"Now the green blade rises from the buried grain" | |
An online publication of the EcoFaith Network NE-MN Synod with Saint Paul Area Synod Care of Creation | |
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Take Action on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)
by Don Schuld, Saint Paul Area Care of Creation
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Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is natural gas cooled to -260°F for easier transportation. While promoted as a modern energy solution, LNG has significant negative impacts, including high greenhouse gas emissions, increased energy prices, and broader inflation. A December 17 report from the Department of Energy (DOE) indicates that LNG production and export are incompatible with addressing the climate crisis. Numerous LNG projects are in operation and under construction, with six new proposals under consideration by the DOE. The Biden Administration has the ability to cancel these proposed projects to promote cleaner, more sustainable energy choices. The text also provides resources for learning more about the dangers of LNG exports and encourages readers to take action by contacting state and federal leaders to oppose LNG projects.
Learn more about the dangers of increasing LNG exports: visit this LNG resource page, or watch this webinar hosted by MN Interfaith Power and Light, featuring national LNG expert Jeremy Symons : It's Like 1,000 New Coal Plants: The Risks of Liquified Natural Gas.
Take action: Call state and federal elected leaders, tell them why LNG exports are not in the public interest and ask them to urge the Biden Administration to cancel all LNG projects under review.
Read more here
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EcoFaith Network 2024 Partner Congregations | |
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Thank you to these twenty-five congregations in the Northeastern Minnesota Synod for your contribution to our shared work as we live out God’s call to be stewards of the earth for the sake of the whole creation!
Baptism River, Finland
Bethel-Trinity, Bovey
Bethlehem, Brainerd
Bethlehem, Grand Marais
Bethlehem, Twig/Saginaw
Calvary, Mora
Church of the Cross, Nisswa
Concordia, Duluth
Faith United, Iron
First, Aitkin
First, Duluth
First, Hibbing
Gloria Dei, Duluth
Grand Marais, Bethlehem
Holden, Isle
Immanuel, Princeton
Knife River, Knife River
Lutheran Church of the Cross, Nisswa
Our Redeemer, Pine City
Our Savior’s, Outing
St. Andrews, Grand Rapids
Trinity, Cass Lake
Trinity, Hovland
Zion WELCA, Grand Rapids
Zion, Milaca
We will acknowledge all 2024 Partner Congregations at the end of the fiscal year.
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NE-MN Synod EcoFaith Partner Congregations 2025 | |
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Dear companions in care for the whole Creation,
We invite you to join with your sibling congregations as a 2025 EcoFaith Network Congregation Partner by praying for the Creation and those who work to repair it, sharing with us your creation care story and making a financial contribution of any amount.Your Partner contribution helps fund EcoFaith micro-grants, the EcoFaith Summit, the Green Blades Rising Newsletter, the ecofaithnetwork.org website, and the stipend for the EcoFaith Network Communication Coordinator.
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Introducing a new monthly column in Green Blades Rising
View from the Pollinator Plot
by Jan Bilden, St. Andrews, Grand Rapids, MN
Chair of the Pollinator Plot Steering Committee of the NE MN Synod EcoFaith Network
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There are a multitude of environmental problems that are clamoring for our attention: plastic pollution, electronic waste, threats to water quality, deforestation, and the “weirding” of our weather to name just a few. Why has the Northeastern Minnesota Synod taken on the mantle of being a Pollinator Synod rather than taking a more encompassing approach to these issues?
It is estimated that globally, ONE THIRD of our invertebrate pollinator species (i.e. bees and butterflies) are facing extinction, including our own state bee, the rusty patched bumble bee. Causes include habitat loss, disease and parasites, changing weather patterns, and pesticides and herbicides.
In 2022, a Pollinator Pilot Project was launched with six congregations, using seed kits to install pollinator friendly gardens on their church grounds, with the purpose of learning from their experience and inspiring more congregations to do the same. At the next Synod Assembly in 2023, a Resolution was passed declaring the Northeast Minnesota ELCA Synod to be a “Pollinator Synod”, with the goal of having all congregations become pollinator sanctuaries with their own pollinator plot. Currently the number of congregations who have plots or are in the process of establishing them has grown to 49 congregations of the 127 in the synod. They range from neatly manicured beds with mature blooming plants to the more natural (aka wild and wooly) plots, but all have native plants to their area and are free of pesticides and other chemicals. Each congregation also has received a sign for their plot declaring it to be a Pollinator Sanctuary, as well as a poster for indoor display.
Read the full article here
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Stories from Congregations and Synods | |
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A River Runs through It
Meditation on a Trip Westward and Nature’s Resilience
by Rev. Jeff Holter, Duluth
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My wife (Joan) and I were invited to our nephews wedding this fall. It was a destination wedding to Glacier National Park. Our nephew and his wife met at work but had spent their vacations traveling to national parks throughout the country. It was right at the end of the park season and we actually anticipated traveling through some snow. Already early on we had determined not to fly out to Montana but to enjoy the drive through North Dakota and all the way to Glacier. I suppose that for some that sounds boring, but we wanted to just take in all that scenery of the central plains.
The route we chose was the northern rout, going through Fargo and then taking highway 2 pretty much all the way to Glacier. There is another rout, going south and taking the freeway through Bismarck ND, however then all one sees is traffic and endless pavement. What both Joan and I appreciated was that HWY 2 follows the terrain of the rolling plains. You can not travel at the speed of “not seeing anything” but you do see the creatures and native topography of these rolling hills. As you got closer to Glacier you began to see the Rockies and the mounds of rocks jutting out of the plains.
Read the full reflection here
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Save $ and Help the Planet
Sunday, January 12, 10:45–11:45am
Great Hall Building, St. Andrew’s Lutheran, Mahtomedi
There are many ways you can make changes in your home to save money and respond to climate change. At this event, you’ll get free, expert advice on actions you can take, tax credits, and utility rebates. Join Buff Grace of MN Interfaith Power & Light and the Energy Team from Citizens’ Utility Board to learn how to make your home more energy efficient. Hear how to get a home energy audit and about options for updating your home—from insulation to induction stoves to air-source heat pumps and more. You can literally save thousands of dollars in tax credits and utility rebates. Find out how and get 30% off a home energy audit from the Center for Energy and the Environment.
This event will include a FREE pizza lunch following the talk. RSVP to Cynthia Hammel at chammel@goldengate.net.
Environmental Stewardship Team, St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church
900 Stillwater Road, Mahtomedi, MN 55115
Great Hall Building, Fireside Lounge
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Worshipping with the Whole Creation | |
Green Blades Preaching Roundtable | |
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The Green Blades Preaching Roundtable weekly reflections by a variety of preaching writers on the ecological implications of each Sunday’s lectionary.
The writing schedule for the Green Blades Preaching Roundtable in 2025 is now open. Please email revkristinfoster@gmail.com if you would like to write for a Sunday. Here are the guidelines for writing reflections.
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Second Sunday after Christmas
January 5, 2025
Pastor John Stiles, Our Redeemer, Pine City, Minnesota
John 1:(1-9), 10-18
Also: Jeremiah 31:7-14
Psalm 147:12-20
Ephesians 1:3-14
For whatever reason, darkness has long been associated with all that is evil in the world...So, too, the Bible has also been used to support the value of light over darkness, as we read in this week’s lectionary reading: “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overtake it.” (NRSV) The prophet Isaiah said that to make peace we must “walk in the light.” (Isaiah 2:5) In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, we have an “inheritance with the saints in light.” (Colossians 1:12) Jesus’ own words to his followers commanded them to “keep your lamps lit…” (Luke 12:35) The light is wonderful gift that God gives, from the very beginning: “Let there be light!” (Genesis 1:3)
And yet, let’s not forget that the Bible begins in darkness: “Darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters…” (Genesis 1:1) Later, when the Lord ushered Abraham out into the night and promised that his descendants would be as many as the stars in the sky – it just had to be dark for him to see all those stars! The writer of Psalm 139 prays: “You knit me together in my mother’s womb,” yet another dark place where we were “intricately woven in the depths of the earth.” Dark places are sacred. Jesus’ birth was likely in a dark cave or lower chamber with few comforts. And that first Easter also began in complete darkness, inside a tomb that was utterly still before the stone was rolled away.
Read the full reflection here
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Epiphany
January 6, 2025
Pastor Claire Repsholdt, Patchogue, NY
Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14
Ephesians 3:1-2
Matthew 2:1-12
Have you ever seen someone’s star at its rising?
Have you ever been part of the circle of life, a birth or a perhaps even death, and felt yourself emerge into glorious light?
It can be difficult to explain the glory of that journey, which unites us with so many creatures throughout the earth. I am reminded of the words Mark Strand gives to it in his poem, The Continuous Life:
Explain that you live between two great darks, the first
With an ending, the second without one, that the luckiest
Thing is having been born, that you live in a blur
Of hours and days, months and years, and believe
It has meaning.
Read the full reflection here
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Baptism of Our Lord
January 12, 2025
Rev. Melinda Quivik, Twin Cities, MN
Isaiah 43:1–7
Psalm 29
Acts 8:14–17
Luke 3:15–17, 21–22
What does Jesus’ baptism have to do with the relationship we humans have with our home, Earth? How does Jesus’ baptism inform our view of climate chaos? Finally, how does Jesus’ baptism and our own baptisms invite us to embrace our responsibility to God’s creation?
I am assuming that our conventional approach to Jesus being baptized by John focuses on that beginning of Jesus’ ministry and remains unaffiliated with our baptisms. After all, Jesus was different. He got a dove to zoom down when he was baptized. His baptizer, John, was a wild man who rose up out of the wilderness, the place of instability, of danger, of aloneness, and of vision quests to –– as I envision it –– shout at the people that it is time to pay attention and mend their priorities because something really big is about to happen. Our pastors don’t usually come reeling out of the wilds; they live in neighborhoods mostly. They don’t shout much. Yet we give thanks for John because we need him at all times to nudge us, shame us, convert us to what matters. John’s message is: “I am not the Messiah and that isn’t even the point here, folks. I’m here to tell you that the one who is coming will baptize you not just with the Holy Spirit but with fire, too.”
Read the full reflection here
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Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
January 19, 2025
Pastor John Dietz, First, Hibbing, Minnesota
Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 36:5-10
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
+ John 2:1-11
Unlike my children who have been communing ever since they could eat solid food, I grew up like many others, waiting to receive Communion until Confirmation...Then I went to Luther Seminary and at the first Wednesday Eucharist, I was handed this rather good size “chunk” of rather good tasting bread. And then wine was poured into a little cup, but far larger than these little plastic or glass cups that fit into the trays we use now. I walked away from that meal having been fed in more ways than one. And I can still recall returning to my seat and wondering if I was supposed to chew on the body of Christ – normally the host would dissolve on my tongue, or stick to the roof of my mouth!
The means of grace have been squandered in some ways. We have used bread that is nearly as unrecognizable as it is tasteless. Our thimble full of Mogan David or our dip into a chalice of grape juice is not the full-bodied experience you might get at, say, a wedding banquet.
Read the full reflection here
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Third Sunday after Epiphany
January 26, 2025
David Ackerson, certified spiritual director
Messiah Lutheran Church, Mountain Iron, Minnesota
Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Luke 4:14-21
Where is truth? How do I discern truth? How do I act upon truth to do justice? What is true justice? What is true eco-justice?
On January 26, 2025, many preachers throughout America and the whole earth, in churches who follow the Revised Common Lectionary, will be preaching on Luke 4. In the preceding week, January 20, is the date the 47th President of the United States of America, truly and duly elected according to law, is sworn into office. In light of the challenges facing the world today, many preachers, followers of the Way of the Christ, especially in the context of Eco-faith and Eco-justice, might find themselves struggling with the challenge of crafting a message consistent with the Prayer of the Day: leading our assemblies of worshipers to eat and digest and receive nourishment in the Living Word, allowing God’s promises to comfort us, that we may continue to embrace and hold fast to the hope of the coming of the Kyros Kingdom, even here and now, eternally here in this place, even as truth seems to have gone on holiday.
Read the full reflection here
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Connections with Creation
January
January 5 – Second Sunday of Christmas
This is the second appearance of John 1 in just a few weeks, so consider what it means for the Word to become flesh in the cosmic context of Psalm 147. The same Word was present to name and number the stars. This Lord, who heals broken hearts and binds up wounds as a physician, now takes on vulnerable flesh. The one who made the grass grow on hills will one day preach a sermon from the mountain. The one who gives animals their food will one day feed thousands in the countryside and billions at eucharistic tables across time and space. To become flesh is to become a creature filled with stardust, intimately tied to the natural world in all its limitation and all its possibility.
Read all Connections with Creation for January and February
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Book Discussion Opportunities | |
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Through the College of St. Scholastica, Pastor Dave Carlson of Gloria Dei in Duluth facilitates two monthly book discussion groups, to which all are welcome:
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Earth Harmony, Thursday, January 9 - Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological Economic Vocation by Cynthia Moe-Lobeda (2013). Meeting 8:00-9:00 a.m. in person at Chester Creek Cafe in Duluth.
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Religion & Science, Wednesday, January 15 - The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust by Francis Collins (2024). Meeting 8:00-9:00 a.m. via Zoom. Contact Pastor Carlson for the link or for more information, pastor@gloriadeiduluth.org
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Earth’s Cries, Earth’s Call
Becoming Midwives of Hope for the Healing of Creation
Saturday, April 5, 2025
First Lutheran, Duluth and online
Lead speaker: Dr. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda
Presenter: Dr. Kelly Sherman-Conroy
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EcoFaith Summit of the Upper Midwest 2025 | |
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Announcing Book Discussions of the newly released book:
Building a Moral Economy
Pathways for People of Courage
by Cynthia Moe-Lobeda
Lead Speaker at the 2025
EcoFaith Summit of the Upper Midwest
Enjoy a 2-minute preview: Book Trailer
Come together to awaken active hope for the healing of Creation. Join us to discuss this newly released book by the Lead Speaker of the 2025 EcoFaith Summit, Earth’s Cries, Earth’s Call: Becoming Midwives of Hope for the Healing of Creation, on April 5 in Duluth at First Lutheran Church and on-line.
This book is the beginning of the Building a Moral Economy series (Fortress Press). Check out the websitehttps://www.buildingamoraleconomy.org/
All discussion groups are on zoom. Join the one that best fits your schedule
8:00-9:00a.m. 3rd Wednesdays, February 19, March 19, April 16
Discussion Host: The Rev. David Carlson, D.Min., pastor of Gloria Dei, Duluth and co-chair of the NE MN Synod EcoFaith Network
To register, email: pastor@gloriadeiduluth.org
12:00 to 1:00p.m., 4th Wednesdays, January 22, February 26, March 26
Discussion Host: The Rev. Emily Meyer, Executive Director of The Ministry Lab and member of the Saint Paul Area Synod Care of Creation Work Group
Register at https://theministrylab.org/
7:00 – 8:00p.m. 4th Thursdays, January 23, February 27, March 27
Discussion Hosts: The Rev. Greg Kaufmann and Luke Pederson, Synod Creation Care Team Chairperson, Northwest Synod of Wisconsin
To register, email: gregkaufmann@me.com
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Save 30% on the book through Fortress Press with the discount code EcoFaith25. Offer valid on domestic orders only through April 30, 2025. | |
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Check out the Green Lectionary Podcast!
Creation Justice Ministries produces a podcast that it describes as "a conversation on scripture with a creation justice lens." Check it out here!
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Trying to figure out how Faith and Science work together every week?
Listen to The Faith and Science Podcast, following the Revised Common Lectionary each week and try to answer that question. It can be found at wherever podcasts are found or at
https://thefaithandsciencepodcast.podbean.com/
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Read. Watch. Listen. Share! | |
The EcoFaith Network NEMN Synod
Living out God's call to be stewards of the earth for the sake of the whole creation.
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SPAS Care of Creation
We are called to care for God's creation as a central part of our Christian faith and identity.
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