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NOAA-funded project will build resilience in faith communities across the East Coast Washington, D.C. - Creation Justice Ministries is pleased to announce new funding from the NOAA Environmental Literacy Program to support a new project focused on building resilience in faith communities: “Participatory Education in Faith Communities for Climate Resilience.” Through this project, we will create networks of faith communities that are educated on the realities of climate change and able to serve as hubs of social and physical resilience for their communities. The project will be undertaken in partnership with Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA) in Maryland, North Carolina Interfaith Power & Light, and Virginia Interfaith Power & Light. "At Creation Justice Ministries, we believe that faith communities have a unique role to play in addressing the climate crisis," says Avery Davis Lamb, co-Executive Director of Creation Justice Ministries. "We are excited to partner with community partners, non-profits, agencies, and policymakers to build networks of faith communities that are educated on the realities of climate change and able to serve as hubs of social and physical resilience for their communities. This project will help our faith communities serve as places of refuge in the midst of the climate crisis, better weathering the physical, social, and spiritual storms of the climate crisis." "The communities living on Maryland's Eastern Shore are among the first to be facing the threats and harms of our damaged climate," says Joelle Novey of Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA). "We also know that Black church communities like those in Salisbury bring tremendous spiritual resources and wisdom to this moment. We're delighted to have the opportunity to learn together through this project as all of us prepare to navigate a stormy future." "The goal of this project is to create a network of North Carolina faith communities that are educated on the realities of climate change and able to serve as hubs of social and physical resilience for their communities – helping them better weather the physical, social, and psychological storms of the climate crisis," says Susannah Tuttle, Director of NC Interfaith Power & Light. "In particular, community-based workshops will build on North Carolina’s Coastal Resiliency Plan by bringing together faith leaders, academics, and government officials to address resilience in the Counties of Beaufort and Pamlico in North Carolina." "We are honored to partner with the people of Mathews County, community, and faith leaders," says Rev. Dr. Faith Harris, Executive Director of Virginia Interfaith Power & Light. "to support the work of developing a community-based and led resilience plan. Sea level rise seriously threatens the way of life Mathews residents have grown to love. This project will empower community members to plan for and protect that way of life for the future." "We are excited to partner with Creation Justice Ministries and Interfaith Power & Light on this project to empower faith communities with the knowledge and skills they need to become more resilient against the impacts of climate change,” says Louisa Koch, Director of NOAA Education at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “By bringing together the community-based work of faith organizations and local universities with resilience expertise from federal and state agencies, we can build stronger, more prepared communities. This project exemplifies NOAA's commitment to science, service, and stewardship, and we look forward to the positive outcomes it will produce." We are grateful to the NOAA Environmental Literacy Program for their support of this important project, and look forward to working with our partners to build resilience in faith communities across the country starting in May 2023. About Creation Justice Ministries: Creation Justice Ministries (formerly the National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Program) represents the creation care and environmental justice policies of major Christian denominations throughout the United States. We work in cooperation with 38 national faith bodies including Protestant denominations and Orthodox communions as well as regional faith groups, and congregants to protect and restore God's Creation. Our mission is to educate, equip and mobilize Christian individuals, congregations, denominations, and communions to protect, restore and rightly share God's creation. Contact: Avery Davis Lamb, Co-Executive Director Creation Justice Ministries avery@creationjustice.org (785) 217-6784
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 Good afternoon, my name is Avery Lamb, I am a Co-Executive Director of Creation Justice Ministries. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. The mission of Creation Justice Ministries is to educate, equip and mobilize Christians to protect, restore, and rightly share God's creation. Through our 38 denominational and communion members, Creation Justice Ministries serves about 100,000 churches and 45 million people in the United States. On behalf of these communities, I applaud the work of the EPA in strengthening methane standards and implore you: don’t stop here. There’s more to be done. I want to start with a story that we Christians share with our Jewish neighbors, found in the opening chapters of the Hebrew Bible. In the creation story of Genesis 2, we read about the creation of the first human. God took a clump of soil, and breathed into it the breath of life, creating Adam. This word for breath – translated from the Hebrew word ruach – is so much more than just the air that comes from our lungs. It also means the air and wind blowing around us. It also means the spirit of life. The use of the word in this story unveils a reality that we have also come to see scientifically: the breath in our own lungs is the same breath in the lungs of the world. Inevitably, whatever is put into the lungs of the world will move through the lungs of humans. In this first act of God in Genesis 2, life is created through the exhalation of breath. Breath – ruach – is life. It doesn’t take us long without breath to understand that. And yet, for millions of people, the breath of life and wellness has become the breath of sickness and death. Is breath life or death? We know that the emission of methane causes manifold health issues for people who by the simple reality of where they live or work, have to breathe it in. Is breath life or death? We know that the emission of methane causes manifold issues for the lungs of the world – driving the patterns of record-breaking rain and wind that destroy the people and places we love. …is breath life or death? We know that the emission of methane causes manifold health issues for our communities. The EPA has the opportunity to protect the lungs of people and the planet. The question is clear: will the EPA continue working to ensure breath is life? We know that we can take action to ensure that breath is life. On behalf of our communities, I am grateful for the work being done by your agency to protect the lungs of people and the planet, particularly by ensuring regular inspections occur at all sites and maintaining strong requirements to use zero-emitting technologies. Thank you.
Still, there is more to be done. There are other steps the EPA can take to protect our people: First, I ask the EPA to limit the wasteful and dangerous practice of routine flaring. Second, better address emissions from storage tanks. Finally, provide a clear pathway for participation in the Super Emitter Response Program. We have the opportunity to protect the lungs of people and the planet. The question is clear: will the EPA continue working to ensure breath is life, or will you stop here? Thank you
When my husband picked me up, he was returning from visiting friends in Wilmington, NC. These friends are very church-active. They were all flooded in Hurricane Florence, had had dead animals floating in their yards. Their churches have never mentioned climate change even once. These friends were fascinated that I was attending a faith-based conference on the subject and wanted very much to know more. The need to talk, learn, and pray is very great. When my husband picked me up, he was returning from visiting friends in Wilmington, NC. These friends are very church-active. They were all flooded in Hurricane Florence, had had dead animals floating in their yards. Their churches have never mentioned climate change even once. These friends were fascinated that I was attending a faith-based conference on the subject and wanted very much to know more. The need to talk, learn, and pray is very great.
I send my deepest appreciation to you, Karyn, and the others for providing this opportunity. Kathy Ellis St. James’ Episcopal Church, Warrenton, Va. Creation Care Task Force, Diocese of Va. by Gabrielle Poli
This is joy: an opening to life and love in the most unfamiliar of places. At Blue Theology, this is how we develop ocean advocates: by creating opportunities for students to connect to the ocean through joy, forming a heart connection. And to fully lean into joy requires some openness to the unknown. Joy is a spiritual practice. A practice of openness to the divinity right at our feet. Of digging through sand and flipping over crabs. Don’t forget to check for eggs!
by Katerina Gea This ambassador reflection is part of Creation Justice End of Year fundraising campaign. Give to support our efforts to protect, restore, and rightly share God's creation. Hello, happy second Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Peace! My name is Katerina Gea. Last year I participated in the CA Truth and Healing Fellowship through Creation Justice Ministries. Two other fellows and I listened to Indigenous, church, and environmental leaders over the course of a year. We identified opportunities for Christian communities to follow Indigenous leadership toward ecojustice here in California, and we’ll soon be releasing a resource on this theme. Two other fellows and I listened to Indigenous, church, and environmental leaders over the course of a year. We identified opportunities for Christian communities to follow Indigenous leadership toward ecojustice here in California, and we’ll soon be releasing a resource on this theme.
CJM’s fellowship program helped me learn about the relationships of care that Indigenous peoples have developed over thousands of years with the land and waters in California. I am excited to share paths of peacemaking we can take as Christian church communities through supporting Indigenous efforts to restore, rematriate, and steward their traditional homelands where we live as guests.
by Jenna Hoover Cobb  I’m not used to the environmental movement looking like me. As a biracial Indonesian-American woman in environmental education, the leaders on the stages and screens of my field rarely reminded me of the faces of my family and community. However, being a part of Creation Justice Ministries' Faithful Climate BIPOC Fellowship changed that. I felt hope in God’s Creation when I saw and learned from women of color and faith leading transformative climate action in their communities and organizations. One of Jenna’s favorite places in creation: a meadow in Phil & Nell Soto Park in Pomona, CA. I felt hope in God’s Creation when I saw and learned from women of color and faith leading transformative climate action in their communities and organizations.  While developing my project of a climate change presentation for youth groups with a focus on contextualizing it for my Asian American church, I was celebrated and resourced with affirmation and connections to other groups doing similar work like the Asian Pacific Environmental Network. As I go forward in my work of partnering with my local communities in Southern California to seek God’s transformation through education and advocacy, I don’t feel alone anymore. Both my community of fellowship peers and trainers as well as the work and organizations I learned about give me hope that the changes we are making in our communities are a part of God’s work in bringing God’s community of creation here, even in the face of climate change. Jenna Hoover Cobb
Jenna was one of the fifteen Faithful Climate BIPOC Fellows in 2022. by Rev. Gerald Godette I felt immense gratitude towards Creation Justice Ministries when I worked together with Avery Davis in the summer of 2021 putting together a film that allowed my wife Lillian, Pastor of St. Paul AME Zion church in Aurora, North Carolina an opportunity to tell our story of how climate change had affected her church after Hurricane Irene. On a separate occasion we worked together sharing how my wife Lillian’s church and my church, Reels Chapel AME Zion Church were impacted after Hurricane Florence in 2018 and how our congregations were resilient after each of these events, due to the teaching, the preaching and the determination to take care of God’s gifts to us. We all shared how religion played a part in how we can together impact climate change from the pulpit. Finally, during a June Summit in the summer of 2022 Lillian and I were again graciously allowed to take part in an event that included our churches along with many other churches from many denominations. We all shared how religion played a part in how we can together impact climate change from the pulpit. God has given us this earth, this Universe to take care of and not destroy.
 From Becoming Rooted: One Hundred Days of Reconnecting with Sacred Earth by Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley [Used with permission]
WATER, SACRED TO US ALL When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water. —Benjamin Franklin For several years, we packed up our kids and a few belongings in an old van and traveled from one Indian reservation to another as we served Indigenous people in a variety of ways. On our trips, we learned in new ways the way that water is sacred to America’s Indigenous people. Water is sacred to us all. One year, we were honored to be present for a blessing ceremony on the Big Grassy Reserve in Ontario, Canada. In the early spring, the Ojibwe community blesses the lake. They say prayers, sing songs, and speak words to reestablish any lost connection in that great circle of life, which includes the people and the fish and the lake. Across Turtle Island is Hopiland. In the Bean Dance, as with most ceremonies among the peoples of the Southwest, the Hopi nation prays for rain. And I think that’s about all the Hopi would like said about that. With deep gratitude to the Hopi, we were their guests for the Bean Dance. Traditionally, Cherokee people do a going-to-water ceremony, during which songs are sung in the morning to greet the day at the creek or river’s edge or next to a spring. These ceremonies continue to this day. I am among those who continue to practice the Cherokee water ceremony, if even in a small way. Among the Pacific Northwest nations of Indigenous peoples, borders disappear during their annual Canoe Journey. Canoe Journey is a chance for those various tribal peoples to reestablish themselves once again. The Pacific Ocean, with its bays and inlets and beaches, has provided so much for the people over millennia. You have a daily relationship with water. Perhaps we all can agree on a few simple truths: • Our aquifers are being over pumped well beyond their recharge rates. • Rising temperatures are boosting evaporation rates. • Rainfall patterns are now severely altered, and inadequate snowmelts are not properly feeding rivers and streams in the dry season. • Water tables are falling, with whole lakes now disappearing. • Glaciers are melting at alarming rates. The tundra is melting. • Water shortages translate to food shortages. • Global water consumption doubles about every twenty years. The UN expects demand to outstrip supply by 30 percent in 2040. • Global corporate opportunists, who see the absolute devastation coming, are attempting to buy up the world’s water supplies for profit. Water is sacred. No one can live without water. Savor water enough to save it for everyone. Today, try to use less water as you wash, cook, or clean. Become active politically on behalf of water. [An added note from Randy Woodley]: Each of us has a relationship with water. The relationship may be built upon respect and care or perhaps on disrespect and carelessness, but we are all in a relationship with God’s good gift of water. What is your relationship with water today and every day? While it is estimated that residential water use is only about 10% and industry uses about 20%, the remaining 70% is used by big agriculture! Big Ag also wastes the most water and pollutes the lion’s share of our most precious resource. While it is important for each of us to do everything we can personally, we must also act corporately within the world’s systems in order to save water. What can you and your church, or other affinity groups do to protect the earth’s water? If you care-act! Perhaps you are already acting on behalf of water. If you or your group are active for the rights of water, what can you do to share that model to inspire others? When we respect water, we are respecting and preserving the whole community of creation. When we respect the whole community of creation, or any part of it, we are respecting and honoring the Creator. Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley, PhD is a farmer, activist/scholar, distinguished speaker, teacher, author and wisdom keeper. Dr. Woodley currently serves as Distinguished Professor of Faith and Culture at Portland Seminary. He and his wife are Co-sustainers of Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice and Eloheh Farm & Seeds in Yamhill, Oregon. www.eloheh.org by Rev. Dan Paul
“The prophetic message addresses a deadened present with implications for an energized community in the future” –Dr. Margaret G. Alter, Resurrection Psychology Each week as soon as visiting church youth groups arrive at the Blue Theology Mission Station they are walked to the rocky shore of the Monterey Bay and asked to find a quiet place to sit and soak in the view of the magnificent Ocean. And while each pilgrim settles into the soothing sound of waves, wind and seagulls, each young person is asked to write down a response to this question “How does the Ocean remind you of God?” Responses are easily found and a sense that the waters themselves are sacred flow into each consciousness. As the week progresses, each person finds an understanding that the Monterey Bay is not only a sacred place, but also a place of resurrection. In the 19th and 20th centuries, sardines, whales, abalone, elephant seals and the adorable sea otters (which Rev. Talitha Amadea Aho in her book In Deep Waters: Spiritual Care for Young People in a Climate Crisis describes as “problematically cute”) were all vigorously hunted with unbridled exploitation. The once thriving sardine industry that put Cannery Row on the map dwindled due to overfishing and ignorance of sustainability. Ecosystems on the bay were tragically altered due to loss of key species such as the abalone and sea otters. A spiritual darkness crept on the bay – our sin on display. But then, prophetic voices rose and a grassroots effort to repent resulted in sea otters, elephant seals and other species getting federal protection. In 1992, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary was established with a good portion of the energy to create the National Marine Sanctuary provided by coastal churches. In a marine sanctuary (people of faith – don’t you love that the word “sanctuary” was chosen to describe the management of Ocean ecosystems?) various environmental agencies keep a watchful eye on the delicate balance of the many ecosystems found within the sanctuary. Fifteen years ago, the Blue Theology Mission Station was established on the coast of the Monterey Bay to offer learning/serving experiences in Ocean Stewardship to church youth groups. During the week, an understanding that “dominion over the earth” is not about domination, but more about accepting God’s gift of the Ocean with a deep sense of responsibility and interdependence. The Blue Theologians learn that managing ecosystems is indeed holy work. The Blue Theology Mission Station is a beacon along the sacred waters where Science is not considered antithetical to Spirituality, but rather specifically at the Blue Theology Mission Station current Marine Science informs our faith. This past year, with the help of Creation Justice Ministries two Blue Theology Outposts were established on the Gulf Coast in Texas City, TX and on the Back Bay of Newport Bay in Newport Beach, CA. Plans are underway to create two more Blue Theology Outposts – one on the shoreline of North Carolina and another on the coast of Cape Cod. Each of these locations are becoming increasingly knowledgeable about the unique ecosystems in which they find themselves and will tailor their learning/serving programs accordingly. Ocean ecosystems are still out-of-balance, key species in these ecosystems are still on the endangered species list, the sea level is still expected to rise a full foot by 2050 and don’t even get us started on the massive islands of plastics in the Oceans gyres. Yet, prophetic voices will continue to be raised with hope abiding that Dr. Alter’s quote will be true – this deadened present will establish and embolden energized communities of faith and the resulting repentance on our part from those prophetic voices will assist the sacred waters of the Ocean to a glorious resurrection. Dan Paul (he, him, his) is an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and a graduate of the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA. Dan is the director of the Blue Theology Mission Station – www.bluetheology.com . Wild Church Movement: Restoring Sacred Relationship with Earth
by Rev. Victoria Loorz The old story, as eco-spirituality pioneer Thomas Berry said 30 years ago, is no longer effective. A story of domination and separation expressed through violence of racial and species superiority is unraveling. And a new story is emerging. Everyone affiliated with the Creation Justice movement is involved in that emergence. We are living in a time of liminal in-between. We know that the layers of crises and cruelty we face will not be solved with technological, political, or economic strategies alone. That a deeper transformation of heart is necessary to welcome in a new story. The Wild Church movement is part of that transformation. Moving away from a worldview and a way of life that treats others as a “collection of objects” toward a new way of being human that participates honorably in a vast “communion of subjects” is what Thomas Berry called “the Great Work.”4 The Great Work is spiritual at the core. It is a shift beyond stewardship, which is still rooted in a hierarchy of superiority, as if we humans are the ones who know what is needed to make the necessary shifts of survival. What’s ultimately required is a change of heart, a shift in how we relate to each other and to the whole of the living Earth. It is a shift from mind to heart, from theory to experience, from stewardship to relationship. Restoring sacred, kindred relationship with the land where we live is the core theological practice of wild churches. While there are diverse expressions of a Church of the Wild, creating, restoring, adapting spiritual practices that reconnect us with the rest of the alive world as a beloved community is at the root of the movement. Wild churches include a time of wandering. An embodied movement beyondthe circle of humans to listen for the voices of the others, to hear the voice of the Sacred through the wind’s conversation with leaves, through the crickets call, through the airplane’s trail in the clouds. Like virtually every single spiritual leader in our sacred stories captured in the Bible, a call into wilderness is simply the pattern of calling into leadership. Jesus went into (not just in…eis, the Greek preposition used in every single account of his going to pray is a relational word meaning into) the wilderness, the garden, the lakeside to pray. The children of Israel wandered into the wilderness not just as an act of punishment, but as a tender remembering of who they are in relationship with the whole created world. The word wilderness, midbar, after all, in Hebrew means “the organ which speaks.” Wild churches create spiritual practices that invite relationship. Beyond caring for creation or stewarding Earth’s “resources,” it is entering into an actual relationship with particular places and beings of the living world that can provide an embodied, rooted foundation for transformation. The new story is rooted in a worldview of belonging—a way of being human that acts as if we belong to a community larger than our own family, race, class, and culture, and larger even than our own species. The apocalyptic unveiling happening in our world right now makes it difficult even for those who have been sheltered in privilege to look away from the reality, both tragic and beautiful, that we are all deeply interconnected. Humans, trees, oceans, deer, viruses, bees. God. Re-placing our spirituality back into the actual sacred world, where it has been rooted for most of history, is a way to restore our place in the life-thriving systems of Earth. Wild Spirituality is a practice of remembering what we have forgotten: we are part of Nature, not separate.6Wild church replaces a human “kingdom” paradigm of hierarchy, monarchy, and inequality with the power systems of Earth, which can be described as a “kin-dom” of cooperation and kindred reciprocity. Church of the wild is one way to help us live into a new story of a kin-dom of God that includes the whole system of life and regards all humans and all species as inherently good and valuable. In this kin-dom we love neighbors—all neighbors—as ourselves. We do unto others—all others—as we would have them do unto us. Victoria Loorz, MDiv, is a Wild Church Pastor, an Eco-spiritual Director and founder of the Center for Wild Spirituality, Seminary of the Wild and the ecumenical Wild Church Network. Her book, Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred, is an invitation to deepen our commitment to a suffering earth by falling in love with it--and calling it church. |
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