In a group photo to rival The Avengers, members of the brand-new Oregon-Idaho Creation Care and Resilience Team gather outside the Micah Building on the Salem First UMC campus during Annual Conference. Pictured, l-r, Louise Kienzle, Jim Teisher, Rev. John Pitney, Pattie Sloan, Bob Wilson, Rev. Richenda Fairhurst. Used with permission.
Annual Conference season wraps up as a number of conferences working to strengthen creation care action and priorities across the denomination. In the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference, this meant the establishment of a brand-new conference creation care team, affirmed by an approval vote over 96%. The team, called the Oregon-Idaho Creation Care and Resilience Team, seeks to address creation care together with disaster preparedness and resilience.
Lay and clergy members of the steering group who led the effort will also serve as the first members of the team itself. The group had been meeting weekly for months in anticipation of bringing legislation to the floor of the annual conference. The focus of the steering group was to discern action and write legislation that suited the unique faith setting and context needs of the conference.
As part of the discernment process, two of the team members will share the role of Caretaker of God’s Creation, a role that is now required by The United Methodist Book of Discipline for each annual conference.
Bob Wilson, one of the new co-Caretaker Coordinators and a member of the Planet Church green team at Portland First United Methodist Church, has been a creation care leader in the annual conference for over a decade. Wilson lamented that The United Methodist Church has not acted on creation care, and has not seemed to understand the connection between important human rights work and caring for God’s Earth.
“I’ve wished that the big-C church, and certainly The United Methodist Church, would be as strongly focused on creation care as they’ve been on human care, which is also really important, and not unconnected,” said Wilson. “This seemed like a chance to lift up this creation care ministry to the annual conference level.”
Wilson’s thoughts for next steps for the new team includes an assessment of interest, such as, “who would like to have a green team and who just wants to understand what it’s all about,” as well as organizing teach-ins and gathering information to support creation care efforts in the conference. “And beyond that, the sky’s the limit. Our annual conference is eager, I believe, to activate the grassroots and there’s quite a bit of energy in our team.”
Members of the Oregon-Idaho’s brand new Creation Care and Resilience Team pose with Bishop Cedrick Bridgeforth at the June session of the Annual Conference. Pictured, l-r, Jim Teisher, Rev. John Pitney, Bishop Cedrick Bridgeforth, Pattie Sloan, Bob Wilson. Used with permission.
Co-Caretaker Coordinator Pattie Sloan is a Global Ministries EarthKeeper and the lay leader for Salem UMC, in Salem, Oregon. Part of her role will be to connect with denomination support structures, including the United Methodist Creation Justice Movement, an organization working with multiple United Methodist agencies to advance care of the creation in the denomination.
Sloan sees working with churches who have built effective creation care ministries as “an exciting opportunity,” and one benefit of many in working connectionally. “The United Methodist Justice Movement is rather new to me, as I am rather new to the UMC, but I have found it to be a well-kept secret with a treasure trove of information and support…. If we work together, and even with other denominations, we can make headway and begin to honor God with our work to restore his creation.”
For Wilson, this effort at times took him out of his comfort zone in seeking to figure out the inner and outer workings of the conference. He has some tips for others who might also need to navigate conference systems to further their own efforts.
“I’ve never been drawn into or made an effort to get to know the conference players,” Wilson says. Yet, “it was extremely helpful to put faces to names and vice versa, and even to be able to have brief conversations with the folks who make Oregon-Idaho run. And the resources, legislative and otherwise, from the denomination-level folks have been critical.”
Other members of the team include Rev. John Pitney, a retired elder who now works with faith communities to install solar panels with the Interfaith Solar Campaign, Louise Kienzle, the Disaster Response Coordinator for the conference and a leader with the Methodist Federation for Social Action’s Oregon-Idaho conference chapter, and Jim Teisher, current chair of Portland First UMC’s green team Planet Church.
The Planet Church team has led creation care efforts in Portland for 30 years. Jim Teisher has been involved since about 2010. He knows the faithful, everyday organizing it takes to build and maintain a team.
“My hope in joining OR-ID Creation Care and Resilience is that we coordinate our creation care efforts across the conference,” said Teisher, “by passing ideas for activities across local committees, helping to form new committees, and providing resources to allow local committees to be successful.”
Congratulations, also, to the Dakotas Annual Conference! The Dakotas also passed legislation to form a creation care team and name a Caretaker of God’s Creation Coordinator.
The United Methodist Creation Justice Movement is tracking annual conference legislation. Check out the current list of successful petitions and share what passed in your conference.
Interested in forming an official green team in your annual conference? Check out the Movement Cafe video and article How to Start a Conference-Level Creation Care and Justice Team in Your Annual Conference. Also see the UMCJM Green Team Resources.
Rev. Richenda Fairhurst is here for the friendship and conversations about climate, community, and connection. For more conversations, see the team at the United Methodist Creation Justice Movement Café. Find Richenda in Southern Oregon and at JustCreation.org.