I became vegan when in 2012 I saw a video online of a coon dog being skinned alive for his/her fur. Seeing this was shocking. I had been unaware this torture was going on. I began educating myself about animal abuse. I found that animals are seen as commodities and utilities. Animals are incorporated into our industrialized lifestyle at every turn for food, clothing, vivisection, the pet trade and more. Their welfare is generally not a priority. Animals produced on factory farms for example, are exempt from animal welfare legislation that was designed to protect pets. Even this legislation is often thwarted and not enforced.

Scripture is clear that we were placed in the Garden of Eden to care for the animals and the earth just as God Himself would. In 2017, I attended the SARX Creature Conference in London, England. During this conference I feel God impressed upon my heart the urgent need for Christian animal welfare advocates in coming together to form a coalition to address these injustices. The design of this coalition, body or community would entail teaching a Biblical perspective of good stewardship, setting an example, discipling one another, and evangelism. Creation Care Church is the culmination of this calling.

I became a vegan on November 1. 2019 for weight loss as part of my health and wellness goals. I am motivated to accomplish my dream of becoming a 200 pound athlete. Through my gym ministry for Christ I hope to likewise motivate and inspire others to accomplish their health and wellness goals involving the diet God gave designed for us in Genesis 1:29.

I became a vegan advocate on July 4, 2020 when a pastor and his wife told me that the vegan diet is from the pit of hell, that the vegan lifestyle is not Biblical, and that God wants us to eat animals. Sin of History Evangelistic Ministries aims to provide that Biblical basis for living a compassionate vegan lifestyle that cares for all of God’s creatures.

I have always loved animals so much and I knew that my life was about to change! Later I felt God calling me to use my creative skills to bring this message of mercy and love to non-vegan Christians, and to anyone who will listen. My website and ministry is called Live Mercifully. It a web-based ministry devoted to promoting compassion for animals, and to inspire people to move toward a merciful, healthy, plant-based lifestyle.

In 1985 I assisted May Tripp in founding and coordinating ACC, an organisation born out of dismay at humanity’s cruel exploitation of animals; and a need for a Christian animal welfare voice. Sadly, because of the Church’s silence on profit-motivated animal abuse, thousands of animal welfarists were rejecting Christ and turning towards New Age religions. Covering many topics in our worldwide campaigns, ACC’s aim has always been two-fold: To take the Gospel, as it relates to the WHOLE creation, to a secular world; and to remind the Church of its Biblical responsibilities to animals. Thus, we’ve always liaised with secular animal welfarists, many of whom attended our annual Cathedral Services and Good Friday Prayer Vigils.

By 1990, having learnt about God’s original and ultimate will for a Peaceful non-predatory world, I’d stopped eating meat; and by 2017, upon realising the dairy and egg trades were just as cruel, I’d become vegan. My book, ‘Animal Welfare: Through The Cross’, is a compilation of articles of the work of ACC. These articles aim to express, inside and outside the Church, the view that cruelty of any kind is incompatible with Christ’s teachings of love, that love is indivisible, and that cruelty towards any sentient creature is a breach of love.

Then, in April 2024, Creation Care Church mentioned selling merchandise to promote their mission. What a perfect fit it was for Graceful Pause to add their merchandise to our site; and, we decided to make Creation Care Church the charity to receive all of the $3 donations.

God definitely puts opportunities in our path to spread his message of kindness and compassion. We just need to follow.

I had always loved animals from a very young age but, at that very young age and even into adulthood, I did not make the connection of saying I loved animals and yet I was still eating them. It became quite essential and absolutely necessary after watching the above video to make this connection. If I was going to say I loved animals like I do, then there was no way possible for me to still be eating them. I had to correct this cognitive dissonance.

It has now become quite essential and absolutely necessary that when I sit down to eat breakfast, lunch and/or dinner, there can be essentially and absolutely NO animal cruelty on my plate. There can also be NO animal cruelty off my plate, meaning NO animal testing, NO animal wearing, and NO animal hurting whatsoever.

I have also now become comfortable bridging animal welfare with Christianity. I do not consider this a “bridge” too difficult to cross, as God’s Word, the Bible, consistently and constantly leads all Christians to cross this “bridge” to extend love, compassion and mercy to God’s nonhuman animals. We are also to cross this “bridge” to extend love, compassion and mercy to God’s humans. We are to cross this “bridge” to extend love, compassion and mercy to BOTH! I pray you will cross this “bridge” with me by watching my slide presentation, COMPASSIONATE CALL FOR CHRIST on YouTube.

You can also follow this “bridge” I cross at my blog website, timothyjverret.blog.