“Baptism is a core part of our spiritual life. It is an obvious place where the natural world already enters the worship life of the community. In thinking about all the issues that confront us, we often don’t see the beauty of the Creation that already exists ...Thus, baptism becomes a way to talk about new issues from the anchor point of an ancient tradition.”

The speaker is Brian Cole, the featured presenter at the program “Down by the Riverside: Baptism, the Church, and the Environment” to be held Thursday, March 22, at 7 p.m. in the Sylva First Baptist Church.

The program is sponsored by the Tuckasegee Community Alliance, a chapter of the Western North Carolina Alliance, with the cooperation of local churches.

Cole is the founder and coordinator of The Sabbath Project, a campaign to bring churches in the Southern Appalachians into a greater awareness of the spiritual nature of the environment that surrounds us. The Sabbath Project is a special program of the Western North Carolina Alliance and seeks to build bridges between church congregations and the environmental movement in western North Carolina.

At the March 22 meeting, Cole will use the practice of full immersion baptism as a primary example of the natural relationship between churches and the world outside the church doors.

Local groups promoting positive and helpful activities on behalf of the environment within the Tuckasegee watershed will have display tables at the meeting. Representatives will be available during a social hour after the meeting with suggestions for ways that churches and church members can be involved in conservation and environmental restoration projects in the Tuckasegee Valley.

Music will be provided by the group Pirates of the Tuckasegee.

Individuals participating in this event include Rev. Ed Beddingfield, pastor of Sylva First Baptist Church; Rev. Frank Padgett, pastor of Cullowhee United Methodist Church; Rev. John Reid, family counselor for Mountain Youth Resources and chaplain at Mountain Trace Nursing Home; Rev. John Tagliarini, pastor of First Baptist Church in Bryson City; Rev. Joseph Fulk, pastor of First United Methodist Church of Sylva; and David Webb, former pastor of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church.
Cole has served as a rural pastor in central Kentucky and as an educator with the Appalachian Ministries Educational Resource Center. He is presently a licensed lay preacher in the Episcopal Church and also serves as an associate with the Environmental Leadership Center at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina. He has lectured on 70 seminary campuses in the U.S., and his articles and essays have appeared in both religious and secular publications. He is currently working on a writing project on the ecology of baptism. Cole lives in Black Mountain with his wife, Susan Weatherford, and their son, Jess, who is 5 years old.

Cole speaks plainly about the potential that lies in a closer relationship between churches and the natural environment. He feels that there is great benefit in getting out into the beauty of the natural world, experiencing it, and helping to restore it where it is torn and damaged.

“In the Scriptures, we read again and again that the land belongs to God. We are told that we are here as tenants, able to share in the bounty of God’s world - but it is only ours to hold, not to own. Thus, even as we use the land, we have to keep in mind this question of ownership. The land is not ours, and we will have to pass on the keeping of it. Most immediately, we are going to pass the land on to our children; in a deeper sense, we pass it back to God. We have to think, ‘What are we passing on?’ and ‘Has it prospered in our keeping?’”

Admission to the Down by the Riverside event is free and open to people of all denominations. For more information contact Roger Turner at the western regional office of the WNC Alliance at 828.524.3899, or David Wheeler of Tuckasegee Community Alliance at 828.586.3146.

 

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The Smoky Mountain News