An EcoFaith Summer Update

Join us for the 2023 EcoFaith Leadership Retreat

The 2023 EcoFaith Leadership Retreat will take place Sunday evening, August 27- Tuesday morning, 29th at Camp Onomia in Onamia, Minnesota. All youth and young adults in the NE-MN Synod are eligible to receive a full scholarship.

The theme of the retreat is Cross+Pollination in this Kairos Time. It flows from the EcoFaith Summit in April: The Pollinator Plot: Cross+Pollination in a Time of Ecological Crisis. The purpose of the retreat is cross+pollination among our synod team and others across the Upper Midwest: nurturing relationships, learning from each other, clarifying our core values and practices as synod teams, and laying groundwork for the 2024 EcoFaith Summit. We will also be looking at legislative progress on climate at the state level, and pondering what needs to happen next in church advocacy.

Some notes about registering:

• The form includes the cost for the full retreat, and the cost for those coming for one overnight/day.
• For people not staying overnight, there is a day use fee, with an additional $11 per meal for meals. 
• People can bring checks or cash to the retreat. Full and partial scholarships are available: please request in advance.

This Month's Green Tips

Use these in your congregation's bulletins, Facebook pages, websites, or newsletters!

Here are Laura Raedeke's Green Tips from Lutheran Church of the Cross, Nisswa

Caring For Our Earth, Our Common Home: Advancing Cleaner Technologies to Protect Public Health and the Planet

Pollinator Action at Gloria Dei

Gloria Dei has had a Monarch Waystation since 2005, and, every year since that time, Gloria Dei has had monarchs. As we say, all are welcome at Gloria Dei. A Monarch Waystation is actually a pollinator garden that contains milkweed. This year the synod is encouraging all churches in the synod to try and plant some native flowers and create a pollinator garden. Gloria Dei will be attempting to enlarge the present Monarch Waystation by changing the area between the parking lot and the alley into native plantings. Some possibilities include transplanting some native plants from your garden to this area, start some native seeds in pots (Tom has seed) and plant in July those plants, help remove old stalks from last year, obtain and apply mulch, clear, weed, and prepare small areas, and you may have some ideas of your own. This project has been building slowly over the past few years and will continue a slow build. Interested? Email tomuecker1946@gmail.com.

Connections with Creation

August

August 13 – Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

“Faithfulness shall spring up from the earth. . . . The Lord will indeed grant prosperity, and our land will yield its increase” (Ps. 85:11-12). These words from Psalm 85 use beautiful imagery of God’s creation and harvest. God has given and is giving what is good, but in our call to be stewards of this immense gift God has given us, we are to care for the earth, to tend and nurture it, so it will be fruitful. God has given us all the tools we need, but we must use them as God intends. God has intricately created this web of creatures that work together for the good of one another, but when it is thrown off balance, there are detrimental effects. All of creation rejoices when we care for one another and for this precious gift of Earth.

Read all Connections with Creation for August

Thank you to our new EcoFaith NE-MN Synod Network Partner Congregations!

Bethel-Trinity, Bovey $100

Calvary, Mora $200

First, Hibbing $250

First Lutheran, Aitkin, $50

Gloria Dei, Duluth, $500

Holden, Isle $300

Gloria Dei, $500

Zion, Milaca, $50

Zion WELCA, Grand Rapids, $50

The EcoFaith Network thanks the 2023 Partner Congregations for your prayers and your financial commitment as we live out God’s call to be stewards of the earth for the sake of the whole creation.

Help nurture the growing ministry of the EcoFaith Network by becoming an EcoFaith Network Partner Congregation in 2023. Become an EcoFaith Network Partner Congregation in 2023 and make a financial contribution of any amount.  

Learn more and find partner congregation forms here

Like EcoFaith Network NE MN Synod on Facebook, check out our website, or email us!