Thinking about Work: What is the “Way to Live”?

Two Sundays ago, our Way to Live topic was Work.  Work is a natural part of life, as basic as the effort to hunt or grow our own food if we didn’t have our many  modern conveniences.  If we want to develop good skills for a sport, then it takes the work of frequent practice.  Sometimes we need to “work at” keeping connected with friends.  And, of course, God calls us to do “good work” in his name for others.  Work is a good thing in that it challenges us, reminds us of our limitations, allows us to make things different or create something new.

But a lot of the time, perhaps most of the time, when we think of the word “work” we think of what adults do during their day – your parents  in their offices or yours truly typing this blog post at the computer keyboard.  Work is what has to get done to pay the bills and put food on the table…not to mention the Xbox in the living room.  Some people go overboard and become obsessed with work – “workaholics.”  But for most of us, we also try to have something we call “life” that is in some way separate from “work.”  Work is our duty, what we have to do, while life is what we choose.  Some of us find work that we integrate with “life” and work becomes part of who we are.  Others absolutely cannot wait for 5:00 to come.

There’s often a struggle to find what is called the “work-life balance,” a healthy mixture of personal time and one’s job.  A common question that is asked in search of this balance is, “Do I live in order to work or do I work in order to live?”  We hope that our answer is the latter – we work so that we can obtain what we need to have a secure and enjoyable life.

I think it’s interesting to compare how much someone is “supposed” to work today with how often people were at work in the past.  Today, in America and in similar countries, a “normal” full-time job is forty hours each week.  As recently as the beginning of the last century, however, many Americans were working much more each week – about 70 hours or more.  But in the Middle Ages and earlier, the average person may have actually worked less than the average person does today.  And the earliest humans, whose “work” was mainly hunting and gathering food, may have only spent about 18 hours each week working – that’s less than one full day!

This makes me think of some questions to think about as we try to figure out whether we live to work or work to live.  For example:

• How much work each week do you think would be too much?
• How much would be too little so that someone could deserve to be called “lazy”?
• Would you rather work longer hours for more money but less time to make use of it, or shorter hours for less money but more time to yourself?
• How could we as Christians help each other figure out the place of work in the right Way to Live?

This also brings to my mind the story of the Christian community in San Francisco called the Church of the Sojourners.  This is a church of people who actually live together and share things in common (a similar attitude to what we see in Acts 2).  Because they share a lot of their resources, many of them work only part-time jobs so they can spend more time with the community, or in prayer, or simply enjoying the day God has made.  They’ve decided that while they may have less money than most people, they’ve reached a better quality of life.  What do you think?  Would you work for more or live with less?

 

And about the year 2012…

During our introduction to the Book of Revelation, some of you asked about predictions that the world will end, or at least some terrible things will happen, in the year 2012.  I said there was nothing about that in the Bible and that I think that people are just trying to make some money with doom-and-gloom forecasts.  Today I just came across an article on CNN.com about the Mayan calendar and people misusing it to say 2012 will be a disastrous year predicted long ago.

Click hear to read the story.

 

Way to Live: Resources for Creation Care

This past Sunday we talked about God’s creation and how the Bible may call us to practice what some have started calling “creation care.”  This is environmental concern the Christian way – understanding ourselves both as creatures within the boundaries and connections of nature as well as God’s greatest creation, made in His image.  We are given some authority over this world but we must use our authority like God uses His with us – that we would be loving, kind, respectful of all the life that surrounds us, and that we would seek cooperation with ou natural surroundings instead of separation or opposition.

With that in mind, here are some resources to get you thinking about, and acting, your own care of creation.

How Big is Your Footprint?

A few web sites feature interactive quiz games that reveal the size of your “ecological footprint.”  This “footprint” tells you how many Earths we would need if everyone on the planet lived the way you do.  The different games measure different aspects, so try each one and see what scores you get!

The Global Footprint Network calculator shows that my current “way to live” requires 17.4 acres of land and, if everyone lived like me, 3.9 Earths!  And I was being generous to myself with some of my answers…yikes…

Myfootprint.org makes me look even worse!  With some of my answers, I said some things that I plan to be doing in the near future…but even then, I result in 4.36 Earths!

Finally, the most visually interesting game (and the one where I come off looking best) is Consumer Consequences.  But hard as I may try, when all is said and done, my lifestyle would require three and a half Earths!  And no matter how much you manipulate the answers, I think it’s actually impossible to get anywhere close to just one Earth.  That’s because more needs to be done besides our individual choices – even if we’re the “greenest” house on the block, we will always depend on the structures and resources of our society as a whole.  Creation care needs to be both a personal choice and a choice made by our community, state, and country.

Easy Ways to Change Your Lifestyle

There may be some things your family already does that you can build upon.  Maybe you already recycle at Person Industries.  Maybe  your parents have started a garden so you can grow some of your own vegetables, fruits and herbs (instead of getting food that, on average, has traveled 1500 miles from the farm to your dinner plate).  Here are some other small changes you can make:

1. Buy local and organic foods – If your food comes from Person County and the surrounding area, and if it is grown “organically” (using natural methods instead of oil-based fertilizers and pesticides), then you get food that is fresh, delicious, and that is brought to you in a process that uses a lot less oil or gasoline that cause global warming.  You and your parents can visit places right here in Roxboro, such as the Farmer’s Market at the corner of Foushee and Depot, Riley’s Produce on N. Main Street, and Lee Farms Market on Madison Boulevard.  The major grocery stores like Lowe’s, Food Lion, and even Wal-Mart have some organic foods, although they will often not be local.

2. Get away from that TV and that computer! – Okay, so finish reading this post, then turn off the computer!  Spend less of your time with activities that require electricity.  Spend more time reading (I hear that Bible’s a pretty good book), playing outside, or taking up a new hobby.

3. Read about creating a different “Way to Live” – There are a couple of books you can easily get your hands on that will provide lots of information and give you specific things to do.  In our very own Youth Library in the basement, you can check out It’s Easy Being Green: One Student’s Guide to Serving God and Saving the Planet by Emma Sleeth.  She wrote the book when she was fifteen!

On Sunday I also showed the high school students the book The Carbon-Free Home: 36 Remodeling Projects to Help Kick the Fossil-Fuel Habit by Stephen and Rebekah Hren.  This couple built their first self-sufficient home right here in Person County.  They have since moved back to Durham and they remodeled an existing, 70-year old house.  Thanks to their garden they grow half their food, and thanks to their solar panels and energy efficiency they don’t need any electricity from the power company.  While you and your parents may not be that ambitious, the book is full with a whole range of ideas, easy to complex, on how to make your house more creation-friendly!  This book is available through the public library system.  It’s not at the Person County library, but you can look it up with the search page and request that it be sent over here for you to check out.

4. Get active! – Get involved locally with issues of creation care.  You can join or organize a club at your school.  Ask your principal, local businesses – even Roxboro Baptist Church! – what they are doing to be better caretakers of our local environment.  Volunteer with the North Carolina chapter of the Nature Conservancy or join the work of Person County PRIDE.

5. Learn more about how all this has to do with the Bible – With the high school students, we held a simulated debate about whether the Bible said we could pollute all we wanted and it didn’t matter, or if our lack of care for creation could be sinful.  While most of us may now think God wants us to care for creation, Christians haven’t always thought the Bible says that creation is important to God.  But the Bible may be more “green” than people believed!  Consider taking a look at the The Green Bible or some Christian books on care of creation, such as Serve God, Save the Planet by Matthew Sleeth (Emma Sleeth’s dad) or Green Revolution: Coming Together to Care for Creation by Ben Lowe (available in March)

I hope all these resources will be helpful to you as you figure out how to make creation care a part of your Way to Live!  Next week we’ll be talking about a related practice: Stuff

 

Way to Live: Visit the web site

As we go forward with our journey together through the Way to Live, I invite you to visit the web site (www.waytolive.org) and take a look at some of the teenagers’ stories found there.  This coming Sunday our theme for discussion will be “The Story.”  See you then!

 

Book of Revelation: Introduction

Last week, we got started on what I’m sure will be a very fun, unusual, and exciting study of the Book of Revelation!  We might even make our own movie by the end of this…

There are so many different opinions and ideas about Revelation.  It’s been called “a script for a horror movie” and downright “evil.”  It has also been viewed as some kind of nifty code about the future that only the really dedicated can pick apart and interpret.  But what is Revelation really about, and how can it be meaningful for us, today?!?

So we started off by looking at Revelation 1:1-3 and looked at what the author, a guy named John, claims about his book.  First, he says (no duh) that his book is a revelation – a special message that comes only from God.  The Greek word is apocalypsis, from which we get our word “apocalypse” which we associate not with God revealing something but with the “end of the world” and all the bad, nasty stuff that would occur then.  John also calls his book a prophecy, and we remember from our “God and Us” study that prophecy sometimes predicts the future, but that’s not the main point.  The main point of the prophecy is to remind God’s people what He wants them to do so they can be faithful and obedient to Him.  A prophecy says “Straighten up!” more than it says “UNC will not win the national championship this year” (not a prophecy, just my feeling!).  Finally, John says that what he talks about will happen soon and the time is near.

What does John mean by that?  If Revelation is about the end of the world, then was John wrong?  The world keeps on going 2,000 years after Jesus’ birth and it all stays the same.  The problem may not be that John got his prediction wrong, but that we misunderstand what Revelation is about.  So we talked about how Revelation is one book in a whole series of books in the same genre or type.  Just as there are “mystery” novels and “romance” novels, there were a whole bunch of books called “apocalyptic” books around the time of Revelation.  From about 167 BC to 135 AD, faithful Jews wrote vivid, imaginative, strange books full of symbols, just like Revelation.  These symbols were meant to be understood by the people living at the same time and in the same place as the writer.  They weren’t some code about nuclear weapons and helicopters in the future.  All apocalyptic books were written to Jews, or Christians, who were suffering persecution.  Because they believed in the one God, they were mistreated, beaten up, and even killed by other people.  Apocalyptic books used their strange imagery to help suffering believers have hope and imagine the end of their mistreatment.  They did so by pointing out how the world is really a place where there is an ongoing battle between good and evil.  Some people sign up for the side of evil (or Satan) and some people sign up for the side of good (God).  While it may look like evil is winning at the time, apocalyptic books remind believers that God is stronger and that He will make everything right in the end.

And John wrote to Christians who were in need of that hope!  Revelation was probably written around 95 AD, when a guy named Domitian was emperor, leader of the vast Roman Empire that controlled most of the world that the early Christians knew.  Domitian was a little insecure and decided he needed to be worshiped as Dominus and Deus – Lord and God.  Christians in what was then called Asia Minor (now the country of Turkey) were under growing pressure to go to the Roman temples and worship Domitian instead of the real God.  John encouraged them to resist!

Emperor Domitian (well, his statue at least...)

We see that Domitian and Jesus Christ have competing claims to be worthy of our love and honor.  Both were seen as “Lord and God.”  Both were known as “savior” and the source of good news.  Both proclaimed peace and a Kingdom that they ruled.  But you couldn’t have both in charge of your life at the same time.  You had to make a choice!

Domitian and the Roman Empire are one, but Revelation still speaks to us today, because in many ways we still have to make that choice.  Who are we going to serve?  What will we worship?  And will we love God even if it costs us everything??

Some Important Symbols in Revelation

horns = power/authority
7 = perfection
3 = supernatural realm
4 = the created world
10 = total/complete
12 = God’s people
white = victory
red = war
black = hardship
pale = death

little pink bunny = not weird enough to be in the Book of Revelation

 

Play Video Games and Learn about World Hunger!

Now that October is over, we’re finished with our hunger awareness emphasis in youth group.  I want to thank everyone for contributing to our offering for world hunger!  While we didn’t quite reach my ambitious goal of $100, you guys gave a lot and gave willingly and we came up with a total of $54.45.  I have added to the offering from money already in our Youth Missions budget so that we are sending $200 to the work of BWAid, the relief and development program of the Baptist World Alliance.  To learn more about the relief efforts that our offering will support, please click here.

Even though we’re finished with our lessons and discussions on hunger during our youth meetings, there are still plenty of opportunities for you to learn on your own time about hunger and what it means to help the hungry!  You can visit the informative web sites of Bread for the World or Church World Service.

Or….you can play a game!

That’s right, you can have some fun with two free video games and get more insight about world hunger at the same time:

Food Force

Available for download from this website, Food Force is a game produced by the “World Food Programme” of the United Nations.  In this game you are part of a skilled relief team that travels to the fictional nation of Sheylan to feed the people and help them rebuild after drought and war.  Your six missions will take the effort from emergency response to getting the people farming enough food to feed themselves again.

Darfur is Dying

In this game, you take the other end of the stick.  You’re a member of a poor refugee family fleeing the fighting and killing that is destroying your community, the Darfur region in the nation of Sudan.  This is a real-life disaster affecting people right now!!  This game helps us to imagine what it might be like to work hard to get enough food and water while trying to keep safe from armed terrorists who will try to hurt you!  Available as an online game (you don’t need to download), it can be played at this site here.

Even though we will move on to other studies in youth group, I hope each of you will continue to remember the hungry and what the Bible teaches us about how we should respond.  May God show us how to live in such a way that we never forget!

 

Dr. Shaheena Bhatti – This Wednesday

This Wednesday we will join the adults in the Fellowship Hall to hear our guest speaker, Dr. Shaheena Bhatti of Pakistan.  She is visiting America for several weeks under the Fulbright program and she is here to represent the Muslim religion and culture.  Last week in youth we learned some basic information about the religion of Islam – its history and basic beliefs (for those, see the “cheat sheet” below) as well as touching briefly on the controversial issues of jihad and the treatment of women in Muslim countries.  Dr. Bhatti will surely have more to say about that, and she will help dispel the myths that equate Muslims with terrorism.  Please join us this Wednesday!

 

Cheat sheet on Islam

 

Seven Core Beliefs

1.    One God – transcendent, omnipotent

2.    Angels as servants of God

3.    Authority of the revealed books of God, Qur’an as best, final

4.    God has sent many prophets, with Muhammad as the final

5.    The Last Day as the end of the world and judgment of humanity

6.    Allah’s divine control and measurement of human affairs

7.    Eternal life after death

 

Five Pillars of Islam

1.    Shahadah – Declaring allegiance to God

2.    Salat – A ritual of prayer five times each day

3.    Zakat – Annual charity, giving 2.5% of average annual wealth

4.    Saum – The month-long, daylight fast held during Ramadan

5.    Hajj – A pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca at least once

 

For Further Reading

 

Al-Qur’an (duh!)

 

General Overviews

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam – Yahiya Emerick

A Brief Guide to Islam – Paul Grieve (Person Library: 297 GRI)

What You Need to Know about Islam & Muslims – George Braswell (Person Library: 297.0 BRA)

 

Christian Perspectives on Islam

Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammad? – Timothy George

Christianity and Islam – Timothy George (Person Library: DVD 970)

 

Patterns for Prayer Time: Lesson for Sunday, August 3

DuPre’s Sunday morning sermon, “Just a Little Talk with Jesus,” used the story of Jacob wrestling God in Genesis 32 as a starting point to discuss each person’s need for regular and intimate times of prayer.  He especially focused upon God’s wrenching of Jacob’s hip that caused him to walk away from the all-night wrestling match with a limp.  In a similar fashion, our own wrestling with God in prayer – for prayer can be anywhere from joyful to painful – can leave us in some way permanently marked or changed.  We come away from it with a different “walk,” a difference in our attitude and actions.  We are not the same again.

Yet we often don’t treat prayer as an opportunity for transforming our character.  More often, it may be something we get through because we know we should at least talk to God even if we don’t know what to say.  Or prayer is reaching out a lifeline, hoping mainly that God will address all the requests that we have.  On a few occasions we just might understand and experience prayer as it is meant to be – enjoyment of the presence and closeness of God.  We just might get a glimpse of our own renewal in those moments. 

But we all know it isn’t easy to make prayer a fuller and more meaningful experience.  We’re distracted by the noise we fill our lives with – TV, radio, Internet videos, iTunes, etc.  Our thoughts quickly fill with other things we need to do -or really, really want to do – during the day: homework, hangout with friends, chores, eat, eat again, eat some more.  Our “prayer life” may become nothing more than a few bursts of “God, please do this” while we lay in bed and drift off to sleep.

On Sunday evening I suggested that we can adopt patterns to structure our prayer time that help us both focus as well as make our encounter with God broader than a litany of “Could you please do” x, y, or z.  If prayer really does make us better people, more Christ-like and more righteous, then we can think of it like practice.  Athletes know that when they practice for a sport they don’t just randomly run around.  There’s an order or pattern to their practice that conditions them physically and mentally to play their sport better.  One practice may begin with stretches and warm-ups, proceeds through drills, then may go into simulated play, finishing up with stretches at the end.  Everyone knows there is an order set on purpose so that when it comes game time, the athlete is ready to perform at a high level.

We can think of prayer in a similar way as our “practice” for playing the game of life – that is, for living out God’s good news every day of our lives.  If prayer is practice that shapes our personality and actions much like sports practice shapes an athlete’s skills, then setting down some patterns or order for this practice can, through the grace given us by God the Holy Spirit, cause us to “walk with a limp” or look and act as the different sort of people God wants us to be.  With that in mind, I gave the youth a handout discussing certain patterns for their prayer times/quiet times, let them practice a pattern at the end of our time together, and encouraged them to take the handout home with them.  I reproduce it below for anyone else who wants to take it and use it for building a useful structure to his or her prayer life:

Keep on the QT: Patterns for your Devotional/Quiet Time

A.C.T.S.

 

Adoration- Start by praising God, simply honoring Him for being who He is

 

Confession- Tell God about your sins and ask for forgiveness

 

Thanksgiving – Thank God for the good things you have experienced

 

Supplication – Offer God your requests for your own needs and those of others

 

 

Holy Reading QT
(see “Praying the Scripture” handout for more explanation)

 

“Center” yourself – Relax body and mind and focus on a key word or phrase (see #3 below)

 

Read slowly- Find a word or phrase that grabs your attention

 

Meditate – Take time to savor it, think about it, and see what God may teach you in the silence

 

Pray verbally – Share with God what you think or feel because of that word or phrase.  You may go from this to the ACTS pattern or any set of prayers of confession, thanks, request – or even anger and frustration

 

Rest – Finish by remaining silent before God, trusting in His presence

 

 

 

 

Bonhoeffer’s Pattern
(Life Together)

 

Prayer of Illumination- Begin by asking God to send the Holy Spirit to you through your reading of the Bible

 

Read a brief Bible story or text

 

Meditate on Scripture- Sometimes the whole passage, sometimes a single word or phrase.  Listen for the passage as God’s word to you. 

 

Personal prayer – Base your prayers for yourself on what you have read, perhaps even praying some of the very same words as you found on the page.

 

Intercession- Move out from yourself to consider the needs of others

 

Morning and Evening Prayer

 

Pick two different prayer exercises and place one at the center of your morning devotion and another at the center of your evening.  For example, you could choose to practice “Holy Reading” in the morning and review over your day with the “Prayer of Examen” at night (see other hand out).  Or you may get a prayer book that offers guided plans for morning and evening prayer.  Examples include:

 

The Book of Common Prayer

Christian Prayer

Prayer for Each Day

Take Our Moments and Our Days

 

Tips for Setting a Regular Time of Prayer

© Way to Live: Christian Practices for Teens (Upper Room Books, 2002), p. 287.

 

You may feel drawn to develop a more formal prayer time.  Here are a few suggestions to consider:

 

1. Find a space that helps you pray, perhaps a space of beauty but not full of distractions.  Your space might be a chair in the backyard, a darkened room with a candle, a comfy chair next to the fireplace, a bed in your room, a chapel in your church.

 

2. Once you have chosen the space, set a time.  Start with a small amount of time, like 10 to 30 minutes.

 

3. Take a few moments to just sit in silence.  Allow your body and mind to settle a little.  When you first sit down to prayer, your insides are like a muddy pond.  To clear the pond, sit and wait.  Eventually the mud settles to the bottom, and the water becomes clearer.  Usually it helps to find a simple word or phrase to repeat: “Jesus Christ”; “Into your hands I commit my spirit”; “Abba, I belong to you”; “Peace”; or some other phrase.  Simply say this phrase over and over within you as though you’re listening to the rhythm of the ocean.  As interesting thoughts arise, don’t try to stop them or latch on to them.  Just keep saying your phrase.

 

4. After five minutes or so, begin to do what you love to do with God.  That may be writing your thoughts in a journal, painting, reading Scripture, or continuing to sit in silence.  It may be lying on your back, singing, dancing, or whatever helps you open your heart to God.

 

5. At the end of your set time, offer thanks to God and close with a simple prayer for the day – something like “Lord, help me to be loving this day” or “Help me to see you in every person I meet.”

 

6. Keep at it.  Jesus taught that the most important part of prayer is being persistent (see Luke 18:1-8).  The more we continue to pray, the more our heart opens for receiving and giving love.  Try to continue the same prayer practice even when you get bored or tired of it.  Praying is a little like playing an instrument or being an athlete: it takes practice.  Over time you’ll discover that your prayer time will begin to transform you.  You may notice a greater sense of peace, a deeper longing to help others, a greater hunger to be with God, a stronger sense of who you are.  These are natural fruits of spending time with God.

 

 

The Bible, the World, and the Way We Eat – Study from Sunday, July 20

As Christians, God has called us to be disciples of Jesus.  The word disciple is similar to ”follower” but has a much fuller meaning.  A follower may prefer that someone else takes the lead.  The follower listens to the other person or maybe imitates that person in some ways - dressing the same way, listening to the same music.  A disciple, especially during the days the Bible was written, was supposed to be all that and more.  A disciple was like a terrific student who not only took good notes but committed everything to memory.  A disciple followed a teacher or master wherever he went and learned to determine every life choice by the master’s teaching and example.  The goal for the disciple would be to travel around alone later in life and be immediately recognized as carrying the same authority as the teacher – living and talking the same way.

So, as disciples of Jesus, we’re called to live and talk as Jesus did.  We’re supposed to make choices the way he made choices and consider important what he considered important.  And, if we read the Gospels well, we see Jesus considered a lot of every day things important – whom we were willing to speak to, what we do with the things we own, and even what we eat.  Following Jesus means a whole lot more than being sorry for our sins, promising to be nice people, and going to church on Sunday!

In fact, the whole Bible is a resource for learning to follow the will of God and to walk in the footsteps of Jesus in all things.  Believe it or not, but these really old stories, poems, rules and suggestions create in us a way of approaching the world that is relevant and applicable to both personal and public problems today.  The Bible may not address every issue specifically, but it shows us the character of God, the intended character of believers, and then invites us to prayer, creative thought, and then action.

So yesterday we had a little exercise in bringing the stories, commands, and examples in the Bible to a current issue affecting the whole world.  You and your parents may have talked about rising food prices.  Some of that is caused by rising gas prices.  Some of that is also caused by the fact that some food is being grown as fuel for cars instead of people.  Something else is happening in the world of food as well.  In different parts of our planet some people are pulling up out of poverty and they find they have more money to spend and save.  As a result, these people want to eat better – no more simple meals of rice, beans and bread!  They want to eat like Americans, which means lots of meat.  But can everyone eat as much as Americans do?  If not, how would that affect our diets?  And how should we think about this as Christians, as disciples of Jesus?

I brought this discussion to the youth last night with no agenda or set answer.  I invited them, as I invite anyone else reading this now, to read these snippets of a news article I reproduced, read the Scriptures listed below, and spend some time thinking about how the message of Scripture might shape our decisions about what and how we eat.  How should we respond to this news about food, not as Americans or “consumers” but as believers in Christ?

Diet for a more-crowded planet

Rising incomes raise appetite for meat. But how many can ‘eat like an American’?

By Moises Velasquez-Manoff | Staff Writer of The Christian Science Monitor / July 18, 2008 edition

In the first quarter of 2008, grain prices climbed to a 30-year high. On average, food prices are 54 percent higher than in 2007. Grains have gone up 92 percent. Hungry mobs, hard-pressed to afford staples, rioted in Haiti, Mexico, and Bangladesh…for some, the skyrocketing grain prices fulfill a longstanding prediction: A growing world population has more buying power. The newly affluent eat more meat. A rising share of the world’s agricultural output goes to animals. While grain supplies are more than adequate to feed everyone now, say experts, the current price spike shows that even an adequate supply doesn’t preclude hunger for the world’s poor. And in the future, a day may come when there isn’t enough grain for both humans and livestock – at least not at the US consumption rate…With a predicted world population of 9.5 billion by midcentury, are we all destined to be vegetarians?

Perhaps not entirely, say experts, but technological breakthroughs like lab-grown flesh notwithstanding, we’ll likely eat much less meat. And perhaps people in sub-Saharan Africa will eat a little more.  One-third of the world’s arable land grows food for livestock, and about 36 percent of world grain becomes animal feed. The problem, say experts, is the inefficiency of converting grain to meat. A pound of beef takes 7 pounds of feed to produce. For pork, the ratio is 1 to 3; and for chicken, 1 to 2. (Cold-blooded fish, which don’t need energy to maintain body temperature, are farmed more efficiently.)

Burden of the US model

[…]

The average American eats about 275 pounds of meat per year, says the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Each American, in effect, consumes 1,765 pounds of grain yearly…Only 220 pounds of that is consumed directly in foodstuffs like bread, pasta, and breakfast cereal. The rest is through animal products.  If everyone consumed grain at this rate, says Mr. Brown, today’s 2 billion-ton world grain harvest would feed only 2.5 billion people – two-fifths of the world population. If the world ate the way Italians do – 882 pounds of grain per person yearly – we’d feed 5 billion people. And if we all ate the way largely vegetarian India does (11-1/2 pounds of meat per person yearly, or 440 pounds of grain), our grain supply could feed 10 billion.

[…]

World consumption trends are moving toward more meat, not less. From 1970 to 2005, meat production in the developing world more than quintupled, from 30 million to 162 million tons, says the FAO. If trends continue, global demand for meat will increase by half again by 2030.  By 2050, world meat production may more than double its 2000 level, to 513 million tons yearly.  Rising affluence drives the growing appetite for meat…Yet some 800 million worldwide are chronically undernourished.

“There’s no need for hunger in the world,” says Polly Walker, MD, associate director of the Center for a Livable Future at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Md. “There’s an equity issue here that should give us pause.”

The 2006 UN report “Livestock’s Long Shadow” concluded that animal production, as currently practiced, poses a range of threats that demand immediate attention, from land degradation to biodiversity loss. A subsequent report by the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production echoed these conclusions, adding that the routine use of antibiotics on livestock increases the risk of creating a drug-resistant “superbug.”

Grazing important to many ecosystems

Many note that livestock need not compete with humans for grain, nor must raising them be destructive. Huge swaths of land around the world are suitable for grazing and little else. Ruminants – animals that digest grass – can turn the otherwise inedible plants into food for people…In many regions, like large parts of Africa, animals provide necessary protein that would otherwise be unavailable. There, livestock production should increase, says Pierre Gerber, coauthor of “Livestock’s Long Shadow.” Yes, environmental concerns are important, he says, but so is human welfare.

“It’s not because you have an environmental issue that you should stop production,” he says. “It’s because you have an environmental issue that you should manage it.”

Some Scriptures for Reflection

1.      Genesis 1:27-28

2.      2 Corinthians 8:8-15

3.      Deuteronomy 15:11

4.      Matthew 6:11

5.      Exodus 16:13-18

6.      2 Thessalonians 3:6-12

7.      Psalm 104:10-14; 27-28

Some Questions

1.      What’s your reaction to the article?

2.      What’s the American way of eating?  Is there a Christian way of eating?  Are they the same thing?

3.      Looking over the article and the Bible passages, what do you think?  Are there any questions that this brings up?  Would you want to live differently or live the same?

 

Sharing God’s Gifts – Especially Food!: Lesson for Wednesday, June 25

What do you think about hunger?

Many people across our world, and across this very country, will go to bed hungry tonight.  Some will “fall asleep” for the last time because of starvation or malnourishment.  Hunger is a deep problem and one that Christians should be at the forefront of fighting.

We started the lesson with a worksheet that had a series of statements that each person rated true or false.  We then discussed the answers:

1. There isn’t enough food in the world to feed every person.
False – There are enough available resources to make sure everyone could eat 4.3 pounds of food per day.

2. The number of hungry people has decreased in recent years.
False – The last survey showed hunger increased by 2 million people!

3. More than 1 in 10 American households experiences hunger or faces a risk of going hungry.
True – 10.9% percent, to be precise.

4. Famine is caused by natural problems such as drought.
Mostly false – Natural factors play a role, but human problems make famine possible.

5. Three hundred million people under the age of 18 suffer from hunger
True- And that’s the same number as the population of the United States.

6. Chronic malnutrition stunts growth, saps energy, increases depression and anxiety, and more.
True – It’s not just an empty stomach you would have to worry about.

7. Food banks and shelters have enough to feed everyone who asks.
False- In US cities, an average of 23% of emergency requests goes unfulfilled.

8. The Bible doesn’t say much about hunger and the poor.
False - Over 2,000 verses mention God’s concern for the poor and his desire that they be helped.

When God Fed the Hungry – Exodus 16

We turned our attention to a Bible story that occurs just after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, leaving Egypt behind, and just before reaching Mt. Sinai and receiving the Ten Commandments.  Even though they were slaves in Egypt, the Israelites at least had enough food to eat.  Now that they are in the desert, they’re worried about where their next meal will come from.  So immediately they start complaining to Moses.  In Exodus 16:1-3 we read about their fear that they will starve to death in the desert.  Given all that they had just seen with the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea, this lack of trust sounds very unusual!  God had performed so many miracles for them just recently, why can’t they trust he would do so now?  If we stop and think for a moment, though, we can probably all point to moments in our lives when we quickly forget the blessings God has given us once we ran into some problems.  It’s very easy to see the difficulty right in front of us and forget to trust in the God who has always been with us.

In verses 13-20 we read bout how God sends some quail and then a unique kind of bread that falls on the ground like thin flakes of snow.  The Israelites say to themselves, mah-nah?, which is Hebrew for “What is it?”  So from that point on God’s bread from heaven is called manna, or, literally, “What is it” Bread!  Moses instructs the Israelites to take just enough for the need of each family and not any more than that.  The passage says taht “he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.  Each one gathered as much as he needed.”

Moses told them not to take any extra manna and hoard it, keeping it for the next day.  But some people did, gathering more than was required.  In the morning their manna was rotten, smelly, and full of maggots!  But the Israelites also had a day of rest, the Sabbath commanded by God.  So on the 6th day, they did gather enough for two days, and on the seventh day, the Sabbath, no manna fell.  The manna collected on the 6th day stayed fresh! (verses 21-26)

On the surface, this is an entertaining story about how God helped out the Israelites when they needed an emergency supply of food.  But is the story meant to say something about how we look at our relationship with God, and how we live together?  The Israelites seemed to remember the gift of manna as a paradigm or example for how to build their society and share resources equally.  Numbers 25:52-56 describes how the distribution of manna – enough for each as they needed – is repeated in the dividing up of the Promised Land between the different clans and tribes.  The bigger tribes got more land and the smaller tribes got less, but everyone had just enough land for their people, their crops, and their animals.  The manna story in the desert helped Israel become a manna society of sharing, equality, and justice.  We can read examples of what it means to be a “manna society” in Deuteronomy 15:4, 7-8, 10-11; 14:28-29; 24:19-22.

The smelly manna that some Israelites tried to keep points to the importance of trusting God to provide what we need instead of thinking we need to store up more and more stuff.  It also says there is something “rotten” and wrong about living as if some people can take too much and leave others with too little.  What can we do to live in such a way that no one has to starve while we wolf down McDonald’s and Arby’s?  Finally, the command to collect double on the 6th day and rest on the Sabbath reflects the biblical teaching that, ultimately, all food is a gift from God.  Yes, we should do our part to work for food, but we need to remember that God has provided an abundance that can be shared.  We don’t need to keep striving and pushing to get more out of a fear that there is only so much to go around. 

Remember also that we can take at least one step towards fighting world hunger through our Operation Sharehouse packaging event on August 16!  This church can make a great contribution that Saturday morning by preparing 20,000 meals.  Let’s live as God has called us – to share the abundance of food he has provided for everyone!