Author: Dr. Daniel Joranko
My creation justice calling story is something of a long and winding road. I graduated from Garrett-Evangelical in 1984. I was uncertain at the time about ordained ministry, but felt a strong call to urban mission work. I secured a position as a low-paid religious volunteer with the Northwest Community Organization on the near west side of Chicago. This was one of the nation’s most outstanding community organizations—and it had fostered several of Chicago’s few inter-racial neighborhoods. I also helped preach and lead worship at the Humboldt Park United Methodist Church.
NCO was a real pioneer in the early days of energy justice. Illinois was suffering from a utility shut-off crisis. I saw many families without heat in the midst of a Chicago winter. NCO formed a coalition with those in South Austin and other communities. We engaged in an intensive campaign to secure legislation to enable low-income people to pay a percentage of their income for gas and electricity. After considerable struggle, we managed to get the nation’s first such statewide plan passed. NCO also had an energy office that provide low-cost weatherization in the community and trained young people for good jobs in the field.
I lived and worked in the community for 10 years. However, I was experiencing some health concerns and decided to pursue a Ph.D. at Michigan State. My graduate program looked at the intersection of community development and the environment. I also focused on inter-racial movements, communities, and congregations. I did some field research in Nashville and was very attracted to the city and to Hobson United Methodist Church—so I moved there upon graduation. I lived at an apartment at Scarritt-Bennett. Several years later I moved into an intentional community in the Catholic Worker tradition.
I began to explore a calling that focused more on openness to what was needed in mission than on the funding available in nonprofits. I supported myself working at Cokesbury, eventually managing the store at Vanderbilt Divinity School. This gave me a lot of flexibility to be engaged in the community. One major campaign was around major cutbacks to the state’s health care program. I worked with community members with serious health problems in a direct action campaign. This eventually resulted in the nation’s longest sit-in at the state capitol.
In 2007, a colleague of mine, Harmon Wray suddenly passed away. He had coordinated classes at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. These classes included both Vanderbilt Divinity and prison-resident students. VDS invited me to coordinate and teach in this program. I ended up teaching both at the prison and on campus for 15 years as part-time faculty.
I became aware of the climate crisis through the film An Inconvenient Truth and began looking for a way to engage. I was invited to be the national screening coordinator for the film Kilowatt Ours, which was shown on public television throughout the country. We also facilitated hundreds of community screenings around the U.S.
I then began working with a group on the north side of Nashville focused on Green Jobs in the African-American community. Out of this came a statewide inter-racial coalition for green jobs in underserved communities. Next, was the formation of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign in Tennessee. As the first part-time organizer, I formed Climate Action Teams in Chattanooga, Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis.
About the same time, the Nashville District Creation Care Ministry team was forming. I began volunteering with the team. Eventually, they decided to raise the money to hire me as a quarter-time coordinator on a contract basis. This district ministry has since become conferencewide. And now the ministry and my position are part of the new Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference. In 2018 I also became a quarter-time coordinator with Tennessee Interfaith Power and Light.
Finally, I’ve been very involved at the national level of the UM Creation Justice Movement. In 2016, Pat Watkins, Susan Mullins, and I developed the initial Earthkeepers program. I also worked with Paul Slentz in hosting the 2019 Creation Justice Summit in Nashville.
All of this has been very rewarding work. I have found that to have an impact it is important to be open to discernment—and to not look at the call as simply a career path. Increasingly, I share the worry about the worldwide damage to ourselves and to our fellow creatures. Together, though, through discernment we can be faithful to the call to care for God’s creation.
