PHIL JOEL TALKS ABOUT THE TAKING CARE OF CREATION PROJECT ‘A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH’
Look a little closer as you ride your bike or run through the city park. That vaguely discernible woman doesn’t work for the city. She’s sorting through the trash to get cans and bottles that she can recycle for cash – – – for food! It would be a gross rationalization to say that by contributing to the litter problem you could in some symbiotic way actually help her. If you’re even modestly thoughtful it’s unlikely that you intentionally want to make the earth a worse place to live. However, it’s much more challenging for us to figure out how do we best love our neighbors? How do you care for creation?
Listen to all the songs on the new Christian music project, A New Heaven And A New Earth, and you may ask yourself, “Is this about being ‘green’?” Who even knows what that really is. Perhaps it’s about letting everyone, including politicians, know that Christians vote too. Could be that “heaven and earth” is a combination experience of picking up trash on the beach, going boating and then going to boat church. Maybe it’s a call to quit using so much plastic or to plant a tree or simply start self-identifying (perhaps with some cool eco-friendly t-shirt) that you’re a Christian who wants to save the planet even at the risk of offending your less mindful fellow Christians.
Ask musician Phil Joel (Newsboys) and he’ll simply tell you that this music project in which he participated and the growing number of Christians being better stewards of the earth is, at it’s core, simply a conversation – one that continually needs to be asking the important question: How do we best love our neighbors?
MORE ABOUT PHIL JOEL AS TOLD BY PHIL JOEL
- These days he likes to go kayaking on a river near his home near Franklin, Tennessee. He shares about it at 3:40 in the video conversation.
- When asked how he would lead others to experience God in the outdoors he says he’d go barefoot in the dirt and lead a hike. Listen to him share more at 5:02 in the video conversation.
- He believes that by joining in conversations you can care for creation and do practical outworkings of that care without being a judged as a “weird greenie hippie” like him! Here him at 10:47.
- Phil has learned a thing or two about the environment from Katherine Hayhoe. See what he has to say about her at 13:31
- He makes earth and people friendly candles with his wife at their store The Green Room. Find out more about how they connect with people day there by watching the video at 14:28.
A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH – THE MUSIC PROJECT
The multi-artist A New Heaven And A New Earth project is a full-length album slated to release this summer that celebrates the beauty of God’s Creation and calls believers to be faithful stewards of earth. It is also bringing recording artists and conservationists together on common ground, each seeing the beauty of the other. More than an album, it’s a conversation.
There has never been a project like this, where a diverse group of well-known Christian musicians wrote and recorded a song on how taking care of Creation is to glorify God. Each artist felt called to the project and has a unique story to tell about why they joined and wrote their song.
To date, eight songs have been released from the project representing a diverse set of rock, pop, hip hop, R&B, indie, folk/ Americana and more musical genres. These songs include: GRAMMY®-nominated, Dove Award-winning Building 429 lead vocalist Jason Roy’s “It’s All Yours;” iconic singer/songwriter Phil Joel’s “Arms Around The World;” recording artist, actress and producer MŌRIAH’s “You Mean The World;” Dove Awards-winning, No.1 Billboard-charting, Stellar Award-nominated Aaron Cole’s “Together;” chart-topping recording artist and songwriter Micah Tyler’s “So Will I;” husband and wife duo, Don and Lori Chaffer of Waterdeep’s “Into the Unseen;” Jason Gray’s “Awestruck
