Message from our Eco-Minister

April 2024 

MCEC friends, April is Earth Month! How is your congregation exploring its relationship with God’s good earth? Are you deepening your awareness of how environmental concerns are discipleship issues? I’m happy to highlight some resources and ideas for your ministry and congregational life for this month and beyond:

Worship Resources & Sunday School Resources

Earth Day falls on Sunday, April 21. Here are some prayers and worship resources you may wish to weave into your Sunday morning, whether you make it the theme for the morning, or want to at least mention during sharing and prayer time.

• Creation Justice Ministries creates Earth Day worship resources every year. You can find this year’s materials here, along with their past themes and materials. Additionally, they have a video about how to preach about climate justice – it is a good video and includes 9 Tips for Preaching Resilience.
• I have written a variety of creation care prayers you can find on the Burning Bush Forest Church website.
• CommonWord Resource Centre has a curated collection of Earth Day Resources for worship and other settings.
• Anabaptist Climate Collaborative has published three video based Sunday school sessions for adults and youth called Caring for Climate: Moving from Anxiety to Action.
• Check out the new collection called Together In Hope which aims to support intergenerational dialogue and action in the climate crisis. You can search within the collection; for example, here is a subset of group discussion resources.
• Looking for a earth-friendly summer vacation camp curriculum? Bees for Peace has one that a few of our MCEC congregations and Silver Lake Mennonite Camp used it last summer. You can find it on the Bees for Peace website, along with other resources for making your church property more bee-friendly.

Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle  

Everything we ever buy or own will eventually be discarded – but it doesn’t ‘go away.’ Because the earth is a closed system with limited resources, we want to limit our consumption to start with. Landfills are overflowing and plastics are finding their way into the oceans. Minority and low-income areas are more likely to find themselves home to landfills and hazardous waste sites. We can serve God by reducing consumption, being good stewards of what we have, and sending less to landfills.

Recycling is our last option when it comes to making a positive impact on the earth’s ecosystems and health. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still find ways of diverting more of our existing waste from landfills as we work towards creating more circular systems. Terracycle is a way to recycle products and packaging that would otherwise be considered trash. Churches are excellent hubs for collection – Zion Mennonite Church in Elmira partners with another local church to collect different items for the program.

Another idea I think would be exiting for congregations to explore is the global Repair Café movement. Many congregations are filled with people who have practical skills such as sewing, bike repair, electronics, jewellery making, etc. Why not create space to teach these skills to others, or to create an event to bring in items to be repaired or mended, and see what you can do to bring new life to items that would otherwise be discarded? This could also be a way to engage with and serve neighbours in your community.

Consider the Birds

Finally, I’d love to see you out at Point Pelee on the afternoon of Friday, April 26, before the Annual Church Gathering in Leamington. Note: this is not a hard-core birding event! We certainly will see some birds and early spring signs of life, and it will be a time of reflection and connecting with God’s presence. Find out more on our website. And, while you’re at the ACG, check out the display table for the Creation Care Resource Group to learn about how you can get involved.

Blessings this month as we focus on our reconciling ministry with all creation!