"Now the green blade rises from the buried grain" |
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An online publication of the EcoFaith Network NE-MN Synod with Saint Paul Area Synod Care of Creation |
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In a moment of deep ecological crisis, this year’s EcoFaith Summit calls us to become part of the Holy Spirit’s subversive plot to pollinate an alternative way of being human for the sake of life.
In this great plot, faith communities of every size and place can be demonstration plots, pollinating alternative ways of living. We all steward plots of land, even tiny ones, which can become pollinator habitat. In this critical and decisive time, a Kairos moment, what we do with our specific plots wherever we are, matters. How we live the Gospel paradox that God’s power is shown in weakness can engage us in active hope amid the growing crisis we face.
Through worship, a keynote presentation, firsthand stories, conversations, and engagement sessions, together we will be empowered to be participants in this unfolding plot.
Download this information here and learn more about the engagement sessions here
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Partners include:
- Luther Seminary
- Minneapolis Area Synod EcoFaith Network
- Northwestern Minnesota Synod ~ Creation Care Affinity Group
- Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light
- Lutherans Restoring Creation
- The Pollinator Friendly Alliance
- Lutheran Advocacy-Minnesota
- Duluth Monarch Buddies
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Water is Life: Biblical Reflections
by Diane Jacobson
This past November, I had the rare privilege of speaking at the Johnson Symposium on Faith and Society at Holy Trinity, Minneapolis. The featured speaker was Winona LaDuke, who inspired us all through her stories, her lived experience, and her current critical work. She spoke of the many people who are standing up for the rights of nature, of mother earth, of rivers, even of wild rice! She spoke of healing, restoring, and sustaining earth that has been corrupted and nearly destroyed by agriculture and for minerals.
My contribution to the symposium centered on illustrating some of the ways that we know that Water is Life from almost every book of the Bible… and why and how the Bible encourages us to support remarkable work like that of Winona LaDuke. I explored five different ways that Scripture illuminates water as life — ways which I list below with relevant passages as well as a few insights from each category.
Read the full reflection here
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Applications are now open for 2023 EcoFaith micro-grants!
The EcoFaith Network - NE MN Synod grant program equips God’s people to take specific new initiatives in response to God’s call to be stewards of the earth by providing seed money for specific ministry initiatives.
Grants between $100 and $1,000 are awarded each year for proposals from congregations and other church expressions, primarily in the Northeastern Minnesota Synod.
If your congregation is awarded a micro-grant, one or two members of the EcoFaith Network will offer support and encouragement, and invite you to share your experience as a way of inspiring other communities of faith.
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EcoFaith Network Partner Congregations: Has your congregation become a partner?
The following congregations in the Northeastern Minnesota Synod have made or committed to making a financial contribution to the EcoFaith Network.
Bethel-Trinity, Bovey
Bethlehem, Brainerd
Bethlehem, Grand Marais
Calvary, Mora
Gloria Dei, Duluth
Holden, Isle
Lutheran Church of the Cross, Nisswa
Trinity, Cass Lake
Trinity, Hovland
We thank you!
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.
Every congregation who has made a contribution or budgeted commitment to the EcoFaith Support Fund in 2022-2023 will be recognized at the Synod Assembly in Brainerd. We hope that your congregation will be on that list, part of a growing network in support of living out God’s call to stewardship of the earth!
Learn more and find partner congregation forms here
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Creation Advocacy
by Tammy Walhof
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Lutheran Advocacy-MN has a Lenten letter challenge! Learn more and join the challenge here!
Legislative Update: Minnesota passed 100% Carbon-free electricity by 2040, signed into law by Gov. Walz on Feb. 7. It contains important benchmarks along the way: 80% carbon-free electricity by 2030; 90% by 2035.
Various versions of this bill have been introduced over the last several years, and Lutheran Advocacy-MN has been engaged both on this and other legislation to increase the renewable energy standard.
Find clean energy talking points by the Policy Council of Lutheran Advocacy-MN here
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Green Blades Rising in Congregations and Synods |
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2023 Creation Care Events |
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Our next Creation Connections event will be Thursday, April 13th! Join us for time in community focused on Youth and Growth.
Register for the event here!
Future dates for Creation Connections include July 13 and October 12, 2023 from 7-8 pm. Please contact ecofaith@nemnsynod.org with questions!
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The Pollinator Steering Group will join Lutherans Restoring Creation on March 28th at 7pm CT for a connections call centered on the Pollinator Pilot Project and the larger metaphor of pollination. Register here!
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Do you have a story to share? We want to hear it! Please email Rachel, EcoFaith Network Communication Coordinator, at ecofaith@nemnsynod.org.
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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.
To inquire about writing for the Green Blades Preaching Roundtable, or to receive these reflections on a weekly basis, contact Kristin Foster, editor, at revkristinfoster@gmail.com
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Rev. Gary Hedding, Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin
Lent 2
March 5, 2023
Genesis 12:1-4a
Psalms 121
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17
There will be thousands of sermons preached this Sunday about a searching Nicodemus and a righteous Abraham - both of whom will be examples for people in their relationships with God. This is not inappropriate nor unworthy of the texts. What often goes unnoticed is the place of “world” and “land” in these texts, which extends the passion of God for grace and redemption to all of creation, and cements the connections between our interests for redemption and the interests of redemption for all that God has brought into being.
Read the full reflection here
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Rev. John Hanson, Turtle Lake, Minnesota
Lent 4
March 12, 2023
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42
For people of faith, the natural world is the home or environment that allows us to live and flourish. But there is a deeper purpose for our lives than physical existence, such as relationships to one another, and to God based on love as revealed in Jesus. Water helps bridge nature and spirit. It is, as Raymond Brown suggests, simply water that bears “the Spirit communicated by Jesus” (Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, New York: Doubleday, 1996, p. 179). “After uncovering the truth about her life, Jesus disclosed the truth about himself as well: “I am he,” he says, the one about whom, as she expects, ‘”when he comes, he will proclaim all things to us” (4:25-26). The evangelist has made his point: Not only does Jesus give water as a sign of God’s presence in the land, Jesus is himself that presence (the I AM) (4:26).”
Read the whole reflection here
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Rev. Emily Meyer, Executive Director of The Ministry Lab, Minneapolis
Lent 4
March 19, 2023
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41
‘Here’s mud in your eye!’ was one of my dad’s favorite toasts. As a kid, I thought it was one of the many nonsensical, funny sayings he’d made up.
Turns out, other people do actually use this phrase - though no one really knows where it comes from. Some people reckon it stems from today’s Gospel reading: Jesus uses mud to heal, so ‘mud in your eye’ is a toast to good health.
What if we could toast everyone, or maybe even put some mud in every eye (including our own), so that we could all, collectively, simultaneously, see clearly the glorious gift of creation - and life - God has entrusted to our care?
Read the whole reflection here
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Rev. Gary Hedding, Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin
Lent 5
March 26, 2023
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45
These texts are all about hope in the midst of hopeless situations. The hope is not whistling in the dark, it is not baseless hope because even false hope is better than despair. It is hope based on the power of God, who raises the dead, transforms the living, and enlists God’s people to exercise possible futures when others have given up.
Read the whole reflection here
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EcoFaith Connections with Lent & Easter
by Melinda A. Quivik,
Former professor of worship and preaching
Editor-in-chief of the journal Liturgy
Saint Paul Area Care of Creation
For our first Creation Connections event of 2023, Melinda Quivik prepared beautiful reflections on connections with creation for the seasons of Lent and Easter.
Quivik writes, "Each Sunday in Lent and Easter gives us images that feed our abilities to envision God’s desire for us as creatures who live together with other created life forms. Each Sunday the readings are windows into healthy and whole living."
Read the full reflections here
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Connections with Creation
March
March 5 – Second Sunday in Lent
“God so loved the world” may be a familiar affirmation, but it has radical implications. If God loved the world into being and loved it so utterly that God became incarnate in Jesus Christ, then everything we do to restore the web of life is an expression of our faith in the God who loves the whole creation. When the natural world is degraded by climate change, habitat loss, and pollution, Christians must bear witness to God’s steadfast love for the planet God entrusted to our care. Who will believe the declaration that “God so loved the world” (John 3:16) if we ourselves do not? By committing ourselves to join with others in safeguarding God’s creation, we share in the ministry of Christ, through whom God reconciled all things (Col. 1:19-20).
Read all Connections with Creation for March and April
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Fostering Sustainable Behavior
by Doug McKenzie-Mohr
Review by Kris Grangaard, Saint Paul Area Care of Creation
Doug McKenzie-Mohr describes the concept of Community-Based Social Marketing, which identifies both the obstacles and rewards to changing our behavior, and helps organizations come up with programs to build on them, to help us do the hard work.
Community-Based Social Marketing acknowledges the difficulties of making changes and offers strategies and ways of thinking that help with change.
Dr. McKenzie Mohr’s approach, solidly based in research and program evaluation, and his “discussion about the critical importance of carefully selecting and defining the behaviors and deeply understanding the barriers/benefits before moving to program or policy design” is so important and vital! We can use this information not only to construct programs to change other peoples’ behaviors, but also to change our own.
Read the whole review here
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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
Figuring Out Climate Change: Global Warming is Making the Planet (including Minnesota) Hotter, Wetter and Drier
Here are Green Tips by Steve Spigarelli, First Lutheran Church, Aitkin
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Read. Watch. Listen. Share! |
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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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