The Episcopal Church's New Creation Care Curriculum

Are you planning Christian formation classes for 2025? Consider offering the new creation care curriculum from the Episcopal Church, "Love God, Love God's World."

This is a nine-week curriculum covering topics such as why people of faith should care for all of creation, the reality of our current situation, and how we might contribute to repairing the damage. There is "homework" via videos and reading assignments that are unlocked once a class registers for the course.

Members of Redeemer in Mobile completed the course during the Season of Creation and the month following, and were pleased with the Biblical foundations of the curriculum and how well the various videos and readings engaged the theme of the week. They suggest that folks be prepared to bring in topics that are relevant to our particular region (for example, there were two hurricanes in the Gulf while they were doing the study!) and offer follow-up discussions on "What do we do now?"

Save Money. Save Your Sanity. Save the Planet.

Compiled by St. John's Episcopal Church, Ocean Springs, MS

1. Simplify the ‘gift-go-round’.  Before the holiday season begins, agree that the adults will pick a name out of the hat for a gift recipient. Your gift list for the adults in your family has just been shortened to one! 
2. Give experiences or services over things.  Consider a membership to a museum or zoo, or a gift certificate for dance lessons or a fishing trip.  
3. Give ‘battery-free’ gifts.  According to the EPA, about 40% of all battery sales occur during the holiday season. Discarded batteries are an environmental hazard. Even rechargeable batteries find their way into the waste stream eventually. 
4. Go plastic-free.  We are all trying to reduce our exposure to plastic.  Give re-usable water bottles, coffee mugs, and glass food storage systems.  
5. Skip the wrapping paper.  Use old newspaper, re-usable gift bags and boxes.
6. Try to cut any waste by planning ahead. Be realistic about how much food you need and use up leftovers. 
7. Think about your lights.  Use LED lights on your Christmas tree and outdoor decor, they use less energy, last longer and look just as good! Also, switch off your lights at night - it's safer and won’t cost the earth.
8. Decorate with nature.  Many store-bought Christmas decorations are made with plastic and shipped a long way.  The South offers so many options for decorations -- from pine boughs to holly berries to Camellia blossoms.
9. Get outside!  Start an annual, earth-friendly, Christmas family. tradition.  Consider participating in the Annual Christmas day bird count, take a family nature hike, or decorate a tree for the birds.  
10. What are your suggestions for the list? Brainstorm with the whole family - you might be surprised at the suggestions!

If you are in the Mobile area, please join the Rev. Mary Alice Mathison on Sunday, December 8, for a Holy Hike through the historic Oakleigh Garden District. Hikers should meet at Washington Square at 3:00PM for an urban hike through the Oakleigh neighborhood. The hikers will finish at Callaghan's Irish Social Club. All are welcome.

Contact Mary Alice for more information at maryalice.mathison@gmail.com. If others are conducting holy hikes in the Diocese, please reply to this email so that your dates may be promoted in future newsletters.

Province IV and V Monthly Environmental Gathering

December Gathering: Blueberry Awarded Nature Books

Martha Meyer, Founder Blueberry Award

Children's Library Assistant at the Evanston Public Library 

Monday, December 9 at 1 p.m. eastern

Come join us for a fun and fast-paced introduction to the Blueberry Awards, a new children's literature book award annually honoring the 35 best nature & climate books of the year for kids ages 3 through 10 and up. 

• Learn about how the Blueberry Awards, announced annually in mid-March, just in time for Earth Day activities and programs, can be your yearly reference for great Creation Care books for kids!
• Hear book-talks of some of the 2022 and 2023 books!
• Find out how churches in Evanston, IL have used Blueberry Awards books to supplement their Children's Formation programs.
• Learn how to apply Blueberry criteria to nature and climate books to avoid creating climate anxiety in kids (and learn about mitigating it, too).

Looking for ways to incorporate Creation Care into your Children's Formation offerings and programs? Want some new ideas for engaging kids in learning about God's creation? Hoping young families and tweens can be incorporated into Creation Care initiatives at church? Come and learn!

A Special Gulf Coast Creation Care Conversation with 

Dr. Marcus Briggs-Cloud, co-director 

Ekvn-Yefolecv Maskoke Ecovillage 

January 2, 2025 

2:00PM CST

Please join Gulf Coast Creation Care on January 2nd for an inspiring conversation with Maskoke Elder Marcus Briggs-Cloud. Marcus is co-director of the Maskoke Ecovillage and a board member of Cultural Survival, who holds a degree from Harvard Divinity School and a transdisciplinary doctorate in integrative ecology from the University of Florida. 

At Ekvn Yefolecv, the Maskoke are rekindling community through intentional living, enculturating children in their traditional values and language, stewarding their lands and rivers, building a research conference center/ecolodge, and leading restoration ecology projects with a particular focus on returning Alabama's Gulf sturgeon to their ancestral spawning streams. Theirs is a template for living and teaching integrative ecology.

It is a model of connectional ministry and a bold call to action for all who would reconnect with the Whole of Creation. The event is free, but you need to register.

What We've Been Reading

"Beyond Hope: Removing a Major Stumbling Block to Acting on Behalf of the Earth," by Derrick Jensen

With Hope as a major theme of the Advent Season, this article can provide insights into how to preach on creation care during the seaon. Julie Barbosa of Redeemer, Mobile, recommends this article as "one of the most insightful and beautifully written articles I've read."

What We've Been Watching

"Investing in the Real Future," by Ellen Davis

Hear Dr. Ellen F. Davis, Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School, preach powerfully on the topic of climate change.

The Green Lectionary Podcast, with Derrick Weston and guests of Creation Justice Ministries, offers weekly lectionary-based discussions from the perspective of caring for creation.