Green Blades Rising Newsletter April 2022

"Now the green blade rises from the buried grain..."

Creator God, you prepare a new way in the wilderness, and your grace waters our desert. Open our hearts to be transformed by the new thing you are doing, that our lives may proclaim the extravagance of your love given to all created beings through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. AMEN

Creation-edited Prayer of the Day, 5th Sunday of Lent

Thank you for attending the

EcoFaith Summit and Creation Care Trainings!

If you missed the Summit, below are a few resources from the morning:

Thank you to all our partners and storytellers! A list of all those that participated here.

Here is the Summit Booklet with a wealth of resources and details from the day.

This is the text to the hymn In Sacred Manner featured throughout the Summit.

We enjoyed the March Creation Care Trainings with many of you as well!

Stay tuned for ways to stay connected to this network of folks. If you are interested in seeing the recordings, they are here.

Pollinate! The Church Outdoors. A continuation of the Creation Care Trainings and Accompaniment

Focus: Pollinator gardening and church-community gardens

Thursday, April 28, 7:00 – 8:00p.m. (open discussion 8 – 8:30)

Over 100 people took part in five Creation Care Trainings throughout the month of March, with 18 presenter-storytellers from many congregations sharing their knowledge and experience.

This conversation between congregations needs to continue!

Do you want to start a pollinator garden, or a Milkweed patch? Learn and share how to begin! Are you planning to start or reinvigorate a community garden at your church? Learn and share how to do it! There will be ample

opportunity for open discussion, questions, and idea exchange as well.

For more information, contact Pr. John Sippola johnsippola2@gmail.com

Registration details coming soon!

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Green Blades Rising in Congregations

Silverware Library

Russ Schultz, Bethlehem Lutheran, Brainerd

A novel idea. A low-cost eco-friendly initiative was presented to the Creation Care team by our youth pastor, Sarah Marshall. It was the idea of having a Silverware Library at our church. The concept was to have Church members donate their old silverware to the church so that other members can check out the silverware, like a library book, when they have a special event at their home such as a grad party, birthday party or other special event thereby using silverware rather than purchasing plastic. We all end up saving in the long run.

This initiative has been well received. In fact, we learned that a member from another church has checked out the silverware for an event. It was through word of mouth.

We are now at a point of asking the congregation for more silverware donations so we may have a larger inventory on hand.

At this point, Pastor Sarah keeps and maintains the silverware library in her church office.

Read the whole article here.

Celebrate Earth Day in the NEMN Synod and beyond with these online and in person events!

The two below events in Grand Marais and Mt. Iron are community events enjoyed by all that sprouted from the call of two ELCA churches in the NE MN Synod, Bethlehem Lutheran (starting this year) and Messiah Lutheran (started in 2009).

Green Blades Rising, indeed!

Earth Day Fair in Grand Marais, MN

Bethlehem Lutheran

Learn more here.

Earth Fest in Mt Iron, MN!

Messiah Lutheran

If you are interested in learning more, you can contact Kristin Foster at revkristinfoster@gmail.com

Lutherans Restoring Creation Virtual Earth Day Worship

Rev. Dr. Carmelo Santos sharing the message of the day according to the Readings for April 24th.

This service will have full translation in Spanish.

Earth Month Tools from Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light

Earth Day continues to be a momentous and unifying day each year as millions of people around the world come together on April 22 to address the climate crisis and restore our earth. MNIPL is here to help people of faith, spirituality, and conscience inspire, educate, and engage your community in working for climate justice during “Earth Month” (April 1-30) and beyond!

Learn more here.

And below is some inspiration for Earth Month from the people attending the Creation Care events about what they are doing in their churches...

"We are making our Lenten suppers zero waste and having napkins users "shred their own" before it dawns on them to bring their own cloth ones from home."

"Built a 3-panel information kiosk booth to display environmental issues. Placed in many churches lobby for congregations to get informed."

"Spring 2020 Trinity Lutheran in Hovland MN planted many young trees: serviceberries and Mountain ash on the church grounds. We also planted donated white spruce."

"We had reusable bags made with our EcoFaith logo."

"Our Green Team planted trees in honor of those who lost a family member to gun violence."

"We collect organic materials for composting and ask all visitors, especially doing events to participate, by providing them with instructions and resources."

"Energy Audit of our building and followed through with replacement of all light bulbs, improved insulation, getting the building energy certified."

"Pollinator garden"

"Community garden"

Preaching Roundtable

Pr. Kristin Foster, Cook

April 3rd Fifth Sunday in Lent

Isaiah 43:16-21

Psalm 126

Philippians 3:4b-14 John 12:1-8

Where and how, today, is Mary anointing Jesus? How might we anoint the dying body of the earth as the body of Christ? And what resurrection may be awaiting, like buried grain, when we dare to grieve and anoint with love?

Symbolic action is evocative, not linear, transformational, not operational, suggestive, not solution presuming. It is shockingly disproportionate to the scale of all threats to Life. What are those small anointings, extravagant with love, with which we may enter Christ’s passion unfolding in creation? Planting milkweed in the church parking lot? Composting coffee grounds? Joining with youth to get your city council to declare a climate emergency? Helping children plant a garden or spend time in the woods? Purchasing our meat (if we eat it) exclusively from independent family farmers? Walking with the Water Protectors from the Mississippi Headwaters all the way to the State Capitol, as some did last summer.

Read the whole reflection here.

Pr. Kristin Foster, Cook

April 10 Sunday of the Passion

Isaiah 50:4-9a

Psalm 31:9-16

Philippians 2:5-11

Luke 22:14-23:56

It’s about to be Holy Week, and if you’re the preacher, you don’t have much time, do you? So, let’s just cut to the chase. What are the ecological implications of the Sunday of the Passion?

This is a Sunday when actions speak at least as loudly as words, so in those actions we may find some clues. From the beginning of the service, when worshipers move together into the Jerusalem of their sanctuaries waving palms, to the dramatic reading of the Passion narrative, we are participants. The story of the passion is not a primarily a commemoration of a past event: it is also unfolding now, in our midst. We are not onlookers: in complex, contradictory ways, we are in the story, not outside it. We acclaim Christ and we call for his crucifixion. We are complicit. And we are called to something more.

Read the whole reflection here.

Pr. David Carlson, Gloria Dei, Duluth

Easter Vigil/Day – April 16/17, 2022

Isaiah 65:17-25; John 20:1-18

“It is remarkable for me to remember that the great story of creation and redemption doesn’t begin and end in the halls of power or on a battlefield with kings and troops. Instead, it begins and ends in a garden.” With this quotation from Kristofer Coffman, my friend Pr. Karen Bockelman has organized a meaningful Easter Vigil theme this year at Gloria Dei where I serve. Scripture readings, including descriptions of the Garden of Eden in Genesis and the Tree of Life in Revelation, will be interwoven with verses of “There in God’s Garden” (ELW 342) and culminate in the account of our Lord’s resurrection in the Gospel of John. There in that garden, the risen Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene, who takes him for a gardener.

Perhaps it was dirt on his fingernails that was a sign, Pr. Nadia Bolz-Weber suggests, one that leads her to describe how God gets God’s hands dirty in the business of resurrection, reaching down into the dirt and death and messiness of the world to take hold of us where we are and raise us up to new life.

Read the whole reflection here.

David Ackerson Spiritual Director and Minister of Faith Formation, Messiah Lutheran Church, Mountain Iron

Second Sunday of Easter 2022: Outline

April 24, 2022

John 20:19-31: Thomas and Jesus

Acts 5:27-32

Psalm 150

Revelation 1:4-8

Ilia Delio, Franciscan sister, theologian and scientist: “Church and New Creation,” 2020. “The word church is related to two Greek words, ekklesia and kyriakon…. Ecclesia is a body of people called out for some particular purpose… kyriakon meaning ‘belonging to the Lord.’

We do not go to church to be rescued from a fallen world; we go to church to become transformers of the world because we believe in a new community of life, where God is the loving vital center of activity…. We go to church because we are part of a larger whole.

Teilhard de Chardin spoke of the Church as a new phylum, giving birth to a new type of person in evolution, the christic, who could spearhead the new creation. His idea of the Church as a new growth in evolution reflects the fact that, if we want a new world, we must become a new people.”

Read the whole reflection here and outline here.

Creation Advocacy

How You Can Stand with Creation

Lutheran Advocacy-Minnesota

April 2022

Submitted by Tammy Walhof, Executive Director

Clean Energy/Climate Bills

Many bills to address clean energy and emission reductions related to the climate crisis have passed the House Climate; Energy Committee, but have seen no action in the Senate Energy Utilities Committee and are unlikely to pass the appropriate senate committees before the 2nd committee deadline on April 1. Many don’t even have Senate Companion bills at this point (including a bill for soil health, HF 3302).

This doesn’t mean that bills can’t be included in supplemental appropriation or finance bills. Committees in both the House and Senate have already begun work on omnibus bills. In the House, many of the bills heard and laid aside for inclusion will be part of a substantial bill to address the climate crisis, emissions, climate adaptation/resilience, and equity/inclusion for communities of color and low-income communities in emission reduction activities and clean energy job opportunities. It will also likely include just transition options for companies to help workers impacted by changes or closings of power plants.

Read the full update from

Lutheran Advocacy Minnesota here.

EcoFaith Book of the Month

Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love

by Elizabeth A Johnson

I live on a lake in the midst of the Chippewa National Forest in northern Minnesota. One of the inspiring and wondrous things I get to do there is reflect on how my Christian faith is broadened and strengthened by the natural world around me. I have enhanced my spiritual connection with nature through mountain backpack and boundary water trips, visits to over 20 national parks, and sitting in a fishing boat on a lake.

All of that personal reflection allowed me to be in tune with the thesis of Johnson’s book, Ask the Beasts. She asks the reader to envision a place where you can contemplate the heart and mind of God. No problem for me. She asks: “What is the theological meaning of the natural world of life?” To even ask such a question sets the Christian on a totally different path of insight and understanding about faith in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. She also states, “Deep affection shown in action on behalf of ecojustice becomes an indivisible part of life.” And, “Love of the natural world is an intrinsic part of faith in God to practical and critical effect.” In other words, if I simply sit on my dock and admire the natural world around me, I have not totally heard the voice of God calling me to act on my faith to care for and love all that God has given me. Hence the book’s title, based on Job 12:7. We need to listen to the voices of the beasts, the trees, all of nature, to understand and advocate for the entire creation.

Read the whole review here.

This book review is by John Hanson, a retired pastor living on Turtle Lake, north of Grand Rapids, with his wife, Linda. He is a member of the NE MN Synod EcoFaith Leadership Team.

EARTH HARMONY BOOK GROUP

Wednesday, April 14

Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation

by Paul Hawken, 2021

The Oreck-Alpern Interreligious Forum of the College of St. Scholastica offers a study group on environmental stewardship, facilitated by Pastor David Carlson. These sessions explore a variety of spiritual perspectives that recognize our deep creaturely interrelatedness, lament our negative impact on the earth’s well-being, and highlight our vocation as stewards. This month, we are reading chapters of Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation (2021) by Paul Hawken.

An in-person meeting is planned from 8:00-9:00 a.m. at Chester Creek Cafe in Duluth. For more information contact Pastor Carlson, pastor@gloriadeiduluth.org.

This Month's Green Tips

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

Here are Steve Spigarelli's

Green Tips from First Lutheran, Aitkin

Here are John McDonald's Earth Stewardship Tips from Gloria Dei, Duluth

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

Connections with Creation

April-May

April 3 – Fifth Sunday in Lent

“The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume” (John 12:3). The sense of smell strongly connects to memories and emotions, yet we likely consider that sense least in our worship and congregational practices. Some may use incense. A church building may hold a particular musty smell. An upcoming Easter breakfast could contribute the smell of sausages cooking. For today’s worship you might involve lavish aromas such as scented anointing oils (while also being mindful of possible allergic or other reactions). Or notice smells around you this week as you stop and smell the literal or metaphorical roses. Judas complained about the anointing being a waste (John 12:5). But you may pause with fragrances to remember our abundantly creative God who is honored by the wild jackals and ostriches entirely apart from their utility to humans (Isa. 43:20).

Read all Connections with Creation here.