June 5, 2000
Texas CLC gets $100,000 grant
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___DALLAS--The Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission soon will receive a $100,000 grant from the Beldon Fund for a broad-based creation stewardship project.
___At its April meeting, the New York-based philanthropic fund's board of trustees approved a "religion and environment" grant proposal from the moral concerns and public policy agency of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___"We were chosen from among several hundred applicants," said Terri Morgan, the commission's special projects coordinator.
The CLC will offer a creation stewardship conference, "Celebrating the Stewards of the Land," geared toward issues of sustainable agriculture in the South Plains Oct. 8-9 at Second Baptist Church in Lubbock.
___The Texas Baptist creation stewardship project deals with issues related to competition for water supplies, the loss of farm and ranch land to desert, and rural community development in the trans-Pecos area of West Texas and the lower Rio Grande area of New Mexico.
___"The CLC has a strong interest in an intervention in West Texas and New Mexico to prevent further environmental degradation in a population area that exceeds 2 million people. With a network of churches and a voice in the larger faith community, the CLC can build a substantial consensus for personal, economic and public policy changes necessary to achieve environmental health and justice," the grant proposal stated.
___In particular, the project addresses the faith community's response to competition for water rights between powerful metropolitan municipalities and poor rural communities.
___The grant will help the Christian Life Commission develop a model for strengthening the capacity of churches to advocate sustainable policies built on an ethic of creation stewardship.
___The project will help churches teach members the implications of being stewards of God's creation in a local context, and it will provide support to small communities.
___According to the grant proposal, the commission will:
___Monitor and protect the environmental interests of rural communities against more powerful municipal, corporate and special interests.
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___In addition to lobbying the legislature on environmental issues, the grant also will enable the commission to hire a lay church and community activist. The grassroots organizer will work with local churches and community outreach ministries in El Paso, Van Horn and the surrounding areas.
___In addition to working through churches, the commission also will work with local groundwater conservation districts to represent the interests of local communities.
___The creation stewardship project in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico is part of an ongoing initiative by the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission and its creation stewardship task force. Last year, the commission co-sponsored with Baylor University a "Caring for Creation" conference in Waco.
___This fall, the CLC will offer a creation stewardship conference geared toward issues of sustainable agriculture in the South Plains.
___"Celebrating the Stewards of the Land" is the theme of the meeting, Oct. 8-9 at Second Baptist Church in Lubbock. The conference will be offered in cooperation with Texas Tech University, the South Plains Food Bank and the Breedlove Dehydration Plant in Lubbock.
___Through designated gifts to the CLC, the commission last year also launched a small grant program for Baptist encampments. Camp Chaparral Assembly at Iowa Park and Highland Lakes Baptist Encampment at Spicewood received assistance for children and youth camps structured around a creation stewardship theme. Alto Frio Baptist Encampment at Leakey received a $1,000 grant for a riverbank reclamation project.
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