life to rediscover this sense of awe and wonder, even when we go about our everyday lives.
At this point it's impossible to ignore climate change. This is especially true for those of us living in poverty. The poorest countries are witnessing how the weather is changing and how people are suffering. Droughts and heatwaves have grown hotter and more intense. Farmers struggle to raise crops. Floods and typhoons are wiping out communities. For so many, asking whether or not climate change is real isn't the right question. The right question is how we stop it, how we survive it.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, met fifty young Anglicans from across southern Africa to discuss the environment and discipleship at a youth conference in Lusaka, in Zambia.
'This was an inspirational afternoon,' he said, thrilled at the energy and passion the young people brought to tackling poverty and climate change as disciples of Jesus.
What happens when a nun, a Pentecostal and two Anglicans walk into their local MP’s office?
Jo Knight, Tom Allen and Yen Daly from TEAR Australia, and Elizabeth Young, a Sister of Mercy, met with their local MP Adam Bandt in July - and had a really positive response! This group of passionate Christians presented him with their signed Climate Action Petition and asked him to support more action on climate change.
Can a stove be beautiful? We think Langar’s is. With support from SSEWA-Pak in Pakistan, Langar and her husband Mana Ram have constructed a fuel-efficient stove, which has made a helpful difference to their daily life. Not only is the stove cheaper to run and better for the environment, but less smoke in the house makes for healthier lungs too.
Conversations can change lives, and so can the food that we eat. In the UK a church decided to have a meal together and got way more than they bargained for or expected.
"Our church had felt God’s leading to pray about what we should be doing in order to participate in the Spirit’s work of building Jesus’ kingdom right here in our community. We seemed to think that it might revolve around food" (Rev Dr Rosa Hunt, Minister, Salem Baptist Church).
Nepal is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, with changing weather and increased flooding and landslides. TEAR Australia's Paul Hansen reports on how their partners are working in a variety of ways to support people affected by changes to their environment.
The belief that our redemption in Christ Jesus covers the whole of life motivated churches and Christian organisations to join in the city of Camaçari, Brazil to reflect on how the Church should engage with environmental issues.
For Aaden* and his fellow villagers, climate change isn’t just a vague concept, it’s a harsh reality that impacts their lives in devastating ways.
Aaden is a 45-year-old farmer from the Hargeisa region of Somaliland. He is part of a community who are learning that the solutions to environmental problems can come from within themselves.
Written by Bebeto Araújo, originally in Portuguese.
In Christ human beings become able not only of cultivating communion with the Creator, but also with their fellow creatures and the creation of which they are part and which, although it is being hit by our "destructive dominion", remains good and beautiful, and one day will be fully restored.
