Category: Watershed Snapshots

Big Elkin Creek: Watershed Discipleship in Action

Big Elkin Creek: Watershed Discipleship in Action

WD Editors

One way to practice watershed discipleship is to work on waterway restoration projects, such as the project in this video, depicting a restoration project along Big Elkin Creek in North Carolina. Rev. Stuart Taylor, retired minister of Elkin Presbyterian Church, has been integrally involved in this project. He has helped communicate and mediate between members of the community, particularly those with land bordering the creek, and he has participated in fundraisers and volunteer projects to restore this creek. This work takes many different kinds of partners, from government agencies and engineers to local business owners, from community organizers to those with knowledge of plants. Individuals from the town formed Watershed NOW to work together toward stewarding the gift of water in their region. Rev. Taylor and his congregation have been participants in this work as people of faith and as community members with a range of skills, as well as showing up when there was a need.

We hope the story of Big Elkin Creek inspires you in implementing watershed discipleship in its myriad forms in your community!

Watershed Snapshot | The Jordan River Watershed, Part 2

Watershed Snapshot | The Jordan River Watershed, Part 2

WD Editors

Above photo: Jordan River today, Christopher-Sprake / iStock / Getty

My name is Jonathan. I am a Mennonite Christian Palestinian US American. My dual identities as a Palestinian, and as a white US American offer me insight to Christianity both as an indigenous wisdom tradition, and as a religion serving as a tool of global imperialism. I write each entry of this two-part blog post from the first person, as a Palestinian Christian, and as a Western Christian respectively. See part 1 of my Jordan River Watershed snapshot here.

Last year, over 2.4 million Christians visited the “Holy Land.” To put that into perspective, 60% of the tourists to Israel were Christian, compared to only 20% Jewish. Christian tourists spent billions of dollars to walk where Jesus walked, visit sites from the Bible, and see the remains of the world Jesus inhabited.    

Group baptism at Yardenit, from the Yardenit Facebook page
Group baptism at Yardenit, from the Yardenit Facebook page.

A favorite spot for these tourists is the Yardenit Baptismal Site, the most visited spot on the Jordan River. This site is not the site traditionally believed to be that of Jesus’ Baptism—that’s Al-Maghtas on the Jordanian side, or where Elijah ascended into heaven—that’s Qasr el Yahud, in the West Bank Palestinian territories. The Yardenit Baptismal Site has no biblical significance at all.

So why does virtually every “Holy Land” tour visit it? Because it is in Israel. It is a fictionalized baptismal spot created by the Israeli minister of tourism in the 1980s for Christian tourists to be “baptized in the Jordan.” Its purpose is to give Christian tourists the experience without having to interact with Jordanian or Palestinian Arabs. Read more →

Watershed Snapshot | The Jordan River Watershed, Part 1

Watershed Snapshot | The Jordan River Watershed, Part 1

WD Editors

Above photo: Jonathan Brenneman and Sarah Thompson with their grandmothers on their wedding day in 2018. © Peter Ringenberg, 2018

by Jonathan Brenneman
Guest Contributor

My name is Jonathan. I am a Mennonite Christian Palestinian US American. My dual identities as a Palestinian and as a white US American offer me insight to Christianity both as an indigenous wisdom tradition, and as a religion serving as a tool of global imperialism. I write each entry of this two-part blog post from the first person, as a Palestinian Christian and as a Western Christian.

The Jordan River plays a huge part in Christian mythology: the river crossed by the Israelites, the river Elijah and Elisha performed miracles in, the river in which John performed baptisms, the river whose watershed hosts all of Jesus’s ministry.

The Jordan is one of the most significant natural or ecological characters in the Bible, so it’s natural that those who practice watershed discipleship connect deeply to the mythology of the Jordan River, diving into its metaphors and finding the confluence between our own watersheds and that of Jesus. But the river isn’t merely mythical. It did not dry up after the canon was chosen. It is a real river! And it is still flowing…barely. Read more →