It is Friday and I am on my way to North Carolina to preach in a men’s conference. My return flight is through Atlanta on Saturday afternoon. How I would love to stop in for the SEC BB tournament. However, I desire to get back to Olive for the BIG day Sunday when we will observe the Lord’s Supper during the morning worship services and present our 2020 Vision report in the p.m. service. Please pray for me as I preach in the conference and pray that I will return home on time tomorrow.

Many of you have asked about the article in the Pensacola News Journal in which I was asked about the Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change. Jonathan Merritt is the young man who did an excellent job in drafting this statement. It has drawn national attention and you can read it for yourself by going to www.baptistcreationcare.org. At Olive we seek to be good stewards of the planet. In today’s world there are a thousand schools of thought on what this should look like. The Creator told us to take dominion and oversee this, our home.

Pictured below is Dennis Wilson, our project coordinator. I was asked to pose with the excavator we are using to clear some of our property. In our planning and desire to be good environmentalists, we are leaving many of the trees standing. Some will complain that even cranking a machine like this shows poor environmental concern. Yet they are happy to see the trucks and dozers rolling in after the trees are down and the lights are out. Nevertheless, change occurs. Sometimes the hurricanes along the Gulf Coast alter our environment for us. What we are doing on our church property is making room for our Ministry Village expansion.

When you have time, take a drive out there and see the progress. We are creating an “environment of evangelism and discipleship.” By winning souls to Jesus now, we can be assured that we have helped to increase the population of the New Heaven and the New Earth that God will create one day.

Pastor Ted Traylor

Posted on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 9:06 am.
You can leave a response, or you can follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed.