Serving At: Ministry with God’s Renewed Creation
The Rev. Pat Watkins is a missionary with the General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church. He is guiding a new, globally-focused United Methodist Ministry with God’s Renewed Creation, based at Global Ministries and also closely related to the Council of Bishops.
Pat’s work has its roots in the Virginia Annual Conference. It is being given a global context in which to work with agencies, annual conferences, bishops, congregations, and ecumenical partners in relation to environmental issues. It builds on a theology that recognizes that care for creation is a fundamental aspect of Christian mission.
The Ministry with God’s Renewed Creation, which has its roots in the Virginia Annual Conference, is being given a global context in which to work with agencies, annual conferences, bishops, congregations, and ecumenical partners in relation to environmental issues. It builds on a theology that recognizes that care for creation is a fundamental aspect of Christian mission.
Pat is a clergy member of the Virginia Conference. He and his wife, the Rev. Denise Honeycutt, were missionaries in Nigeria from 1995 to 1998 and he was a Church and Community Worker missionary in Virginia from 2009 through 2013. He was earlier affiliated with interfaith organizations in Virginia.
A lifelong United Methodist, Pat says that the church has been the catalyst through which his faith journey and call to mission service have taken place. He was strongly influenced as a young person by participation in the United Methodist Youth Fellowship and a church-related Boy Scouts program. While serving as a missionary in Nigeria, he became deeply interested in the relation between faith and God’s creation. While faith has traditionally looked at relationship with God and relationships with other people, he began to see a relationship between faith and the created order. He says: “I am convinced that my faith can and must embrace a ministry that calls for the care and healing of God’s creation.”
He reports that the 2009 document “God’s Renewed Creation” from the United Methodist Council of Bishops informed his call to mission. He had earlier taken courses in environmental science at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. Pat received a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from North Carolina State University, Raleigh, in 1979, and a Master of Divinity degree from Duke University Divinity School in 1986.
Speaking of his mission focus, Pat tells this story from his service in Nigeria: “Nigeria has a rainy and a dry season each year. Our trips to the city to buy supplies had to occur during the dry season because it was physically impossible to get in and out of our village during the rainy season. We were forced to live more connected to the cycles of the earth than ever before. Not only did I learn that I could tolerate such an existence, I began to feel as if there was something really wonderful about it, something even sacred. As a result, I began to ask myself a very basic question: “Is there a connection between my faith as a Christian and this feeling of a relationship to the earth?’” His answer is “yes.”
I too recall the importance my years in the UMYF at my local church played in the woman I am today. And I too see that I have a role in saving God’s creations. As a member of the UMW in my church I always cover the month of November, World Thank Offering. This November I am sharing the most precious thing I am thankful for, the earth. And I am asking my sisters in Christ to sign an agreement with God to take the mission of caring for God’s sweet creations to heart. Don’t know how it will go over but here I go. All our children as of us is the world. Thanks
Thank you for your comments, and blessings in your good work!
I just read your article “A mission to God’s creation” in our United Methodist Men’s magazine. I agree, it is our duty to be good stewarts of the land, but I take exception to a lone comment that you stated, “Many think the next thing God did was take the rib and create Eve, but that is incorrect”. Can you elaborate on this statement. The Bible I read states that God did indeed remove a rib from Adam to create Eve. Does the Genesis chapter in your Bible read differently?
I haven’t seen the article you mention, but I would guess it’s either:
1) a comment about God first making other creatures as potential partners for Adam before making Eve (some people forget that part of the story, which precedes the making of Eve), or
2) if the question is about the term “rib”, it might be a reference to the variant meanings for “rib” in Biblical Hebrew. The link below shows the NIV translation, with footnotes that indicate that the Hebrew term could also be “side” or “part,” and that has been the basis for the suggestion that Eve as a counter-part was taken from a ‘side’ of Adam, which might suggest male and female as more on a par (perhaps reciprocal rather than simply subservient) than traditional interpretations. You can view the NIV translation here (and you can also select other translations) of Genesis 2:21-22:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A21-22&version=NIV
A classic source of this interpretation and other gender dynamics in Genesis is the following:
Trible, Phyllis. “Eve and Adam: Genesis 2-3 Reread.” Andover Newton Quarterly. 13 (1973): 74-81 (a copy is available here: https://www.law.csuohio.edu/sites/default/files/shared/eve_and_adam-text_analysis-2.pdf)
Not knowing the context of the comment in the article, I’d guess either of the above might help explain the intent of the comment, though Rev. Watkins would be a better source to clarify.