We hope you will join us on March 11, 2021, alongside peoples and communities of all faith backgrounds, to raise awareness about climate justice. With these prayers and opportunities for education, advocacy, and action, we hope to empower and embolden our communities to live out our faithful call to care for Creation.
Download available in pdf or word:
Lutheran Call to Prayer_ Sacred People – pdf
Call to Prayer_ Sacred People, Sacred Earth – Word
As part of the Greenfaith Sacred People, Sacred Earth Day of Action, we invite you and your community to join in the following prayer at 11am in your time zone on March 11. Consider sharing the prayer on social media, joining in with communities around the world. (#Faiths4Climate)
We encourage you to use this Day of Action also as a time to begin conversation around how your community will choose to live out climate justice and other forms of environmental justice, including during the week of Earth Day April 16 – 23rd. Please embrace this month to learn more about local, national, and global movements to enact climate justice, and join in those efforts. Below is the prayer and a set of links to resources for further action.
Faithfully joined in prayer,
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS)
Lutherans Restoring Creation (LRC)
Lutheran World Federation (LWF)
Center for Climate Justice and Faith of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary (PLTS)
Prayer
Creator God, all things live, and move, and have their being in you. We praise you God, for the Earth that sustains life. Our demand for growth, and an endless cycle of production and consumption are exhausting our world. The forests are leached, the topsoil erodes, the fields fail, the deserts advance, the seas acidify, the storms intensify. Humans and animals are forced to flee in search of security.
You made us in your image, with power and responsibility to seek the good for all in Earth’s great web of life. Guide us and empower us, to carry out our responsibilities and exercise our power to support all your good creation.
We gather in the image of the Creator who is a community of love.
We gather in the name of the Redeemer who reconciles all of creation.
We gather in the presence of the Life Giver who inspires new life and renews it.
(adapted from the resources Light for Katowice and Season of Creation 2020)
Links/Resources for Action
- Lutherans Restoring Creation: Earth Day Service w/Bishop Eaton on Good Shepherd Sunday April 25th
- ELCA Social Statements on Creation, Climate Advocacy Resources, Connections to other ELCA Ministries
- Interfaith Power & Light’s Climate Action Week: Sacred Ground
- Lutheran World Federation/Climate Justice
Ecotheology and Season of Creation
Climate justice resources - Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary’s Center for Climate Justice and Faith with its Certificate in Climate Justice and Faith
- ELCA’s Vacation Bible School Curriculums:
“River of Life” – ELCA World Hunger’s water-focused Vacation Bible School for 2021 (at-home version available March 2021); also available: “God’s Good Creation” - “God, Migration and the Climate Crisis” addressing :“Where does faith fit into the understanding of climate change and humanity’s role in it? How can faith communities mobilize to help those affected by climate displacement? What can people of faith do to protect our planet and those living on it?”