Keeping Creation: A 5-Week Study

Creation care is political but not partisan.What occurs on one side of the planet affects the other side of the planet. As citizens of the kingdom of God, we were created to be citizens of the earth. Creation care is not an isolated cause that Christians can set apart from the rest of life. Creation involves everything we see (and some things we don’t see). So to talk about caring for creation is to talk about politics, economics, food, energy, freedom, and our faith. Across five weeks of scriptural study, interpretation, and contemporary application, Keeping Creation offers a biblical exploration of the call on God’s people to tend and serve the earth. Authors Caleb Cray Haynes, Ryan Fasani, Megan Pardue, and Todd Womack offer a Scripture-based guide for small groups who are ready not only to think and reflect but also to act. Each chapter includes discussion questions and suggestions for new, creation-serving habits and practices that participants can begin to work on together. God has created a beautiful world that is meant to be interconnected, each piece dependent on all the other pieces, and it brings God joy to see creation working as intended. Keeping Creation will help Christians prioritize and understand humanity’s role on the interconnected planet that teems with the life God created.

Megan M. Pardue has been the lead pastor at Refuge Home Church in Durham, North Carolina, since 2013. She is an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene and a graduate of Southern Nazarene University and Duke Divinity School. In addition to pastoring, she teaches preaching at Duke Divinity School and co-hosts the weekly lectionary preaching podcast, A Plain Account. Megan enjoys growing a large vegetable and flower garden and raising chickens on her lot in the city. She lives in Durham with her husband, Keith, and their two children.

Caleb Cray Haynes is cofounder of Nazarenes for Creation Care. He is an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene and the community creation pastor at Kaleo Nashville. Caleb is the author of Garbage Theology: The Unseen World of Waste and What It Means for the Salvation of Every Person, Every Place, and Every Thing, and frequently speaks on issues of faith and the environment. He is a partner with the Evangelical Environmental Network. Caleb holds a BA in religion and philosophy from Trevecca Nazarene University and is studying theology and ecology at Nazarene Theological College in Manchester, UK. Caleb lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and two daughters. Connect at calebcrayhaynes.com.

Ryan Fasani is a pastor, writer, and farmer, which is to say he tries to point people toward the holy, sees things and jots them down, and believes Wendell Berry is a saint. He’s a sought-after speaker and storyteller but is in highest demand for his organic lettuce. He’s an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene and a church planter who is currently starting a church-planting and ministry incubator in Washington State. He lives on a farm with his wife, four kids, and seven milk goats. Connect with Fasani’s other writing―his memoir, Consuming Hope, and his two books on rethinking the Christian faith, Walking Trees and Curated Coals―at his website, ryanfasani.com.

Todd Womack is a social worker currently serving as a lecturer and academic advisor at the University of Michigan–Flint in the social work department. He is an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene and co-pastors The Underground Church, which is a church for netizens that speaks boldly to the issues of injustice in the world framed in the orientation of peace-building work. His passion for racial equity and equality is evident in his continued dedication and work toward strengthening Flint neighborhoods and supporting realistic and solution-focused experiences. He and his wife, Roshanda, are the proud parents of three boys: Ngozi (“blessing”), Osei (“noble”), and Ande (“unwavering”).