"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 | |
Congregations Celebrate First Synod-wide Pollinator Sunday | |
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Bethlehem, Twig, celebrated Pollinator Sunday with a blessing for their pollinator plot.
A wheelbarrow procession around the altar opened the "Mulch Madness" worship service at First, Duluth, for Pollinator Sunday on June 2nd.
Gloria Dei, Duluth, held a Dedication of their Pollinator Garden with guest pastor Kristin Foster on June 23.
Youth members of Trinity, Cook, placed their pollinator sign in the ground as the congregation blessed its pollinator plot outside.
Did your congregation also celebrate Pollinator Sunday? Send us your story at ecofaith@nemnsynod.org and we will feature you!
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Resources for your congregation to celebrate Pollinator Sunday | |
EcoFaith meets LYO Leaders at Training Camp | |
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"I was really opened up to the idea of being more active with my environment
and introducing more to my church."
-Kaylee, LYO Leadership Camp Participant
after EcoFaith session
On June 12, the final day, of the NE MN Synod’s LYO leadership training camp at Camp Onomia, Pastor Kristin Foster, co-chair of the NE MN Synod EcoFaith Network, led a session on the work of the EcoFaith Network. There were 15 youth and 5 adults present for this final day.
Utilizing listening and facilitation skills the youth leaders had been developing at camp, they broke into one on one and small groups to 1) describe a place in creation that is significant to them, 2) express a fear or concern if people fail to care for that place or the earth creation as a whole, and 3) generate ideas for caring for creation they want to bring home to their congregations, and who they would approach.
Read the full article here
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Caring for Creation Sunday at St. Andrew's, Mahtomedi | |
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For many years now, The Environmental Stewardship Team at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church in Mahtomedi, MN has worked with the church leadership to host a Caring for Creation Sunday around the time of Earth Day. The prayers and sermon are creation-focused, and many times we bring in an outside speaker. This year, we used some of our team’s donations to bring in Rev. Dr. Barbara Rossing, professor of New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago for the sermons. The choir also follows the theme and this year sang a beautiful rendition of John Rutter’s “Look at the World.” Some years have been better than others, but several of us thought April 28, 2024 might have been our best effort yet.
Read the full article here
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Annual EcoFaith Leadership Retreat
Building Arcs across the Upper Midwest for a Flourishing Planet
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Sunday supper, August 25 through Tuesday lunch, August 27
Camp Onomia, Onamia, Minnesota
Hosted by the EcoFaith Leadership Team of the NE MN Synod
For creation care/EcoFaith leaders in the Upper Midwest synods
Come together for renewal, direction, and encouragement through
- Morning and evening worship
- Stories of growth in earthkeeping activity in our synods
- Special presentations on creation in worship
- Plenary and small group discussions
- Shaping the 2025 EcoFaith Summit
- Open time to rest and explore the campgrounds
Highlights include:
- New ecumenical “Festival of Creation” (Rev. Dr. Ben Stewart and Rev. Dr. Melinda Quivik, participants in the Assisi Conference)
- A training in active listening skills by LYO youth and adult leaders
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“Re-matriating our Faith/Worship” (a presentation by the Rev. Krehl Stringer)
- “Walking in the Woods with the Word”, led by Pastor Daphne Urban
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Register here
Full retreat: $150 per person
See registration page for additional details and day rate
Registration Deadline: August 15
SPECIAL NOTE
Youth and young adults under 25 are invited to attend free of charge
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Microgrant Awarded to Our Redeemer, Pine City | |
Congratulations to Our Redeemer, Pine City, which was awarded an EcoFaith Microgrant for a restart of its pollinator garden! | |
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More microgrants are available to NE-MN Synod congregations for 2024. Projects in a variety of areas are eligible for funding in pursuit of the following mission goals addressed by EcoFaith Network efforts: worship, education, congregational life, buildings and grounds, community action, and other creation care centered activities. Grants are available in amounts between $100-$1000.
Applications need to be received 30 days prior to the EcoFaith Network Leadership Team monthly meeting to allow for consideration during the upcoming meeting.
Learn more and find application materials here
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Your Congregation can Become a Pollinator Sanctuary! | |
MNIPL Presents "Clean Heat by 2040: What Will it Take to Get There?" | |
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MNIPL will present the second webinar of their four session Summer Policy Webinars on Thursday, July 11. MNIPL writes:
"Minnesota has made a commitment to being carbon-free in our electricity production, but many of us are still using natural gas to heat our homes. Despite the fact that there are more sustainable ways to keep our homes warm like heat pumps or electric heat, most of the policy and physical infrastructure in our state makes methane gas the norm.
Join us for a conversation about what it would take to get to clean heat by 2040! This webinar will cover:
- Why a commitment to clean heat is just as important as our commitment to clean power
- What obstacles we face in getting clean heat
- How we can act on a state and local level to promote clean heat policies"
Learn more and register here
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This Month's Green Tips
Here are Laura Raedeke's Green Tips from Lutheran Church of the Cross, Nisswa, for July and August.
Managing Your Garden and Landscape: Our Planet and Pollinators Depend on it
Regulating the Use of Pesticides on Fruits and Vegetables: Consumer Reports Offers New Data on Worst Offenders
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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.
The Green Blades Preaching Roundtable will resume in September after an August hiatus.
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Sundays in July: Year B, 2024
The Rev. Melinda Quivik, PhD – Saint Paul, Minnesota
The Sundays in July Year B deal with the interaction of human beings, Earth’s bounty, and Jesus’ healing and miraculous-seeming actions. Each Sunday is a testament to God’s love for life here on Earth, God’s desire for our wholeness and healing, and depiction of the tough situations in which we find ourselves year after year. The readings remind us that we inhabit a finite planet that was visited by God’s Son to show us more and more excellent ways to live.
Read the full reflections here
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July 7 – Mark 6:1-13, Ezekiel 2:1–5, Psalm 123, 2 Corinthians 12:2–10
People do not trust Jesus’ power. After all, he was the son of an ordinary carpenter. Knowing rejection, he taught the helpers he enlisted to spread the news not to be deflated by being rebuffed but to slough it off and move to the next place where they could bring the good news.
The prophet Ezekiel is in a similarly difficult situation, because the Lord sent him to speak a hard word. He is a model for those of us who see a need for changes in our world, knowing they will be resented or ignored. Ezekiel explains that the Lord sent a “spirit… and set me on my feet.” Ezekiel is to speak to an “impudent and stubborn” people. Does this not describe our own people today––we who drag our feet on dealing with climate change?
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July 14 - Mark 6:14-29, Amos 7:7–15, Ps. 85:8–13, Ephesians 1:3–14
King Herod stands for all of us who find ourselves torn by conflicting allegiances. None of us escapes that problem. Herod promises his daughter whatever she wants. Obeying her mother’s suggestions, she wants John the Baptist killed. Although in secret Herod has been intrigued by John the Baptist, he chooses to have John killed to keep the peace at home and is, then, “deeply grieved.” So are we when we have no good choices. Regarding Earth care, we are enmeshed in an economy that denigrates Earth. No choices we might make are without potential, unforeseeable negative repercussions.
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July 21 - Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, Jeremiah 23:1–6, Psalm 23, Ephesians 2:11–22
Here is an image of what our world faces today and increasingly so in the future: Human beings with enormous needs for adequate care, clean air and water, nourishing food, and generally healing of all kinds. The crowd clambers for Jesus just as if they were migrants fleeing violence and autocratic power mongers who make their lives miserable. We witness increasing numbers of climate refugees whose land no longer sustains them. We may ask ourselves what it is in Jesus that heals the situation. Could it be that his great openness to reality is the answer to our relationship with Earth?
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July 28 - John 6:1-21, 2 Kings 4:42–44, Psalm 145:10–18, Ephesians 3:14–21
What is a miracle? We call the feeding of the 5,000 a miracle because so few fish and so little bread was enough. The same feeding story we find in John 6 is the substance of 2 Kings 4. We have no answers for how this could be. . . except that we see the same miracles occurring in our world even today all the time. Where?
Read the full reflections here
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Connections with Creation
July and August
July 7 – 7th Sunday after Pentecost
One side of the environmental movement is like Ezekiel (2:5): “Whether they hear or refuse to hear . . . , they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.” One among us today pulled to stand on her feet by a prophetic spirit is Greta Thunberg, uttering oracles to those who refuse to listen. Another side of the environmental movement is more like Jesus’ apostles, empowered to heal directly. Some of today’s authoritative healers are crafters of emerging technologies, like Energy Dome’s CO2 batteries that store carbon dioxide to run through turbines to generate electricity. Talk about exorcising the demon of too much CO2! We need both prophets who name our sins against the earth and apostles gifted with concrete good news in response.
Read all Connections with Creation for July and August
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Profit: An Environmental History
by Mark Stoll
Book Review by Fred Quivik, Saint Paul Area Synod Care of Creation
Through most of this history of environmentalism, Stoll notes, we have tried to heal the environment, but we have done little to address the engine that is driving environmental harm, i.e., capitalism or the drive to profit. Corporations contribute to this. Companies that advertise their environmental concerns often do so by encouraging us to make our own moral choices. For example, we are all encouraged to recycle our household plastic, but we are not asked to reconsider the system of consumer capitalism that depends on plastics to function.
Read the full review here
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Restoring the Kinship Worldview
by Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows) and Darcia Narvaez, PhD
Book Review by John Hanson, NE-MN Synod EcoFaith Network Leadership Team
The editors have brought together the thoughts of 28 indigenous people, from around the world, to reflect on aspects of climate, culture, and human interaction with the natural world. After each monograph, the editors add their own reflections on the topic. Four Arrows is a professor of educational leadership at Fielding Graduate University, and related to the Oglala Lakota peoples. Darcia Narvaez is professor emerita of psychology at the University of Notre Dame.
Read the full review here
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Through the College of St. Scholastica, Pastor Dave Carlson of Gloria Dei in Duluth facilitates two book discussion groups to which all are welcome. They normally meet each month but are taking a sabbatical break. The readings and next dates are:
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Earth Harmony, Thursday, August 8 - Black Earth Wisdom: Soulful Conversations with Black Environmentalists, by Leah Penniman (2023). Meeting 8:00-9:00 a.m. in person at Chester Creek Cafe in Duluth.
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Religion & Science, Wednesday, August 21 - The Three Ages of Water: Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future, by Peter Gleick (2023). 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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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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