What is EcoPreacher?
As our climate-changed and changing world continues to demand courage, imagination, and resourcefulness, congregations and their leaders have a unique opportunity to offer prophetic voices of possibility. With their skills and community connections, preachers are in a special position to offer spiritual guidance in the quest for understanding, connection, and resilience in a world in need of environmental healing and wholeness.
Following on from a successful EcoPreacher Cohort in 2022-2023, and with the desire to support, educate, and engage preachers in the integration of climate consciousness into their preaching, Creation Justice Ministries has partnered with The BTS Center and Lexington Theological Seminary to offer this year-long cohort of learning, companionship, and exploration that will begin in September 2024.
This cohort will offer monthly sessions to help preachers understand climate change and other environmental justice issues more deeply as spiritual crises that require creative, faith-rooted action. Our intentions for this cohort are:
Research note: EcoPreacher Cohort members will take part in periodic individual and congregational surveys. Select members will also be invited to take part in research-focused interviews and focus group conversations. These surveys and conversations will assess the ways in which participation in the EcoPreacher Cohort is making a tangible difference in the work and lives of its participants and will inform future cohorts as well as influence developments in homiletics and theological education more broadly.
Dates and times for the 2024-2025 Cohort will be available soon.
Following on from a successful EcoPreacher Cohort in 2022-2023, and with the desire to support, educate, and engage preachers in the integration of climate consciousness into their preaching, Creation Justice Ministries has partnered with The BTS Center and Lexington Theological Seminary to offer this year-long cohort of learning, companionship, and exploration that will begin in September 2024.
This cohort will offer monthly sessions to help preachers understand climate change and other environmental justice issues more deeply as spiritual crises that require creative, faith-rooted action. Our intentions for this cohort are:
- To create a covenanted space for preachers to learn, reflect together, and offer support to one another as they regularly preach in a climate-changed world
- To create a diverse, respectful, identity-forming ecumenical group that welcomes preachers from lectionary-grounded, non-lectionary-focused, and identity-based communities
- To offer opportunities for participants to take risks in exploring ecological and eco-justice themes in their preaching, in a safe, mutually-supportive, non-judgmental space
- To increase engagement with eco-preaching resources, including the EcoPreacher 1-2-3 resources being offered through the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development
Research note: EcoPreacher Cohort members will take part in periodic individual and congregational surveys. Select members will also be invited to take part in research-focused interviews and focus group conversations. These surveys and conversations will assess the ways in which participation in the EcoPreacher Cohort is making a tangible difference in the work and lives of its participants and will inform future cohorts as well as influence developments in homiletics and theological education more broadly.
Dates and times for the 2024-2025 Cohort will be available soon.