Breaking news! As we round out Creation Season, I’m happy to announce that our two dioceses in MA will fund a short-term project manager/webmaster to shepherd "An Episcopal Path to Creation Justice," starting today, October 1. Please join us in welcoming the Rev. John Elliott Lein, a priest in the Diocese of Western MA, as our new Project Manager. You’ll hear more about “An Episcopal Path to Creation Justice” in the weeks ahead, but – in a nutshell – it’s a four-level program to help congregations amplify and accelerate their response to the climate emergency. We can’t wait to launch it! We’ll hold our next online planning meetings on Oct. 5 and 19 at 7:00 p.m. If you’d like to join us, please email CreationJusticeEpisMA@gmail.com.

Sponsored by Spiritual Resilience, a working group of the Creation Care Task Force, Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, these monthly Circles provide safe space for the acknowledgement of feelings by both clergy and laity about the climate crisis -- and ways to find support and hope. You are invited to come for an hour led by the Rev. Mary Kay Brown, as participants talk, pray, and look forward to the future together. The group meets on the first Thursday of each month, 7 p.m., at the same Zoom link. Check the calendar for updates.

• Love.Earth.Justice.2022: Multi-faith Worship and Workshops to Make a Difference

2:00 – 5:00 p.m. | First Unitarian Church of Worcester (90 Main Street), & online

Download a flyer here. Click here to register. The Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts is one of the many sponsors of this special event. Please join me in person or attend online.

• “Preaching climate justice: A conversation with Jim Antal and Margaret Bullitt-Jonas

What makes a sermon about climate change “pastoral” or “prophetic”? How should preachers address climate grief? Why should we preach about voting, and what’s the difference between partisan and political activity? We addressed these and other questions in a climate preaching webinar on September 15, 2022, co-sponsored by the two Episcopal dioceses in Massachusetts and Southern New England Conference, United Church of Christ. Links to the text and video are here.

In the series, “Let’s Talk Climate,” ecoAmerica hosts fast-paced discussions with leaders in climate change on a wide range of topics. In the latest episode, Season of Creation, I discuss the history and meaning of the season, the many resources available, and how clergy and lay leaders can get involved. My remarks end with a shoutout to GreenFaith’s upcoming campaign, Faiths4ClimateJustice (Oct. 2-Nov. 6). Watch the full recording here.

• Convocation 2022: Imagination and Collective Liberation for a Climate-Changed World

Thursday & Friday, October 6 - 7 |Online ($50, with discount available if 3 or more people register together)

Learn more here about the program and presenters, which include activist theologian Ched Meyers; author, and creator of Black Liturgies Cole Arthur Riley; activist, author, cofounder of Transition Network, Rob Hopkins; preacher, teacher, scholar Veronice Miles, and more. Get ready to hear inspired preaching, compelling keynotes, and enlivening music. Register here. I hope to see you there!

• The Intersectional Environmentalist Book Study

In The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People and Planet, author Leah Thomas explores the ways in which climate change affects different groups disproportionately and offers ideas and actions toward a more inclusive vision of ecological justice. The BTS Center is sponsoring a book study to delve into the important questions, challenges, and opportunities of an intersectional ecological lens. To inquire about scholarships, please contact nicole@thebtscenter.org.

• Environmental Justice Is Racial Justice - Faith Communities Respond 

Dr. Robert Bullard, "The Father of Environmental Justice,” Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy, Texas Southern University, author of 18 books, and co-founder of the HBCU Climate Change Consortium;

Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, Founding Pastor of New Roots AME church in Boston, and nationally recognized environmental justice advocate;

Rev. Dr. Deborah Conrad, formerly Pastor of People's Church in Flint, MI (ABC/Alliance), during the lead poisoning crisis; currently Pastor to Parkview Church, United Church of Christ, Aurora, CO;

Rev. Betsy Sowers (Moderator), Co-chair of the Alliance of Baptists Creation Justice Community, and Minister for Earth Justice at Old Cambridge Baptist Church, Cambridge, MA.

• EcoPreacher Cohort

The BTS Center has partnered with Creation Justice Ministries to offer a year-long cohort intended to support, educate, and engage preachers as they integrate climate consciousness into their preaching. This cohort will offer monthly meetings to help preachers understand climate change and other environmental justice issues more deeply as spiritual crises that requires creative, faith-rooted action. Facilitated by Rev. Nicole Diroff of The BTS Center and Avery Davis Lamb of Creation Justice Ministries, with collaborators Rev. Dr. Leah Schade and Dr. Rebecca Kneale Gould, this cohort will offer an expansive opportunity for connection, creativity, and grounded responses to climate change through the art of preaching. Visit here for more information and to register.

• Creation care resource for vestries

Our friends in the Diocese of Southern Ohio have created “Good News to All Creation,” a set of devotionals designed to help vestries begin their meetings with a brief time of reflection and prayer. Now available for download, it was developed by the Diocese of Southern Ohio’s Creation Care and Environmental Task Force in partnership with the newly formed Center for Deep Green Faith (Sewanee, TN). The devotionals begin in September with the Season of Creation and follow the liturgical seasons from Advent through Easter. 

• Energy Efficiency Day

• Creation Season 101

This free program, endorsed by The Episcopal Church and many other denominations, identifies actions we can take right now, at church and at home. The Fall Program has just begun – the next session, on October 13, will focus on “Eating: Theology of Food.” Future sessions will cover living simply, reframing water and energy, planting gardens, regenerating soil, and more. If you miss a monthly meeting, you can hear a recording. For more information and to register, click here.

• Faiths4ClimateJustice

Organized by GreenFaith, communities of faith around the world will hold climate justice rallies, prayer vigils, sit-ins, and processions between October 2 and November 6, the eve of the next U.N. climate summit. Please join or organize an event in your own community and be sure to register it so that it can be counted among the hundreds of events that will be held worldwide. The Faiths4ClimateJustice website provides everything you need to organize an event, including an action guide to download.

I am helping to organize and lead two Multifaith Prayer Vigils for Climate Justice. In these prayer vigils organized and led by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim women religious leaders in the Connecticut River Valley, people of many faiths will gather in front of Bank of America to pray, sing, and speak for climate justice and to demand an end to fossil fuel financing.

Please join one of our vigils, consider bringing a church banner or a homemade sign, and help us bring our faith into the streets and urge Bank of America to quit funding fossil fuel projects. Bishop Doug Fisher will offer a closing prayer at the Northampton event.       

As of this writing, you can also RSVP to other Faiths4ClimateJustice events organized by congregations in Episcopal Diocese of Western MA.  St. David’s, Agawam, registered its special weekly Prayers of the People. At 11:00 a.m. on October 23, St. John’s, Ashfield, will partner with First Congregational, UCC for Ashfield Churches Together: Ecumenical Prayer for the Earth, held on the Town Common. I hope to see you there!

Do you or your congregation want to create your own Faiths4ClimateJustice event? Register it here. Let’s make our voices heard and our witness known! If I can answer questions or offer support, please be in touch (mbj@revivingcreation.org).

Creation Care Advisor (Episcopal Diocese of Mass.)