Environmentalism

I just have a few minutes before I head to work for the day, but I wanted to post a few thoughts on here about something Steph and I have thought a little bit about in recent days. We're doing a study in Genesis with our youth group, and what we talked about last week was about how we were created in the "image of God" and how part of that image entails being stewards of Creation. As the first human beings, Adam and Eve were given authority over and responsibility for all animals, and they were to take care of and work the garden. This has just made some thoughts come to mind about how poorly we do at this today. Could it be that we focus so much as churches on the Great Commission (which I am ALL for) and on helping people get in good legal standing with God that we fail to address issues such as how to care for the environment, how to use the resources we've been given responsibly, how to treat animals, etc. NOTE: Do not get me wrong here. I think these are of secondary importance to the sharing of the gospel. I do, however, think that if the whole point of redemption in Christ is to restore the initial created order that we should do some serious thinking about these things as Christians.
This was partly sparked by a conversation I've had with a co-worker about vegetarianism. He's a vegetarian, and his wife is a vegan. He was talking to me about how sad it is how we treat animals, and I was trying to tell him about his need to repent and put his faith in Christ. But I tried listening to him and thought that vegetarians might not be as wacky as I thought. After all, God originally (if you believe in Genesis) created humans to eat plants--not meat. There are other parts of Scripture that in my mind justify the eating of meat, so don't think I'm becoming a vegetarian all of a sudden or something. But these are just some thoughts I've started to have. Our first step has been to stop throwing away all our Wal-Mart bags that we bring home our groceries in, and to start recycling them. Environmentalism will probably never be a huge passion of mine, but I've at least tried to be more thoughtful recently and not just write these people off as nut cases :)