Rev. Richenda Fairhurst offers creation care and divestment materials at the ministry fair during the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference. Photo by Patrick Scriven for the PNW Conference.
2024 has been a busy time for United Methodists seeking action on the climate crisis and environmental stewardship. Church members in local churches are stepping up and bringing big legislation to The United Methodist Church to create accountability structures as well as to inspire leadership. They are also creating pathways to bring creation care resources to every church.
In the Western Jurisdiction United Methodist lay people and clergy are actively laying down stepping stones toward a greener, more environmentally faithful church. Over the last two years, annual conferences in the Western Jurisdiction have passed environment related legislation and worked to forge the path ahead.
Of the petitions brought forward by church faithful, these included calls for just partnerships, net-zero commitments, task force creation and staff support, church land use, divestment, green team formation and resourcing, and more. Many grassroots groups drew from the United Methodist Creation Justice Movement’s model resolutions, while modifying them to make them their own. Others created new resolutions, adding to the possibilities of what can be done church-wide.
In addition to the work of legislation, reports, and plenary, at ministry fairs and tabling at annual conferences United Women in Faith, Church and Society, Green Teams, Care Teams, and more offered information and resources about creation and environmental justice.
Western Jurisdiction (WJ)
The Desert Southwest’s church-roots Earth Care Team offered a commitment to net-zero resolution in 2023, which passed by overwhelming margins, over 90%. They are continuing to seek resourcing and conference support in order to live this out. For the 2024 Annual Conference, they submitted legislation asking for their conference and faith foundation to divest from fossil fuels. While this resolution did not pass, it was widely supported.
Even before annual conference, the UM Foundation Executive Director of the Desert Southwest, Anne Green, and the foundation board were thinking ahead about how to support their investors. As such, the foundation’s announcement of new divestment options were cheered by many. Green stated, “It’s important to consider your customers’ needs and wants regarding investment options, as long as they are in alignment with United Methodist values. We have diversified our offerings over the last few years and this new fund is just one more example of how we try to ‘Do More Good’ for our customers.”
The faithful of the Mountain Sky Conference continue their church-roots organizing efforts with green teams, grants, energy efficiency, and workshops. The conference passed Green Team legislation in 2023. “Go Green” efforts in 2023 and 2024 focused on transition and energy efficiency, and they were part of a joint grant effort with the University of Colorado that received $9 million in funding from a Department of Energy Renewing America’s Nonprofits (RAN) Grant.
For the annual conference session 2024, this work is ongoing. The conference youth council presented a call for stewardship, solidarity, and sustainability. The RAN Grant team held workshops to develop their Creation Care Shepherds Program, which included an energy efficiency guide developed by the conference foundation.
The Methodists Helping Methodists Foundation (the UM foundation attached to Mountain Sky) is poised and ready to offer divested funds for conference churches, conferences, and ministries. Kristi Kinnison, Executive Director of the foundation, reported growing enthusiasm, especially from churches seeking energy improvements. The foundation is celebrating this work and offering bridge loans to cover costs between installation and grant reimbursement.
Says Kinnison, “I think the most exciting thing about all of this is when churches “go green,” they are often surprised that the net financial cost is near zero, long term. However, the dividends toward creation justice are immeasurable.”
The California Pacific Conference (Cal-Pac) includes southern California, then stretches west to Hawaii and into the south Pacific, Guam, and Saipan. Here, the faithful know all too well the tragic realities of climate displacement, sea-level rise, worsening typhoons, drought, and rising heat. Resolutions in this conference related to climate and environmental justice included responses to racism and the ongoing consequences of colonialist harms.
Cal-Pac passed a comprehensive resolution this year, a Covenant to be Good Stewards of Creation. The resolution touched on a number of imperative actions. Included was a commitment to net zero, a call for the bishop to create a leadership working group, an investment in education, a Green Sunday initiative, and more. The legislation passed without amendments and with 96% in approval.
Photo by Stephen Hale, Capital Hope Media, on behalf of the California-Pacific Annual Conference
The conversation at Cal-Pac this year included an inspiring talk by Global Ministries’ Rev. Jenny Philips, “We can do something about this,” which was well received and appreciated.
This conference also addressed divestment. In response to the interest of many, the California-Pacific UM Faith Foundation will offer funds for investors that are completely free of fossil fuels. Executive Director John Woodall brought forth this good news:
“We have a new Fossil-Fuel-Free Fund that will be available starting July 1. Investors have the option to transfer their current investments into this fund with no charge. It is a medium risk fund, 65% equities, 35% fixed income and other diversifying assets. We have been practicing SRI [Socially Responsible Investment] with all of our funds for a number of years and wanted to add this fund so that our clients have a wide array of options.”
The Oregon-Idaho conference submitted four resolutions for creation and environmental justice for Annual Conference 2024, drawing on model resolutions created by the UMCJM, and sister-conference Pacific Northwest Conference. Oregon-Idaho’s history of leadership in creation justice includes support for denominational divestment, and their support of the Interfaith Solar Campaign.
This year Oregon-Idaho passed a resolution and an Action Request. The Action Request called on the conference staff to support a local church effort to get information about community solar out to every church. The resolution, Divesting from Fossil Fuels, calls the conference to act on divestment, including divestment of conference owned funds and funds of the local UM foundation.
The UM Foundation in Oregon is already active in this good work. The Oregon-Idaho Conference is part of the Greater Northwest Episcopal Area, which includes the Pacific Northwest and Alaska Conferences. As such, they also share a faith foundation, the Faith Foundation Northwest. The Faith Foundation Northwest has established itself as a denominational leader in divestment funds management and grants resourcing, including highlighting Energy Grants for Churches in Oregon. Read more about the Faith Foundation and its efforts, following.
The Pacific Northwest Conference passed four creation justice resolutions in 2023 and continued to build on that effort with two more resolutions in 2024. Following the success of the 2023 legislation, which passed with huge margins of approval, the conference staff embraced UM EarthKeeper training and drew together a steering team to assess the path ahead.
Part of that path was realized in 2024, with two legislative offerings that offered a comprehensive roadmap and declared the environmental crisis a Missional Priority for the church.
The first of the two petitions drew in the popular Church Land Use resolution approved by General Conference, expanding it to include reporting, celebrating, and a “net zero from the ground up” resolve, stating that “when planning new structures, including churches, parsonages, housing developments, cabins, dining facilities, and other new buildings, the above will prioritize net zero design principles and construction from the ground up…”
Members of the Creation Justice Steering Team, co-led by Sophia Agtarap and Rev. Paul Mitchell, offer visuals, joy, lament, and encouragement to annual conference delegates during a plenary session.
In addition to stating the environmental crisis as a Missional Priority, the second petition called for a conference commission for creation care and environmental stewardship, naming missional, environmental, netzero, and budgetary goals, with wide representation.
The Faith Foundation Northwest, a UM Foundation PNW shares with Oregon-Idaho and Alaska Conferences, has stepped up. It responded to a petition asking it to divest last year, by divesting its own holdings and promoting Wespath’s Fossil Free funds. It is also seeking ways to find, facilitate, and deliver needed funding for the effort.
While the Alaska Conference did not have a creation or environmental justice specific resolution on the docket, the conference itself is very much engaged in stewardship and environmental justice concerns.
The Alaska Conference is enormous. The state of Alaska alone lengthwise spans the width of the continental US. Alaska is on the front lines of the climate crisis, with subsiding coastlines and villages already lost to the sea. The warming ocean is causing destruction to fisheries and worsening storms. The heat rising in Alaska is among the fastest rise on the globe, melting permafrost and disrupting 1000s of years of Indigenous lifeways, food gathering, and cultural practice. The good, faithful people of the Alaska Conference navigate the climate crisis and resolve to take action and find solutions every day.
The Climate Justice Ministries Task Force of the California Nevada Conference offered one resolution this year, and like the offering in Cal-Pac, this resolution included a number of essential parts. While it focused on divestment, it reached wider to ensure both transparency and opportunities for big conversations and interactive education.
The legislation underwent a number of amendments, with the final document available to view here. It includes a resolution for disclosure of all conference investments where money is invested in companies where fossil fuels account for 10% or more of that company’s revenue. It also calls for a reduction toward elimination of those investments.
It also called for a summit that will result in a report to be presented at their next annual conference. This summit brings together the church-roots groups such as Fossil Free UMC with agencies tasked with fiscal management and investment. The stated purpose of the summit “is to uphold best practices for investment management and to identify sound financial strategies to screen out fossil fuels from our conference investment portfolios.”
Rev. Sharon Delgado led this team, read her post-conference summary here: Cal-Nevada to Host Summit on Fossil Fuel Divestment
As support for divestment continues to grow across the denomination, faith foundations, such as in Cal-Pac, Desert Southwest, and the Greater Northwest Area are not only heeding that call, but also taking their fiduciary responsibility seriously to serve their clients faithfully and diligently.
If you are a member of the Western Jurisdiction or just want to stay in the loop, there’s a handy form. Just add your info here.
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 Cafe. Find Richenda in Southern Oregon and at JustCreation.org