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Hope is the Thing: A Sermon for Climate Justice from United Methodist Women is an account from Bishop C. Joseph Sprague on the sermon he gave at the United Methodist Caretakers of God’s Creation Conference. The Bishop discusses the complexity of being caretakers of God’s creation and how to remember that you are not alone in the journey. To read the entire article, click here.
Picture courtesy of creationjustice.org.
Creation Justice Ministries encourages Christian communities to consider water as a sacred gift from God that connects and sustains all life. They have created a free Christian education resource on water that includes liturgical resources, sermon starters, and ideas to take action. To read more about God’s Gift of Water or download the resource, click here.
Picture courtesy of seasonofcreation.org
The Season of Creation comes to a close on the 4th of October, which is known as the Feast of St. Francis. To celebrate this day, and the end of the Season of Creation, this resource includes readings, prayers, and reflections. The theme for this resource focuses on kinship with creation and how the harmony between the Creator, humanity and creation as a whole has been disrupted by humanity presuming to take the place of God and refusing to acknowledge our creaturely limitations. To read more, click here.
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Interfaith Prayers is a resource from GreenFaith that can be used as a guide to celebrating the Season of Creation. This document contains over 100 prayers that are each labeled with the author and tradition and they are all focused on the environment. To download or view these prayers, click here.
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The week two resource for Creation Time, Scotland’s title for the Season of Creation, focuses on passing on the gift of hope. This week includes multiple scriptures, sermon ideas, time with children, prayers, musical suggestions, and additional resources. To read more on week two and passing on hope, click here.
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Eco-Congregation Scotland provides a weekly resource for Creation Time, Scotland’s title for the Season of Creation. The first week is focused on passing on the gift of integrity and it includes a song, correlating scripture, sermon ideas, time with children, prayers, musical suggestions, and additional resources. To read more or download the week one resource, click here.
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The fourth week of the Season of Creation is focused on the preaching and teaching of St. John Paul II and his emphasis on the environmental crisis. He said that, “ we must encourage and support the ecological conversation, which has made humanity more sensitive to the catastrophe to which is has been heading.” This week includes multiple scriptures, reflections, and prayers along with a hymn. To read more, click here.
Picture courtesy of seasonofcreation.org
The third week of the Season of Creation is focused on water. This week contains a call to prayer, a hymn, and a song. It also recommends water sounds to be played in the background and seven candles to be lit and placed in water. To read more, click here.
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In order to honor their commitment to creation, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) invites its members to engage in the season of creation that is annually observed worldwide. They provide weekly blogs from the communion of churches and biblical reflections. There are biblical reflections for each week of the season and they contain a variety of resources including prayers, poems, reflections and personal stories. To read more on the LWF blog and biblical reflections, click here.
“As people of faith, we are called to live in the right relationship with creation and not exhaust it.”
–Lutheran World Federation Assembly Resolution on Climate Change (2017)
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The Church of England has created a service that is focused on urban communities and the impacts climate change has on them. It is meant to be a guide for a service and includes resources from beginning to end, including a prayer on climate change. To read more, click here.
To read a similar service on rural communities, click here.