By Nathan Brasfield and Dr. Martha Lyle Ford
In 2018, Memphis Theological Seminary held its first “Green Team” meeting. It could hardly be called a formal meeting; it was more a conversation among a few MTS staff members who were plugged in to various creation care and environmental justice organizations and were committed to bringing the work to the seminary’s curricula, campus, and community.
As the committee has grown, so has its scope of work. The team is now an official committee of the seminary with faculty, staff, student, and alum members. In 2019, the Green Team applied for and received a grant from UMC’s EarthKeeper program. These funds helped launch on-the-ground activities as well as providing legitimacy to the work and committee. “Having funding from beyond the seminary provided us with leverage in imagining and implementing some solid foundations for creation care ministry within our somewhat uninformed community,” said Dr. Martha Lyle Ford, EarthKeeper, grant applicant, and director of MTS’s Center for Faith and Imagination.
On campus
Anyone who has tried to introduce green practices to religious institutions–churches, schools, seminaries, retreat centers, etc.–knows that one of the greatest challenges could be called “The Battle of the Kitchen.” Ford says, “I truly think it’s sometimes easier to get folks to embrace installing solar panels than to give up Styrofoam coffee cups!” MTS has not completely migrated to reusable coffee cups, but facilities manager Vicki Sikes has eagerly moved the java lovers to fair trade coffee.
MTS does not have on-campus dining services, but compostable napkins, cutlery, plates and cups are available for use for the occasional community meal. Guidelines and recommendations for ordering more ecologically friendly meals (i.e., more plant-based meals in particular) are in the works.
Nathan Brasfield and Martha Lyle Ford planting apple trees on campus in May 2021.
In the spring of 2021, four apple trees were planted on the front lawn of one of the campus buildings in collaboration with the organization Memphis Tilth. Nathan Brasfield, staff member, DMin student in Land, Food, and Faith Formation, and co-chair of the Green Team, has tended to the apple trees since they were introduced. “It is theologically meaningful that in Genesis humans are tasked with tending the garden,” says Nathan, alluding to Genesis 2:15. “We should use the spaces we can to practice this responsibility and to grow our own food for our own communities.”
One of the Green Team’s priorities this year is to provide accessible and effective recycling bins throughout campus. The Green Team plans to place recycling stations in all main gathering areas with the goal of having a recycling bin paired with every landfill receptacle, which would encourage faculty, staff, and students to make responsible decisions with regard to their waste. Facilities manager Vicki Sikes is eager to partner with the Green Team in this goal, recognizing both the cost effectiveness of recycling and its alignment with the mission and values at MTS.
In the classroom
“The mission of Memphis Theological Seminary is to educate and form students in scholarship, piety, and justice,” comments Dr. Peter Gathje, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean and member of the Green Team. “At MTS we see devotion to creation care as fulfilling each of those commitments. It is crucial to study the issues confronting the well-being of the creation and develop good personal and public policy responses to those issues. At the same time, that study must be rooted in God as Creator, and as the One Who seeks the redemption of the whole of the creation in Jesus Christ. This is turn requires attention to justice, the restoration of right relationship with God, each other, and God’s creation which is biblical justice.”
This holistic approach to creation care described by Dr. Gathje undergirds the offering of courses on the master’s level such as The Doctrine of Creation, Farming, Food, and Faith, Biblical Perspectives on Creation Care, and Theological Foundations of Creation Care and Community Engagement, along with our Doctor of Ministry in Land, Food, and Faith Formation which was launched in 2018 to focus on the intersections of environmental ethics, food justice, food production systems, regenerative agriculture, land stewardship, and Christian discipleship. Examples of topics of doctoral projects from graduates of this program include pastoral care and green burial, Sabbath-keeping and clergy burnout, Creation based liturgical practices for Lent, and a womanist theological response to food insecurity.
Dr. Tricia Vesely, Visiting Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible and Christian Ethics and co-chair of the Green Team, notes the high level of interest among her students in creation care. “Students are eager to learn of the myriad of ways that the Bible addresses creation care as an essential component of our covenant relationship with God,” she says. “And the students are eager to share that knowledge among their own faith communities.” Several of the students in this course have become involved in the work of the Green Team.
In the MTS library, the number of available creation care and climate justice titles has increased dramatically in recent years. Ed Hughes, director of the library and member of the Green Team, points out, “The EarthKeeper grant has helped us acquire many of these titles; however, titles with hot topics tend to be pricey. To accommodate the relatively high price of these book, we have allocated a larger share of the library’s materials budgets to these subject areas.”
MTS is uniquely situated to offer these programs and courses. The capital of the Mid-South agricultural region, encompassing Mississippi, North Alabama, Arkansas, West Tennessee, and the bootheel of Missouri, Memphis has historically been a major cotton and timber producing and marketing center. Memphis is home to Agri-Center International, the National Cotton Council, the National Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, and the National Civil Rights Museum and Lorraine Motel.
In the community
The intention of MTS and the Green Team is to help resource and connect the larger community in creation care initiatives.
Many MTS Green Team members serve on creation care and climate justice committees, boards, and teams beyond the walls of the Seminary. They preach and teach regularly in Sunday schools and pulpits throughout the Memphis and Mid-South region. “I am finding that more and more, congregations are wanting to talk about the ecological crisis and what it is they can do to live more faithfully in light of it,” says Nathan Brasfield.
MTS lecture events (such as the recent visit by foremost ecotheologian Dr. Ellen Davis) are open to the public, and they often involve ecological discussions. The same is true for its free online series of video lessons known as Pulpit & Pew: Seminary for Everyone. In February 2021, the EarthKeeper grant helped fund a series of three lessons from guest lecturers on creation care, environmental justice, and food justice. Visit memphisseminary.edu for more information and for links to recordings.
Conclusion
The story of the Green Team at MTS and the growing response to the need for all of us to engage our ecological responsibility is a story about how the only way to address the challenges of the enormity of the climate crisis, environmental racism, food insecurity, etc. is to simply begin. Start where you are and with who you have. Be in conversation. Follow God’s leading. Open the doors wide for others to join in. And as you carry out your God-given vocation of Genesis 2:15 in the light and joy of the truth that the whole earth belongs to God (Psalm 24:1) lean in to the call to “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established” (Proverbs 16:3).
Nathan Brasfield and Dr. Martha Lyle Ford are UMC EarthKeepers and
MTS Land, Food and Faith Formation DMin student and alum (’22).