In Real Life Books Keeping the Garden A Faith Response to God’s Creation

Exploring tough questions facing youth today • Also available as an eResource

OPEN THE BIBLE • Help youth apply the Bible to real life and discuss their faith. This all-in-one curriculum guides youth and their leaders on a journey for meaning and identity. In Real Life encourages youth to ask the hard questions, and helps them encounter Scripture in search of answers. In a time of violence, injustice, materialism, and new pressures, this series offers a different point of view. Compatible with a whole family approach.

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Can the ancient book of Genesis shed light on today’s environmental issues?

The stories of “beginnings” highlight the earth as God’s, and creation as a “book” that reveals Life and light at the heart of all that has life. God is embedded in this treasure, reason enough to hold and protect it, and our attentive relationship with God’s good gift of creation means ensuring that it continues to function according to God’s design (6 sessions, plus extender session)

Sessions:

1. A Mess in God's Kitchen • Encourage participants to build their care for the environment as a faith response to God the Creator.
2. Babblings on Babel • Develop in participants the desire to protect the variety God intends for creation.
3. What's in a Name? • Help participants realize that their relationship to the rest of creation, and especially to God, obligates them to care for God’s world.
4. Pushing God's "Legal Limits" • Encourage participants to live within the limits of creation.
5. Sufficiency • Challenge participants to look beyond themselves when evaluating their needs, wants, and dreams.
6. Faith in the Rain • Reassure participants that God uses small acts of faith to accomplish great healing in humanity’s relationship with creation.
7. Once Upon a Time.... (Extender Session option) • Help participants draw on sustainable practices from the past in developing their own caring relationship with God’s creation. • Teach participants how to compost, a specific skill for “keeping the garden.”