February Movement Café:
Could You Be an EarthKeeper Too?
February 15th 2023
10am PT / 11am MT / 12pm CT / 1pm ET
Sponsored by the United Methodist Creation Justice Movement, the informal, virtual space of the Café facilitates conversation, connection, and community focused on creation care and justice issues.
Speaker
Rev. Jonathan Brake
Rev. Jonathan Brake is an ordained elder in the Western North Carolina Conference where he has served as a pastor in small and large, rural and urban congregations. He was commissioned as an EarthKeeper with the inaugural class in 2016. In addition to his EarthKeepers project of establishing a creation care ministry in his annual conference, Jonathan has also been active from the beginning of the UM Creation Justice Movement, serving on the coordinating, communications, and Loving People & Planet teams.
He has worked with community gardens, church creation care teams, delivered sermons on creation justice, taught studies on the topic, and facilitates a monthly gathering of clergy and ministry professionals at a farm/retreat center to reconnect with God and creation called Sabbath Life. In his spare time, he is working on a Doctor of Ministry degree in Ecology and Justice Ministry through the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. In September 2022, Jonathan joined the staff of the UMC General Board of Global Ministries as the new Program Manager for Environmental Sustainability. In this role, he now leads the Global Ministries EarthKeepers program and the Creation Care Network online platform.
Jonathan has three grown daughters and now resides in Hickory, North Carolina with his wife, two dogs, and four cats.
Could You Be an EarthKeeper Too?
Couldn’t make it? Here’s what happened.
Spotlight, UM Earthkeepers! Ever wonder what a UM EarthKeeper is or how to become one? Want to know how you can build on your creation care initiatives? Rev. Jonathan Brake joined the February Movement Café to share his journey in becoming an EarthKeeper. He spoke tothe EarthKeeper program and its value in building stronger creation care programming. Rev. Brake has a long history of involvement in the UM Creation Justice Movement and became an Earthkeeper when the program first began in 2016. He has been a creation justice leader in North Carolina and now oversees the EarthKeepers program in his new role as Program Coordinator for Environmental Sustainability with the UM General Board of Global Ministries. Watch the webinar, and listen to the voices of Rev. Brake and other Earthkeepers as they share the wonderful work they are doing in the UMC and beyond.