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Connect | About Us
Education Action Sustainability Membership Staff
To inspire and mobilize the Christian community to play a leadership role in building a just and sustainable future.
About Us
Founded
in 1992, Earth Ministry’s mission is to inspire and mobilize the Christian
community to play a leadership role in building a just and sustainable
future. We work in partnership with congregations and individuals to
practically respond to this great moral challenge through education,
individual and congregational lifestyle choices, and organizing for social
change through environmental advocacy. Earth Ministry directly supports a
network of 150 congregational activists (Colleagues) representing over 100
Puget Sound area congregations, and has a national membership.
While rooted in the Christian faith, many of our members come from diverse
spiritual traditions. Our programs and resources are available to all.
Learn more about the history of Earth Ministry.
Education
Through publications, curricular resources, and events, Earth Ministry seeks to transform the hearts and minds of people of faith, prompting recognition that caring for all God’s creation is a central tenet of our faith.
Quarterly Journal
Earth Letter is Earth Ministry's nationally acclaimed quarterly journal. Its articles, stories, and book reviews highlight Christian environmental spirituality, theology, and action and reflect on the Christian call to care for all creation. Earth Letter has published works by, among others, Wendell Berry, Pattiann Rogers, Joan Chittister, Bill Moyers, Barry Lopez, and Rosemary Radford Ruether.
Greening Congregations Handbook: Stories, Ideas, and Resources for Cultivating Creation Awareness and Care in Your Congregation. This 225-page Handbook is a “tool box” for all who want to foster creation awareness and care in their congregations, including a “Greening Congregation Process” to help congregations develop an enduring, creation-honoring focus within all dimensions of congregational life.
Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective
is both an anthology of essays and a
community-building study guide. This book helps individuals and groups
become aware of the connections between the Christian faith, daily
life-style choices, and their impact on the natural world.
Food and Faith: Justice, Joy, and Daily Bread,
is also an anthology and community-building study guide. It begins with the
celebration and spirituality of food, examines the ecological and social
impacts of the global food system, and includes chapters on health,
genetically modified organisms, and hunger.
You can purchase printed resources on our
secure webpage.
Events
Earth
Day: In April, Earth
Ministry hosts an Earth Day celebration, combining a creation-centered
worship service with a hands-on restoration project. Previous years’
projects include planting trees along the Duwamish River and a march and
rally for Congress to take action on climate change.
Celebration of St. Francis:
Earth Ministry celebrates the birthday of St. Francis the patron saint of
the environment, each October with an evening program consisting of a
keynote speaker and an artist, making the connection between nature,
spirituality and the arts. Past presenters include authors Terry Tempest
Williams, Bill McKibben, David James Duncan and Tim Eagan; photographer
Subhankar Banerjee; dancer Betsey Beckman; and various musicians and
painters. In 2007, we celebrated Earth Ministry's 15th
Anniversary
with an Italian-themed, sit-down dinner; prayers and celebrations; Spirit of
St. Francis Awards to outstanding leaders in faith and environment; fabulous
auction items; and wonderful company!
Speaking, Preaching, and Teaching: Earth Ministry staff, volunteers and Board members are available as speakers, preachers and teachers at worship services and other organized events. In addition, Earth Ministry co-sponsors many local and national events each year, including lectures, workshops, field trips, and conferences.
Interfaith Creation
Festival:
In June 2007, the Interfaith Creation Festival, a major regional and interfaith
eco-justice conference co-sponsored by Earth Ministry, was held in
Seattle. Three nationally recognized speakers keynoted the event
(Bishop Steven Charleston, Dr. Karen Baker-Fletcher, and Rabbi Lawrence Troster),
and there were numerous workshops, panels, and opportunities for art, music,
and prayer throughout the weekend.
Field Trips:
Since the beginning, Earth Ministry has been known for providing
opportunities for people to connect with nature in the context of their
faith. Field trips include meditative hikes, bird watching, habitat
restoration, and retreats. Find out more about upcoming
nature encounters and restoration events
or our Retreat at Holden Village
coming in the summer of 2008.
Action
Through outreach and organizing within faith communities, Earth Ministry mobilizes Christians to live their faith by caring for the places they inhabit and working in their communities, churches, and government to promote justice for Earth and all its inhabitants.
Colleagues (Congregational Activists)
Colleagues educate and actively engage their congregations in practices of sustainability, such as “green” church remodeling, toxic-free grounds care, direct environmental advocacy, and other areas of congregational life. We estimate Colleague congregations represent between 30,000-40,000 members from Roman Catholic and fourteen Protestant denominations, ranging from “mainline” to Pentecostal to Unitarian Universalist. As congregants’ values are significantly influenced via their faith experience, our programs have a multiplier effect as individuals take what they learn into their home, business, or professional settings.
Church-Based Programs
Caring for All Creation, a four-part series, is designed to embody more sustainable practices within individual households and the household of the entire church. The series includes "On the Road" about our transportation choices; "At the Table" about our food choices; "In the Home" about our home maintenance choices; and "By the Waters" about water conservation and river restoration (our newest module). Each module is designed to be celebrated as part of a Sunday worship service to engage congregants in caring for creation as part of their faith practice and life choices. The organizers' packets contain worship, education, sermon, promotion, and follow-up resources.
Greening Congregations
recognizes an individual church’s commitment to operate in a sustainable and
creation-friendly manner through an annual action plan designed and
implemented by the church’s ecological stewardship committee and formally
adopted by its governing body. Eighteen congregations in the Puget Sound
area have become “Greening Congregations Partners.”
Earth Ministry firmly believes that “addressing the degradation of God’s sacred Earth is the moral assignment of our time...comparable to the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s and the worldwide movement to achieve equality for women” (from The National Council of Churches’ Eco-Justice Working Group’s statement, “God’s Earth is Sacred”).
In
today’s political climate, faith-based voices carry considerable clout.
Engaging people of faith in shaping public policy is imperative to retain
existing environmental laws, and to move forward with proactive legislation
that protects God’s creation. Earth Ministry is strategically positioned to
educate and organize individuals and congregations to plug into the
political process, through both our Colleague network and individual
membership base. Our advocacy focuses on Washington State environmental
issues, and we also periodically engage in larger efforts, such as
protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and addressing the causes of
climate change
Communication
Read Inspire and Mobilize - Earth Ministry's blog on faith and the environment, which started as a way for the staff to share their Lenten journeys of fasting from environmentally destructive behaviors. The blog will continue with staff contributions on relevant faith-and environment topics, reflections, challenges, poems, and hopeful news.
Earth Ministry inspires and mobilizes the Christian community through our Web site (www.earthministry.org) and listservs. You can sign up for both of these listservs on the Earth Ministry homepage.
earthministry-events-action: Informs subscribers in the Pacific Northwest of local events and actions that can be taken to engage in faith-based environmental stewardship.
earthministry-news: Keeps Earth Ministry members up-to-date on major happenings at the organization, and in the realm of eco-justice and creation care.
Sustainability
Earth Ministry seeks to model sustainable practices as an organization, including funding diversity, investment in developing leaders, collaboration and strategic alliances, and socially responsible and sustainable operations and financial management.
Become a member of Earth Ministry today and
you join a
committed group of individuals around the nation who express their faith
through building a just and
sustainable future. Our primary funding is through individual memberships,
which begin at $35 per year. Your contribution supports our
Caring for
All Creation and Greening Congregations programs as well as our
advocacy and outreach work. In addition, we will send you four quarterly
issues of our nationally acclaimed journal, Earth Letter.
You can become a member today through our
Online Store or using our Mail-in Order Form
Our Staff
LeeAnne Beres, Executive
Director
Jessie Dye, Program & Outreach
Director
Jim Mulligan, Editor, Earth
Letter
Kaitlin Torgerson, Outreach
Coordinator
Beth Anderson, Outreach Coordinator
Deanna Akre Matzen, Operations Manager