Apr 26, 2019 | Loma Linda, California, United States |
Creation Sabbath is a global celebration of God’s awesome creation, and it falls on the fourth Sabbath of every October. This year, Creation Sabbath is October 26. With only six months to go, there is wonderful news; it isn’t too late to start preparing!
What kind of preparations should churches be making for Creation Sabbath? Probably the first and most important thing is to identify the resources available to your church. Is there a doctor, nurse or other medical professional who can share how fearfully and wonderfully we are made? Is there a lawyer who can reveal the beautiful connection between creation and the truth that all people are created equal? Maybe there is an artist who understands something about design and creates beautiful things, or an engineer who sees brilliant design in living organisms. Better still, surely every church has a Bible student who understands how the creation is a central theme of Scripture!
Some church members may doubt their church has the resources to produce a wonderful celebration of Creation Sabbath, but every church has incredible members with amazing stories to tell about the creation. Even if that wasn’t the case, the abundant resources available to share the creation mean that no church has to be left out of this year’s celebration of Creation Sabbath.
Every church is filled with members with whom someone shared the Christian faith, and that person introduced them to the creator God of the Bible. Creation Sabbath is an opportunity to share this core element of the Gospel with each other and our communities, and it can be as simple as inviting a friend to church to enjoy a beautiful film or as amazing as bringing a geologist to church with spectacular mineral samples that reveal how the Creator has placed beauty almost everywhere we look.
What if a church wants to do something really spectacular? The Berrien Springs Village Church modeled an awesome program last year. The Church had a big publicity campaign including posters, newspaper articles, a mass mailing and a whole lot of people inviting others to church.
What was their program? First, they took advantage of the resources available locally. In their case, they had Andrews University to drawn on, which meant abundant speakers for Friday night and a full Sabbath of incredible presentations. The Sabbath morning sermon included amazing children’s stories by Professor of Chemistry Ryan Hays, and in the afternoon his colleague, and Chemistry Department Chair, David Nowack shared fascinating information about biochemistry. Perhaps for the best, between the chemists there wasn’t a single explosion, although there may have been a little bit of fire! But possibly the most spectacular element was provided by the artist Nathan Greene, who lives nearby, and unveiled his new series of creation paintings.
Along with the chemists and other scientists, there were riveting theological presentations by professors from the Religion Department and Adventist Theological Seminary. It was a day that had it all. The good news is that anyone who feels bad about missing this amazing celebration of Creation Sabbath can see the presentations at: https://www.adventistlearningcommunity.com/media_resource_groups/294
Any church leader struggling to learn about the creation and Creation Sabbath can make use of the ideas modeled in the Village Church program, but there is even more at the Creation Sabbath website: creationsabbath.net
This website brims with sermons, videos and other resources; it also provides a lot more information about the history of Creation Sabbath. So let’s get planning and take advantage of this beautiful opportunity to share the good news about our Creator and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, through the global celebration of Creation Sabbath on October 26!
Additional resources for Creation Sabbath, including images for use on social media in multiple languages, short films and sermons can be found at:
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