Creation Justice Blog
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January 2026 Newsletter
"Come let us walk in the light of the Lord" (Isaiah 5:2) Isaiah would feel right at home in our present situation if he were here. So let us honor this prophet’s call and walk in the light of the Lord. As we trust God, we also reflect God and in turn help lead others. In this edition of the newsletter we look back at a glimmer that has steadily grown to a lamp through our work together. The emerging beam shines the way in a myriad of ways—in the model resolutions, the stories in the newsletter, the discussions at the café, and even through...
January 2026 Movement Café: Climate Action Legislation
January 2026 Movement Café: Climate Action LegislationJanuary 21, 2026 9am AK / 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.The Café registration resets each year—please re-register this January.Climate Action LegislationIt is time to prepare legislation in anticipation of good conversations and productive outcomes around creation justice during annual...
Lighting the Way Forward
In many ways 2025 was filled with darkness. It’s easy to despair, to feel lost in the dark. The January, February, and March issues of the Creation Justice Newsletter, Tips, and Café took time to feel the darkness and to lament and also to prepare as we entered the Lenten season. But the glimmers to light the way forward were there. And growing.JanuaryIn January we looked back and reminded ourselves of hope—action leads to hope, seeing success after years of labor leads to hope, building understanding and coalitions leads to hope, remembering...
Book Launch Presentation with Sharon Delgado
Book Launch Presentation with Sharon Delgado Presented by California Interfaith Power and Light Wednesday, January 14. 12 pm PST on Zoom California Interfaith Power and Light will present an online Book Launch Presentation with Sharon Delgado on Wednesday, January 14 at 12 noon PST, to celebrate the launch of the Revised Edition of her book, Love in a Time of Climate Change: Honoring Creation, Establishing Justice. In this book, the author guides readers on a faith journey inspired by love of God and neighbor that equips them to respond to...
December 2025 Newsletter
Advent is here, and a chance again to tell the story of the Christ Child, drawing in the songs of Angels as well as the promise of Good News for all creation. In this December newsletter find Advent and Christmas Resources as well as stories of local and international action, including stories of United Methodist participation, indigenous activism and youth leadership at COP30, to inspire us to move forward with faith and hope in that promise. Join us also for Advent Worship at the December 17 Movement Café led by the Worship Team. It will be...
January 2026 Tips: Beginning Anew
The calendar gives us a New Year to begin anew. God, however, gives us grace to begin again “morning by morning”—even minute by minute. With that gift of grace, we renew our resolve to care for Earth and justice.January 2026 John Wesley began a New Year tradition of leading people in renewing their covenant* with God. At the very beginning, God gave us a garden to tend and till. Now is the time to renew your commitment to be good stewards of Earth. Choose one new thing you can do throughout the year to care for creation. Why not eat beef?...
Reflections from COP30
By Rev. Mel Caraway United Methodists were well represented at COP30, both in person and virtually. Rev. Dr. Becca Edwards, Climate Fellow at the General Board of Church and Society and Texas Impact was on the ground in Belém, Brazil during the first week of this year’s climate talks. GBCS also obtained virtual credentials for several Caretakers of God’s Creation—Rev. Joan Pell (Cal-Nevada), Rev. Laura Baumgartner (Pacific-Northwest), Nate Wieland (Illinois Great Rivers), Rev. Jonathan Brake (Western North Carolina), and Grace Pugh Hubbard...
December 2025 Movement Café: Advent Worship
December 2025 Movement Café: Advent WorshipDecember 17, 2025 10am PT / 11am MT / 12pm CT / 1pm ETSponsored 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.Advent WorshipThis Advent worship service will place the nativity story that we are all so familiar with into a contemporary context. What if the child of hope and promise were born into our world, today? What kind of world would they grow up in? What...
December 2025 Tips: Gift Giving
Gift giving started with God, who gave God’s only Son… Wise persons today give their gifts to honor that first Gift.December 2025 Give light. Christmas lights are symbols of the Light that came into the world with the birth of Christ. Enjoy them and use LEDs to take care of the world that Jesus lit up with his presence. LED lights use 1/10 as much energy as conventional holiday lights, and they last years longer. Give a creature to love. Browse gifts.worldwildlife.org for the perfect gift choice for your children or grandchildren. The...
November 2025 Newsletter
In the big work of creation justice, the local is global and the global is local. The November newsletter reflects this. It is filled with stories that demonstrate the importance of the world-wide reach of faith, as well as the vital impact of creation justice lived out locally in every community. Included this month is information on COP30, which gets underway this month. As nations gather again to address the climate crisis, this year in Belém, Brazil, the United Methodist delegation will include on-the-ground and virtual observers....
November 2025 Movement Café: Global Connections for Climate Justice
November 2025 Movement Café: Global Connections for Climate JusticeNovember 19, 2025 10am PT / 11am MT / 12pm CT / 1pm ETSponsored 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.Global Connections for Climate Justice The world-wide reach of our faith is a key opportunity to address the global-to-local challenges of climate change. At the November Movement Cafe we will hear stories that demonstrate the...
Bridge Building Takes Enthusiasm
By Kenneth Lynn JobeThe word enthusiasm originates from the Greek word entheos, meaning “filled with a god within,” referring initially to divine inspiration and later to passionate zeal.I am building a bridge. It is a suspension bridge across a clear water creek on my plot of land in Tennessee. I have walked many trails, even from Georgia to Maine over a 6-month stretch. I have seen many trail bridges and always wanted one across my creek. Building a pedestrian bridge to span 112 feet is no easy task. Especially one that must withstand the...
Using TED to Talk About Caring for Creation
By E. Kevin Conley Our EcoTeam held four Caring for Creation Series. Each series had about six sessions held after the Sunday morning service. In each session we would view a TED Talk with a sustainability topic (about 15 minutes) and then discuss it for the remainder of the hour. This year, we replaced the Caring for Creation Series with a Lenten study of Life After Doom, by Brian McLaren, and a fall study of All We Can Save, by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson. For the latter, we followed the book circle format provided...
Speaking Up for Clean Energy Now
By Karlah Y. Burton I made the earth, and created humankind upon it;it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host.—Isaiah 45:12 (NRSV) On Thursday, October 16, 2025, I and other supporters of Clean Energy Now of Guilford County, NC, gathered to speak up for clean energy before the Guilford County Board of Commissioners. We were urging them to pass a resolution to accomplish a transition to 100% clean energy in county operations by 2050! Similar enactments have already been made by city government and...
Eight Years of Rewarding and Rewarded Work
By Jane Sharer Maier The Grove’s sustainability team has been a fixture of The Grove church in Woodbury, Minnesota for over eight years. During that time, we have taken measures to make the Woodbury campus and our sister campus in Cottage Grove more sustainable by improving our buildings’ energy efficiency, installing solar panels and transitioning to 100% renewable electricity at the Woodbury campus and replacing the Cottage Grove campus furnaces with heat pumps. We have removed invasive species from our church property, planted native...
Feeding Hope, Nurturing Creation: The Story of Lishe Kwa Mtoto in Kenya
In the quiet, rolling hills of Trans-Nzoia and the rugged, arid landscapes of West Pokot in Kenya, the school bell rings not only as a call to learning but as a promise. A promise that today, a child will eat.A promise that hunger will not stand in the way of education.A promise, simple and sacred: Lishe kwa Mtoto (Feed the Child.) In many parts of Kenya, hunger remains a silent emergency. Children some as young as four walk long distances to reach school each morning, often on empty stomachs. Without food, they cannot concentrate. Some...
November 2025 Tips
For overconsumption. Thanksgiving is for many the overeating feast that kicks off holiday buying and more overeating. Here are some tips for making your choices ones of “Giving Thanks.”November 2025 Reverse the words, “thanks giving,” to reshape your observance. Develop a gratitude list. As you make an entry, give thanks to God for that blessing in your life. Regularly reread your record of God’s bounty and find peace in it despite all the disruptions swirling around you. Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday are part of our...
October 2025 Newsletter
Dear Friends, For those of us concerned about creation justice, our work too often involves fighting to stop ecological destruction and environmental injustices. While we must take time to lament and call out the damage that is being done, we also roll up our sleeves and get to work building the new world that we know is possible. This newsletter celebrates the transformative power of regeneration and restoration, offering inspiring stories of United Methodist Ministries that are restoring habitat, sequestering carbon to address the climate...
What Farmers Can Teach Us About Caring for Creation
As people of faith, we’re called to heal God’s creation—and sometimes the answers come from unexpected places. What if part of the solution to climate change is hiding in plain sight—beneath our feet? Roots So Deep (you can see the devil down there) is a 4-part documentary series all about inventive farmers and maverick scientists building a path to solving climate change with hooves, heart and soil. They’re working together to restore soil, rebuild habitat, and even draw down carbon—simply by grazing cattle in a different way. We’ve...
October 2025 Movement Café: Regeneration and Restoration
October 2025 Movement Café: Regeneration and RestorationOctober 15, 2025 10am PT / 11am MT / 12pm CT / 1pm ETSponsored 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.Regeneration and Restoration The October 15 Cafe will showcase United Methodist Ministries in Ohio and Texas that are regenerating rural and urban communities by growing food, restoring habitat and building community. The Urban Farm Church is...
East Bay Earth Connect Retreat: Beautiful Place, Meaningful Connections
The second Earth Connect Retreat was marked by perfect weather on September 6 in a lovely, peaceful setting: Hillside Sanctuary, a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building nestled in El Cerrito with a stunning view of the San Francisco Bay. About 25 participants came from the East and South Bay to connect with fellow earth-lovers and to be renewed for the challenging work of these times.A well-planned, flowing balance of outdoor activities in nature, conversation time in small groups, poetry, music and presentations on Creation Spirituality made...
The Giving Garden: Cultivating More Than Food
In the midst of one of the wealthiest counties in the state of Tennessee and even in the US lurks food insecurity. For people shut-in from age, frailty, or disability to people living with cancer to African American and Hispanic populations, poverty is served up daily. The need is real; the response of Franklin First UMC is the Giving Garden. The historic congregation (founded in 1799) was moving to its fourth location on 107 acres of prime farmland. In 2010 (five years before the new church was built) the five-acre garden began with the...
A Tale of Two Churches and Community Composting
By Crys Zinkiewicz The Creation Care Committee at West End UMC in Nashville successfully moved the church to using a commercial composting company to take food scraps from the day school, congregational meals, and receptions. The Green Team soon learned the importance of having on-the-spot education from people by the compost bin to help others understand what was compostable and what was not. The education paid off with more enthusiasm from congregation members as their understanding increased. People began asking if they could...
Urban Farm Church Grows Crops & Community in Columbus, OH
It all started with a field of grass. For eight months out of every year, the field of grass was mowed. Occasionally, the field was used to throw a frisbee or play a game of kickball or even to take city kids on a hayride. The neighbors worried that the field, located on a busy road in a growing city, would be sold and turned into a gas station or an apartment complex.Then came a pastor with a dream. Some would say it was a crazy dream, but the pastor insisted it was God’s dream. Because only God could dream of something as crazy as turning...
October 2025 Tips
Ours is a faith of resurrection, renewal, regeneration. Our lives are a call to live that faith. Creation care gives us down-to-earth opportunities.October 2025 Regenerate! On a personal level, compost your food and lawn scraps; plant for pollinators; consider rewilding at least a portion of your property. On a larger scale, examine your agricultural practices (cover crops, low till, no chemicals…) for changes that will regenerate the fertility of the soil. The opening book of the Bible reminds us, “God saw everything God had made and...
September 2025 Newsletter
In this time of growing environmental and human rights urgency, this newsletter highlights two exciting efforts emerging from the UM Creation Justice Movement. An Open Letter to the United Methodist Council of Bishops that invites our entire denomination to more deeply incorporate climate justice in our ministry. Stories shared below of how Congregations and Conferences are investing in a just transition away from fossil fuels and resources to help support this work. As many are celebrating Season of Creation and Sun-Day this month, we...
September 2025 Movement Café: Solar Transitions
September 2025 Movement Café: Solar TransitionSeptember 17, 2025 10am PT / 11am MT / 12pm CT / 1pm ETSponsored 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.Solar Transition2025 is a big year for solar installations, energy efficiency, and electrification in churches. Many conference green teams are encouraging solarization of church properties, from local churches to conference centers. These last two...
A Solar Thanksgiving from Germany: A Celebration
Congregants and celebrants gather with Rev. Andreas Krone (center) for a Solar Thanksgiving at the church of Runkel-Steeden, Germany, in 2014. Photo courtesy Andreas Krone. Humans celebrate by giving thanks for the harvest around the world. In Germany, the holiday is called Erntedankfest, meaning Harvest Festival or Thanksgiving, and it falls each year on the first Sunday in October. The universal nature of both harvest and giving thanks lends itself to new and inventive ways to celebrate. For Andreas Krone, a pastor and eco-minister with...
Watt Would Jesus Do?
I’m a cradle United Methodist, born in a small town in the middle of Missouri. My whole family from grandparents to great aunts and uncles had our pew at the local UMC. While charging pew rent was a thing of the past, I dared anyone to take on any of my 6 or 7 aunts to take “our” pews! Never in my life did I imagine I’d one day be working for my church, let alone putting solar panels on our Conference Building more than 30 years later after sitting in my family’s pews. Early in my career, I found myself on the finance side of things. Today, I...
New Audits and Net-Zero Reports – Some Tips, Hopes, and Insights for Implementation
The 2024 Book of Discipline and Book of Resolutions include new faithful actions required for local churches and conferences for creation care and environmental stewardship. As a people called Methodist we understand that righteous action leads to just outcomes. This is our hope with the new reports for charge conferences that, in attending to and measuring what needs to be done, we plot a path for sustainable community and an inheritable Earth. These reports are mission forward. They help us chart a path. This article offers help for those...