We are excited to announce the final two speakers for our sessions at The Loft, 821 State Street, and held on Monday evenings at 7:30. These sessions build upon the the spring of 2008 talks held and focus upon the role that conservation plays in promoting a just and sustainable world. Titles for each talk will be announced soon. Our complete schedule is as follows:

January 21 Scott Lisea, Regional Director of Young Life

Febuary 9 Dr. Tom Fikes, Professor of Psychology, Westmont College

April 13 Paul Miller, Pastor, Church of Christ

May 11 Jonna Engle, Scientist

Ocean Hill’s Community Church is graciously allowing us to host our four session Loft Sessions at their 821 State Street location.

We are happy to announce two of four sessions.

On February 9 Dr. Tom Fikes will talk about the theological basis for creation care and conservation.

On May 11 Jonna Engle will share her story of being involved with conservation work.

Two more dates to be announced shortly.

An intriguing interview with ecologist Stuart L. Pimm - read it all the way through.

By Megan Robertson

Santa Barbara A Rocha is participating in Advent Conspiracy. We want to encourage everyone to consider conspiring with us to celebrate Christmas in ways that truly honor the Christ child and show the world –and our loved ones what matters most to us. Advent Conspiracy is a movement that has been growing each year since its beginnings in 2006. The focus of Advent Conspiracy is to encourage Christ’s body to reconsider Christmas –to consider relational gifts over big-dollar (or even small-dollar) stuff, to consider giving more to those in need out of our surplus, and to simply stand against the tide of rampant consumption that marks our culture –especially at Christmastime.

Consider this year making a goal to spend 10, 25 or 50% less than you did last year. Think of ways you can make a gift of spending time with a loved one. It could be making a special date with a sibling, spouse, child, or friend in which you do the things they like best. You can give restaurant certificates, museum or zoo memberships, or homemade coupons for special times together. Even consider serving our body or community together. Making a gift for a loved one does not have to be out of the question either –even if you don’t consider yourself crafty or creative. Try it on just one person even! Think of making the focus relational. How can I communicate that this person is important to me and make special memories in the process? A new sweater or kitchen gadget, in the end, doesn’t really do it all that well anyway.  For the gifts we do buy, work hard to purchase things that were fairly made –that respect human dignity and don’t harm God’s creation. We can purchase gifts that are life-giving to those who produced them

Not only do we honor those we love with more thoughtful, relational gifts, we also honor those in need that we may never know. Let’s seriously consider giving away the money we didn’t spend! The opportunities are everywhere. We can participate in Operation Christmas Child. You could give an extra gift to a missionary or your favorite ministry. Or simply give more at church. Many groups participating in Advent Conspiracy choose to give out of their surplus to Living Water, a ministry that brings clean water and the message of Jesus to villages all over Africa. In the end, what matters is that we try to live the message of God’s glory and peace to all people in the way we celebrate Christmas. Let’s see it as worship.

Lastly, when God’s people work to love the world while we’re in the world, and yet not of the world, we make a big statement. We don’t have to step out of celebrating. Jesus is worth celebrating! We just don’t have to do it like the world does. Let’s be counter-cultural in how we do Christmas -not just to be counter-cultural, but to remind ourselves and everyone else of what really matters –the baby Jesus who came to be in relationship with us.

Please check out the Advent Conspiracy website at: adventconspiracy.org

I read a summary of a session today at the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students Symposium on Climate Change. A Rocha’s Vinoth Ramachandra spoke about the hope we have in a coming renewal of creation. It is this hope, and related implications, that helps drive our own excitement to start Santa Barbara A Rocha. I mention this because I spent a day doing something that I suspect might seem inconsequential at first glance.

I spent today working as a project assistant for an ecologist conducting a portion of a wetland survey. We spent six hours studying and collecting data related to geology, botany, and hydrology in an area that provides seasonally sensitive habitat for birds, amphibians, reptiles and a few small mammals. What began as a lengthy series of data collection sequences such as gps data, plant identification and count in 10 meter squares, and an analysis of the types of soil located at each data point turned into a narrative about creation. The process was time consuming and tedious. Initially I wondered how much my effort of studying and recording such exact details mattered, but as our time progressed I began to understand the narrarive that I was living. Creation was being revealed in its glorious detail. By listening, studying, and asking questions I was learning about the Creator’s work in our natural world and therefore learning to appreciate more about Him and the gift our environment is to all of creation. I began to see the connections between our responsibility to steward these resources and the worship of our Creator as we worked to provide information that will help public and private agencies make decisions on how best to balance conserving habitat with development. I left the site tired, but with the realization that partaking in conservation is a reflection of our hope for a coming renewal of all creation which is currently under our collective watch and care.

Congratulations to A Rocha USA’s own Ben Lowe, Outreach Coordinator, on his upcoming book called, “Green Revolution: Coming Together to Heal Creation”.  It will be published by InterVarsity and released in March of 2009.  For more information about the book check out: http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=3624

I received my own copy of the Green Bible in the mail today. It was wonderful to see it after being able work on the project. The Green Bible’s objective is to, “equip and encourage people to see God’s vision for creation and help them engage in the work of healing and sustaining it.” It’s published by HarperCollins - check out more info: http://greenletterbible.com/

Here is a post by someone traveling the journey of caring for creation:

http://wardhogs.blogspot.com/2008/10/caring-for-creation.html

Here is a story of a visit to the A Rocha Canada Center by another blogger:

http://mattbusby.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/a-rocha/

Here is a resource that I thought I’d pass along. We get lots of composting questions and I just found this site, which looks promising:

http://www.howtocompost.org/