Tag Archives: issue-based advocacy

Adult Forum and Bible Study, Climate Change, Energy Savings, Issue-Based Advocacy

Confused about our way forward?

As there has been continuing conversation and controversy emerging since Michael Moore’s film: Planet of the Human, we decided to share some feedback from a Lutherans Restoring Creation member.  Thanks to Josh Thede, an active member of the Central States LRC Mission Table.

Our LRC community plans to discuss the broader challenge of how to make progress in this ministry when consensus on solutions seems vague,  if not conflicting.  Join our next Connection Call. 

Katherine Hayhoe has some of the most compelling information:
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Bill Mckibben’s response is interesting,  featured in Rolling Stone (click here).  Above photo from Rolling Stone’s piece.

Both Project Drawdown and Pachamama Alliance have good resources to move forward.
This TED talk is a great overview of that concept (click here). 

There may be a worthwhile conversation about infinite growth and GDP as a takeaway from the film. There is some interesting progress around “Donut Economics” (click here for TED talk). 

More reflections in response to the film and considerations when moving towards a host of energy solutions:

Adult Forum and Bible Study, Preaching Resources, Sermons, Uncategorized, Worship

Finding Community in our Holy Waters During a Time of Isolation

While many are anxious and isolated during this time of response to a pandemic, we offer these reflections on this week’s readings. (If there are other recordings you wish to share as a balm to soothe and inspiration to act for the common good please submit them here.)

March 15, 2020 – 3rd Sunday in Lent (John 4, 5-42) – Woman at Well – Pr. Susan Henry – House of Prayer, Hingham MA

Advocacy, Climate Change, Education

Climate Justice & Faith Concentration at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary

For the most recent information about this emerging program and the broader emerging Climate Justice Center listen into this recording of the 2020 Founder’s Day Lecture – including a magnificent preaching from Dr. Melanie Harris and a talk with Bill McKibben!

An invitation from Cynthia Moe-Lobeda:

Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary is so very pleased to announce a new development in our curriculum that may be of strong interest to you.

We have inaugurated a concentration in Climate Justice and Faith! It is available to all M.Div students and will be available to all students in the new Masters in Spirituality and Social Change that we intend to launch in the fall of 2021.

This flier (click here) describes the climate justice concentration. Please see the website for a fuller depiction at: https://www.plts.edu/programs/master-divinity/climate-justice.html

It is so utterly crucial that faith communities provide leadership in moving our world away from climate catastrophe and toward the flourishing of God’s marvelous creation. Therefore we intend – as soon as possible – to create a version of this concentration for people who want to prepare for leadership in creation care and climate justice, but who are not studying for a masters degree.  It will be a certificate in Climate Justice and Faith.

We invite you to share this website and flyer broadly in your organization or network.

May God’s power for healing and liberation flow among us,

Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda, Ph.D.
Professor of Theological and Social Ethics,
Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary of California Lutheran University
Church Divinity School of the Pacific
Core Doctoral Faculty, the Graduate Theological Union

Education

What is Our Response?

As part of our Connections Calls, we get to hear feedback from representatives who work in various expressions of the ELCA.  During the January 2020 call, after a group devotional,  Katrina Martich shared what she took away from the 2019 Lutheran Disaster Response Convening.  Listen here to the whole call (she starts at 20:35).

“There are natural hazards, but no such thing as natural disasters, even though that is a term many of those in the public are familiar with. Disasters happen when hazards (for example natural hazards like hurricanes) impact people and the systems people have made – their culture, their society, their economy, their inequalities. And our response to that disaster can further shape the impact of the disaster on people.”
– Dr. Jennifer Trivedi,  Asst. Professor of Anthropology at Univ. of Delaware 

Resources in relation to the Call Topic:

Climate Change, Issue-Based Advocacy

Creation Care Ambassador Program

We are thrilled to announce that, through an ongoing partnership between the ELCA and ecoAmerica’s Blessed Tomorrow, a  Creation Care Ambassador Training occurred in April, June and September of 2020 with over 160 participants from ELCA communities.  These certified Ambassadors are ready to share their new skills and resources with your Lutheran church and community.  See the dozens of  “Certified Ambassadors” who have already committed to offering a presentation for free!  If you are interested in having one of these Ambassadors speak with your church community please reach out to them immediately to see if a virtual session can happen soon! (Click Creation Care Ambassador on map list and then hover over each to find contact information.) 

See how this resource fits into all the ways ELCA supports Creation Care Ministries by listening to this recorded 1 hour webinar. 
Advocacy, Climate Change, Issue-Based Advocacy

Light for Madrid – A Devotional

Thanks to the work of Green Shepherd, Lisa Brenskelle,  there is a way for your congregation to hold a gathering many miles away in prayer.  As the U.N. Climate Conference met in Madrid (Dec. 2-13, 2019) prayers were sent to support their efforts by bringing the conversation into churches in a prayerful way. Consider bringing this resource to your Bible Study, coffee hour, Sunday School or workplace to consider our impact on global issues from our pews.

Download the pdf here – and remember to print it double-sided, flip on the SHORT edge.

Advocacy, Climate Change, Energy Savings

Tools for Talking and Acting on Climate with Faith-based Language

Blessed Tomorrow’s Moving Forward Guide

ecoAmerica helps leaders from the local government, the public health sector, and faith-based cohorts figure out how to usher people into urgent action on climate change. This brief guide provides you with information and resources to reduce energy use, to build resilient houses of worship as refuges from a changing climate, and to encourage support for policies that better care for creation.

See especially the section: Roadmap to Clean Energy by 2030 for clarity on steps to make once your congregation affirms the need for urgent action.

Advocacy, Education, Facilities

This is Church and You Are Needed Inside & Out

Watch this message from our churchwide leaders and fellow members across the country who recognize the tough, uncomfortable work of being “called out” into the world.  It is an empowering 7 minutes – worth the watch for all of us, not just the voting members who will be sitting in the conference rooms.

For those wanting to embolden their sense of calling to Creation Care for All as ministry inside and outside the church – you don’t need to have a resolution ready,  join a march, or preach on climate (yet). Start here:

 

Events, National/Global Advocacy

Reflections from The Bible to the Frontlines – Stony Point Retreat Center, August 2019

 Lutherans Restoring Creation partnered with Presbyterians for Earth Care for their bi-annual conference at Stony Point Retreat Center in NY August 6-9, 2019 where over a hundred earth-keepers gathered.  Below are some of the remarkable reflections during our time together processing how to take some of the Bible’s directives to bring us to the frontline. Using the World Cafe Method, participants conversed around the three following verses and considered how the Word could help them (and their faith community) progress from movement to action.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ” John 15: 5

“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”
Psalm 119:105

 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.
Romans 12: 4-6

Here are images of our time together at Stony Point Retreat Center:

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Peace for the Earth: From the Bible to the Frontlines

Advocacy, Climate Change, Consumption, National/Global Advocacy

What does church have to do with it?

As many faith-based organizations are struggling with their place in relation to people’s daily lives, so does the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America look for ways the world can use what we offer.  As part of an appeal for our churches to take on the uncomfortable challenge of being engaged in the public sphere, let’s take stock of how other sectors of our society ask the church for help.  If you have articles or stories to share please submit them to info at lutheransrestoringcreation dot org.

Comments from BBC’s NewsHour Jan 22, 2019 Davos, Switzerland as Global Business leaders meet at World Economic  Forum:

Listen in to this conversation from global leaders and their call to us all to act as leaders.

What does a “moral and empathic revolution” look like?

When are you tempted to make villains out of your neighbors?

How can prayer offer a way out of habits that take us further away from our goals?

Congregational Covenant with Creation, Devotional Materials, Energy Savings, Events, Personal Discipleship, Regional Advocacy, Resolutions

Consider Caring for Creation Coaching

What is ELCA Coaching? Click here for a Ministry Description

What happens when Trained Coaches focus on helping those in Caring for Creation Ministries? All the action plans, resolutions, pledges, etc. that have emerged over years of active concern and deliberation are transformed into active progress by accompanying individuals leading these efforts to ensure goals are realized.

Response after Inaugural Creation Care Coach Training (NV- 2/6/19):

“… My most profound feeling is gratitude. THANK YOU to all of you for not only the training, but the preparation that went into it, your expertise, the vision that you invited me into, the people to whom you connected me, and the coming time of transformation. I could never have imagined what these three days would mean for me…and I am just beginning to realize it. Thank you for your partnership, your inspiration, your wisdom, and the HOPE that you have opened up for me! I carry you all with me today and in the days to come, and I look forward to connecting with you through our continued training.”

– Noni Strand, Kansas City – Central States LRC Mission Table Chair

Mark Carlson (CA), Noni Strand (KS), Dan Smith (CA), Solveig Nilsen-Goodin (CA), Keith Mundy (IL), Jane Affonso (CA), Janice Hawley (KS)

Introduced in 2019, Caring for Creation Coaching is another area of specialty coaching being offered by the ELCA in collaboration with Lutherans Restoring Creation and ecoAmerica.  Using a format similar to what has been successful with Stewardship and Discipleship Level II Coaching, this specialty will focus on developing coaching skills and competencies around five pillars (Personal Discipleship, Education, Building & Grounds, Public Witness & Advocacy) of caring for creation in the congregation and local community.  Through a series of seven session, participants will be equipped as coaches to accompany individuals and small groups in achieving their dreams through actions that create change related to caring for creation and climate solutions.

In each session special attention is given to sharpening coaching skills and engaging coaching competencies as outlined by the International Coach Federation (ICF).  These will help coaches journey alongside leaders involved in God’s work, both loving and serving the world.  (Note: ICF is the leading global organization dedicated to advancing the coaching profession by setting high standards, providing independent certification and building a worldwide network of trained coaching professionals.).

Level One Coach Training involves a great deal of interactive training and laughter.

Adult Forum and Bible Study, Education

Water: “Living Water” Bible Study

•Opening Prayer:  Gracious God, we thank you for your many gifts, and especially for the gift of water that sustains all of life.  Bless us as we hear your word, like a spring to our lives of faith.  Amen.

 

•Reading: Psalm 104:10-15.  Read aloud three times, hearing from different voices.

•Discussion:

-How are God, water, and life interrelated?

-We often think of God’s act of creation as complete, but this psalm acknowledges that God continually creates and sustains life.  What evidence do you see of this today?

-How do you think this passage speaks to problems of water contamination?

•Reading: Psalm 107:33-38.  Read aloud three times, hearing from different voices.

•Discussion:

-What does this passage have to say about water and life?

-Is this image hopeful?  Why and/or why not?

-How does this psalm speak to us today?

•Reading: John 4:7-15.  Read aloud three times, hearing from different voices.

•Discussion:

-Imagine walking to a well to draw water each day.  How might this affect our understanding of water?

-In verse 9, the author explains the division between Jesus and the woman at the well: “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.”  With regard to water, how is the world divided today?

-Why do you think Jesus uses the image of water to describe faith?

-Brainstorm further biblical references to water.  What do these images have to say about the human relationship to the world and to God?

Closing prayer: Loving God, you quench our thirst with the waters you have created. Sustain those without a secure source of water, and protect streams, rivers, wetlands, lakes, and oceans, and especially (local body of water or waterway), from harm.  We thank you for the gift of water, especially the living water of your Son, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

 

Adult Forum and Bible Study, Education

Transportation: “On the Way” Bible Study

•Opening Prayer: Gracious God, we have gathered here from many places. Thank you for safe travels. Bless this time together. Amen.

•Introductory discussion: Much of Jesus’ ministry took place on the way from one place to another. Thus, transportation is an important aspect of the Gospel stories.

What might inhibit us from thinking about transportation as an opportunity for living out our faith? (Isolation in cars? Transportation as simply a means of getting from here to there? Competition for road space? Stresses of traffic? “Road rage”? Etc.)

•Reading and discussion: Read Luke 24:13-32 (The Road to Emmaus).

Why do you think the disciples fail to recognize Jesus?

What does it mean to meet Jesus on the way from place to place?

How can we understand the meaning of this story in light of car culture?

•Reading and discussion: Read Luke 10:29-37 (The Good Samaritan). Jesus regularly taught with parables like this one.

Why do you think the priest and the Levite neglected to help the suffering man? (On the way to an important engagement? No time to spare? Social expectations?)

How can we understand the meaning of this story in light of car culture? How might we identify the neighbor given current transportation habits?

•Reflection: What would it take to be faithful on the way from place to place?

How might we reconsider our transportation habits to provide for more opportunities to encounter Christ, to encounter the neighbor?

Do we have nonhuman neighbors? How does our mode of transportation affect how we encounter them?

•Closing Prayer: Gracious God, we thank you for your vast creation, of which we are a part. Hold your creation in mercy and love. Amen.

 

 

Adult Forum and Bible Study, Advocacy, Education, Issue-Based Advocacy, Land Use, Preaching Resources

Justified by Land and Faith

Christian Faith and Environmental Ethics: Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac and Luther’s Freedom of A Christian

A timeless reflection shared by Marcia Bunge at Luther College in 1994 . Here Bunge relates the writings of revered conservationist, Aldo Leopold with the Doctrine of Creation and Justification from the Lutheran/Christian traditions.

click here to download

 

 

 

Events

Upper Susquehanna Synod Assembly Lutherans Call for Repeal of “Fracking Loopholes” (2014)

On the recommendation of a bipartisan task group, the Upper Susquehanna Synod Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) voted on June 20, 2014, to call for all environmental and public health exemptions on shale gas and oil drilling and its related processes, known as the “Halliburton loopholes,” to be repealed and all processes related to shale gas and oil extraction and processing to be subject to the Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), the Clean Air Act (1990) and Clean Water Act (1972). Download the press release here.

Advocacy, Education, Issue-Based Advocacy

The Nature of Things: Rediscovering the Spiritual in God’s Creation

Edited by Graham Buxton and Norman Habel
Forward by David Rhoads

With contributions by David Rhoads, Paul Santmire, Celia-Diane-Drummond, Heather Eaton, Ernst Conradie and others, this volume highlights a diversity of perspectives on the spiritual in creation, both traditional and radical.

Download a copy of the flyer here.

Visit the publisher’s website to order

Advocacy, Education, Issue-Based Advocacy

Coming Home To Earth 

by Mark Brocker

As a young Norwegian Lutheran teenager in rural Wisconsin, Brocker lay awake one night worrying whether he believed in Jesus enough to get to heaven. This getting-to-heaven anxiety reflected an excessive focus on individual salvation and a loss of concern for the well-being of the Earth community. A faith journey that leaves Earth behind is misguided.

Ever since those early teen years Brocker has been on a journey to come home to Earth.

Coming Home to Earth makes the case that there is no salvation apart from Earth and that Earth care is at the core of our identity and mission as followers of Jesus. The ecological consequences of a loss of concern for the well-being of Earth have been devastating. Brocker is especially concerned to determine what will motivate followers of Jesus to make radical changes in our way of life so that we can participate in the healing of wounded Earth and all of its inhabitants, both human and nonhuman. We are far more likely to make needed sacrifices for our fellow creatures if we share God’s delight in and affection for them, and cherish Earth as our home.

Read more and order

Advocacy, Resolutions

Synod Resolutions: Synod Actions

Resolution to become an LRC Synod
Central States Synod
Approved June 2015

Resolution to become a Green Synod
Northern Illinois Synod Assembly
Approved April 2008

Resolution on Establishing an Environmental Stewardship Committee
Metropolitan New York Synod, 2009

 

Advocacy, Resolutions

Central States Synod Assembly Resolution Calls for “Green Action” (2017)

At the 2017 Synod Assembly in Kansas City, voting members adopted a resolution that encourages “its leaders and congregations to make use of the resources of Lutheran Restoring Creation for faith-based congregational initiatives and addressing care of creation and the threat of climate damage.” Included in this call to action are efforts to conserve energy and/or the use of renewable energy, congregational educational programs and action plans that may include such things as installing solar panels to generate renewable electricity, utilizing the Lutheran study guide on the Encyclical Letter of Pope Francis (Laudato Si, On Care for our Common Home), and supporting policies that seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Click here to view the Lutheran study guide.

Further, the adopted resolution states “the Central States Synod recommends that all members of its congregations be active environmental stewards and ‘green disciples’ by engaging in prayer for guidance, study to gain a better understanding of environmental issues, and action to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

To help you and your congregation carry out this resolution, the LRC Mission Table will provide regular Green Action items in the Synod e-newsletter. For more information on Lutherans Restoring Creation, if you’d like to host a Creation Care workshop, or if you need help in your setting, please contact Noni Strand, the LRC Mission Table chair at nonistrand@gmail.com.

 

 

Advocacy, Resolutions

Synod Resolutions: Divestment from Fossil Fuels

Transition to Cleaner Energy Memorial
Upper Susquehanna (PA) Synod June 2015

Northeastern Pennsylvania Synod’s Creation Care Task Force pledges to investigate what divestment would mean for the synod and the world. June 2015

Metro New York Synod
Approved May 29, 2015
News Release 

Saint Paul, MN Area Synod
Approved April 24-25, 2015
Oregon Synod
Approved May 18, 2013.
New England Synod
Approved June 7-9, 2013