Caring for Creation in and through your Work

Caroline Pomerory, Director of Climate Stewards, was one of the keynote speakers at Work + Go Manchester 2022. Here she explains why caring for creation is part of what it means to follow Jesus in all of our lives, including in our workplaces. You can hear Caroline’s full talk on our podcast.

You might have been surprised to see Climate Stewards in the lineup of three partners hosting Work + Go Manchester 2022. LICC clearly is all about workplace theology. That makes sense. That's the ‘work’ bit of Work + Go. OMF has been bringing the gospel to East Asia for 160 years or so, so that's the ‘go’ bit of Work + Go. So where does Climate Stewards fit in?

Well, I think that Tearfund, OMF, LICC, and many, many other Christian organisations are convinced that caring for creation is not just an optional extra for the keen, green left-wing young Christians amongst us. But actually, it's a core part of our discipleship. And as such, it's something that every one of us needs to be doing, and actively engaging in. And I think that is especially important in our workplaces. Our colleagues, particularly those of the millennial and Gen Z generation, will notice if we're not caring for creation, in all that we do and say.

I’d like to highlight three reasons why caring for creation matters:

1.     A way to love our neighbours

I'm not going to go through the theology of why we should care for creation. But if I had time, I'd run through a whole series of passages from Genesis to Revelation, stopping off at the psalms, the gospels, the epistles, explaining why caring for the earth is integral to our faith. But for me, it boils down to this one verse: ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ (Luke 10:27).

To illustrate that point Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus was talking about the way we treat our human neighbours. But in today's world, this parable has something to say to us around how we treat our global neighbours, who are suffering first and worst from the impacts of climate change, and other environmental challenges. The vulnerable, the marginalised, the poor, the migrants, refugees, those who are different from us, and will probably never know. The Good Samaritan cared for his neighbour, and he paid for his recovery.

How can we do the same thing to our global neighbours suffering from climate change, and other environmental impacts in a warming world? And what about our future neighbours, our children, grandchildren and their children? Facing a very different world from what we're living in today? Shaped by extreme weather events, mass migration, hunger? What are we doing about them? How are we loving them? And what about our non-human neighbours? Species threatened with extinction, perhaps already gone? If my actions are contributing to climate change, global pollution, water shortages, how can I be truly loving my non-human neighbours as well? So, for me, that's where it boils down to love our neighbours as ourself.

 2.     People notice

About 15 years ago, I was on the streets of London, taking part in one of the very first climate marches with a group of campaigners from my hometown in Somerset. As we marched along Piccadilly with all sorts of homemade banners, my friend Cordelia, who was marching along beside me, was surprised to see all these Christian banners.

‘Who are these people?’, she asked. Who are Operation Noah? Who is Tearfund? What about CAFOD and Christian Aid? She said, ‘if I was a Christian, it will be the most obvious thing in the world, to care about the world that God made. I'm not a Christian, but I'm really glad to see that some Christians are doing this. I'm very glad to have met you, who seems to take this seriously. I've never heard the church talking about these things.’  

Fast forward 15 years, and my friend Cordelia has been arrested as part of Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and Insulate Britain. And she often works alongside members of Christian climate action. And she's told me many times, how impressed she is with their commitment and their willingness to get arrested. She said they are the bravest of the lot. Now thankfully the church or at least parts of it is waking up to our responsibility to take environmental justice seriously and beginning to put its own house in order.

Whatever you think of direct action, I tell this story to illustrate the fact that the world is watching what we Christians do and say about climate change and the biggest issues of our times. And I believe God cares too, about how we treat the world he made. Whether we're encouraging people to compost their tea bags at work, or whether we're writing new climate policies for our organisation. These are important parts of our witness.

3.     Opening doors for the gospel

In my first job as a chartered surveyor in London, as a young and relatively new Christian, I decided I had to stand out from the crowd and talk about my Christian faith. So, I bought myself a tiny little Christian fish badge. I pinned this badge onto my smart business suit, on the lapel. And I hoped and prayed that people would ask me why I was wearing a fish. And I remember vividly, one lunchtime in the pub with my boss. He asked me what ‘why are you wearing a fish, you know, what's this all about?’ I kind of stammered out something, I don't quite know what I said. And I suspect it didn't make any sense at all. But who knows? At that point in my life, I think I was struggling to connect my work with my faith. I thought my work was a means to an end. It was a way to make money. It was way perhaps to witness to my non-Christian colleagues, maybe take them to a lunchtime service. But it felt very tokenistic. And I think that little badge was perhaps a sort of emblem of that tokenism.

A decade later, after working overseas for Tearfund, I attended a workshop led by Dave Bookless, who works for the Christian environmental charity, A Rocha. And he was talking about why we as Christians should care for the environment. And for me, it was a light bulb moment, when these two very disparate parts of my world, my work and my faith began to connect. When I heard that famous verse, John 3:16,  “for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to die for us that whoever believes in him shall not have it shall not perish but have eternal life”.  Dave explained how that word ‘world’ in the original text refers to ‘the cosmos’, it's the whole world. This more expansive understanding of the word ‘world’ for the environment. 

I started to look for ways to integrate my faith and my care for the environment. And another spell working overseas, in environmental projects. And a master's in climate change led me to my current role at Climate Stewards. I'm fortunate now to work for a Christian organization where I do not have to wear my fish badge, because my colleagues know what we do. I know who I am. But Climate Stewards actually works with all sorts of organisations and individuals of no faith, and Christian faith and other faiths. Many times our secular colleagues and people that we interact with are curious about what makes us tick. I used to find myself being rather coy about our Christian origins and my motivation for tackling climate change and almost apologising for working with and through local churches. But increasingly, I find that people are curious and positive when I explain this holistic understanding of the gospel as good news for all creation. And that working with and through local churches, in the global south is actually far more sustainable and integral than whizzing in and out with a development project with the latest organisation because churches are not just embedded in the community. They are the community.

I feel called to work in this area because as Christians we can actually have a huge impact in this area. Gus Speth is an environmental lawyer and advisor to successive governments. He said:

‘I used to think the top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address these problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation, and we scientists don't know how to do that’
(Shared Planet: Religion and Nature, BBC Radio 4 (1 October 2013))

Now, as we most of us know, a third of the world's population call themselves Christians. If all of those people woke up to that environmental responsibility, just imagine what a different world we would be living in.

The world of climate change and creation care are quite tough places to work at the moment. And there is very, very little hope among scientists, policymakers and activists. Climate anxiety, and climate grief are real. And it can be so easy to get overwhelmed by despair. So when this happens, I try to focus on what I can do, rather than what I can't.

So finally, as we think about how to share the gospel in our workplaces, please do consider how our attitudes and actions towards God's creation however small they might appear, will be noticed. They're important to God, and there'll be noticed by our colleagues.  As Robert Frost once said ‘when Christians take the earth seriously, then people will take the Gospel seriously’.

As you go about your daily life as a disciple for Christ, how can you be caring for all of creation in your work, home and social spaces. How can you be used by God to care for his global world by actions you make each and every day. How can God use your passions, skills and profession to care, protect and advocate for his creation?

Listen to Caroline’s full talk – and other sessions from Work + Go Manchester 2022 – on our podcast.

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