To Care for God’s Creation is to Care for God’s Children
As a culture, we’ve grown accustomed to the rhythm of celebrating days like Earth Day and World Environment Day. We’re met with reminders to recycle, unnerving headlines about extreme weather disasters and exhortations to “do our part.” The days and the gestures matter.
But one day for the earth can also have an unexpectedly opposite effect: It becomes something to acknowledge for 24 hours before many of us are satisfied that we’ve contributed enough and return safely to ordinary life. A small effort on our part can help us feel less guilty and make environmental problems seem less immediate.
But what if environmental care was not a lifestyle preference, but a requirement of Christian love, rooted in our responsibility to children?
It’s a responsibility that’s particularly consequential for vulnerable children living in poverty, in the corners of the earth that are most affected by extreme weather and environmental degradation.
Christian Stewardship of the Environment
For people of faith, stewarding the earth and its resources is not a new concept. One of the earliest purposes God placed in Adam and Eve was to work the Garden of Eden and to care for it (Genesis 2:15, NIV).
Leviticus 25:1-7 (NIV) demands rest for the earth every seventh year, after six years of sowing, pruning and harvesting. Our biblical ancestors lived by farming; reliance on the earth for daily bread was a reality, and their well-being was closely tied to the health of the land.
For many of our neighbors around the world, the reliable rhythm of planting and harvesting is still a day-to-day reality and means survival for another season. Most of us are familiar with this understanding of creation care.
The Ripple Effects of Environmental Stress
But perhaps a new consideration is that caring for the earth might also be a requirement of Christian love for our vulnerable neighbors.
When the land is depleted, impoverished communities suffer first.
When water access is unreliable, children bear the consequences longest.
When food production becomes more difficult, children suffer the most.
When crops fail, food prices rise and families must choose between food, housing and education.
For many children, environmental stress is not a future unknown, but skulks around as a daily threat.
When Jesus invites his followers to “love one another as [he] loved us” (John 13:34, NIV) and to “do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12, NIV) it may not be a stretch to consider that creation care can be an integral component of caring for vulnerable children.
Healthy soil, dependable water and productive food systems help provide the conditions children need to grow, thrive and look to the future with hope.
Across the global church, this connection is already being lived out through practices that link care for children’s futures with care for the earth.
Permaculture Gardening as a Form of Creation Care
As part of the Environmental Sustainability and Creation Care (ESCC) team at Compassion, we support local teams that are increasingly integrating environmentally sustainable food production into their work.
Through approaches such as permagardening and improved water management, caregivers are learning how to grow nutritious food in ways that support their families and care for the land.
Drawing on the idea of a “permanent garden,” permagardening helps families build healthier and more productive gardens over time by strengthening the soil, making careful use of water and supporting long-term food production. This is becoming increasingly important as environmental and climate pressures make food production harder in many places.
A Compassion Permaculture Garden
In Karamoja, a semi-arid region of northeastern Uganda where drought, poverty and harsh conditions make food production difficult, a growing number of church partners are beginning to show what this can look like in practice.
Through the Karamoja Integrated Resilience Action Program (KIRAP), caregivers were introduced to permagardening. Many had long assumed the soil was too hard and unproductive to grow much at all, but with training, encouragement and practical support, that assumption began to change.
A water well also made it possible to continue irrigating during the dry season, and what had once seemed like unpromising ground slowly began to respond.
Within just a few months, families were harvesting vegetables to eat and sell for income. For the first time, they achieved two harvests in a single year. They also began growing maize and potatoes.
Yet perhaps the most significant change was not only in what the land produced, but in how families saw it. As they learned to care for the soil and use water more wisely, they also began to see more clearly that caring for the earth and caring for their children belong together.
Creation Care as Hope for the Future
Creation care is multifaceted. It can include strengthening food production approaches that restore the land, improving environmental health and building resilience in communities facing increasing stress. It also means helping others see that creation care is not a peripheral concern — it is a core response to helping children thrive and flourish.
The challenges of environmental degradation can be overwhelming, rendering many of us without a clear sense of how to respond. The first step is choosing not to despair. A second is deciding that it is not inevitable.
For the sake of children living in poverty, we must choose to partner in efforts that rejuvenate and restore the earth to its life-giving potential.
I believe that caring for the earth is not a distraction from the gospel. It can be a demonstration of Christian love, making a conscious choice to act for the good of others by protecting the conditions that allow children to thrive.
When my organization’s church partners protect soil, water and food systems, they are not stepping away from our mission to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name. They are helping build the foundations on which that mission depends.
In caring for creation, they are also helping create the conditions for children to live with greater health, dignity and hope.
Want to read more about Compassion’s response to environmental degradation? Check out the link below.
Photo by: Caroline A Mwinemwesigwa
About Andrew Leake, Ph.D
Andrew Leake serves as Principal Program Design Specialist at Compassion International, leading the organization’s Environmental Stewardship and Creation Care (ESCC) initiatives.
His work focuses on integrating climate adaptation into program design to strengthen child and community resilience. Andrew joined Compassion in 2007 and has held roles in research and program quality.
Based in northern Argentina, he previously worked with Tearfund on indigenous land rights and forest conservation in Honduras, and with the Church Mission Society. He holds a B.Sc. in Environmental Studies, a Master’s in Rural Social Development, and a Ph.D. on Indigenous Livelihood Strategies and Resource Use.
