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KAIROS CALL TO ACTION NEWSLETTER
Volume 4, Issue 4
July 2023
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Creation Care Retreats on Tap for Fall |
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Save these dates for fall retreats sponsored by the Wisconsin Conference Creation Care Team.
Sept. 29-30, Moon Beach
Oct. 13-14, Daycholah Center
Both retreats take place Friday-Saturday, with an option to stay until Sunday.
The focus for this fall’s session is Love for Creation through Action
Join us to:
- Discover you’re not alone in caring for Creation.
- Learn how Creation Care can bring forth new leadership in your congregation.
- Join in workshops with practical applications.
- Share cross-pollination of experiences and ideas for Creation Car.
- Enjoy the autumn splendor of Moon Beach and Daycholah.
Stay tuned for more information. Questions? Email John Helt.
Image from last year's Creation Care retreat at Daycholah Center.
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Great Lakes Creation Care Collaborative to Meet in Person Aug. 14-16 |
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Join representatives from UCC conferences throughout the Great Lakes basin at this direction-setting gathering of the Great Lakes Creation Care Collaborative, as we plan steps to advocate for climate justice and healthy waters. The venue is the Tower Hill Camp and Retreat Center in Sawyer, Michigan, and the cost is $70. The study material for the gathering is “Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility,” edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua. For more information, email Mike Mulberry.
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Creation Care Helps Develop Congregational Leaders |
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The Conference Creation Care Team offered a workshop at June’s Annual Meeting on how establishing a Green Team can help a congregation recruit, inspire and develop new leaders who don’t feel called to traditional church leadership roles. Global warming is here, and people are looking for ways small and large to make changes with impact. Green Teams have motivated individuals to become leaders in the process.
A video of Green Team leaders from several congregations shared how they inspired their communities to get involved in sustainable activities through events around Earth Day. See video here.
Cindy Halfen of Plymouth UCC in Eau Claire produced a video showing how her congregation’s Green Team transformed the church property over three years from a woods full of invasive species to a spacious wooded area that’s home to native plants and bushes. They also helped neighbors remove invasive species from their properties. The church is reaching out to the wider Eau Claire community by tours tours of what they have accomplished. Check out her video here. (If you don't have Facebook, you can still watch the video. Just click "not now" when asked to sign up.)
Workshop participants left with ideas on how to inspire their congregations. If you want to be inspired, this workshop will be repeated at the Creation Care Fall Retreats.
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Information Sharing on Solar Projects:
A Big Annual Meeting Activity
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Attendees at the Wisconsin Conference Annual Meeting met to work on a number of creation care topics. One area of tremendous interest is sharing know-how around solar projects. Financial incentives from the federal government and diverse grant sources are making this a good time to look at these projects.
Members of United Presbyterian Congregational Church in Ashland, for example, provided detailed information about their process for considering and moving ahead with a solar project. You can read the full story here.
Learn more by meeting with others at upcoming Creation Care retreats!
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Fostering ‘Cross-Pollination’ at Plymouth UCC, Eau Claire |
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The new garden at Plymouth hosts pollinators like bees and butterflies, and provides lots of opportunity for “cross-pollination” with the larger Eau Claire community.
Plymouth hosted tours of their project on July 7 and 9. Plymouth lay leader Cindy Halfen provided the video about the project, and shared this report:
We invited the Environmental Task Force from JONAH (“Joining Our Neighbors Advancing Hope”) and the Eau Claire Garden Club, which meets at Plymouth. (The garden club has given us yearly grants for our project.) Nine people representing five churches in Eau Claire visited us, some were also members of the Eau Claire Garden Club. Keith demonstrated the “Pullerbear” buckthorn puller and explained the methods we’re using to remove invasive plants, including judicious use of herbicides. I described the process of starting prairie flowers and grasses from seed, site preparation and plant selection, as well as invasive plant removal. (See video here.) We shared ideas and experiences, and the start of a local network.
Cindy added this information about JONAH: “Since 2007, JONAH has been working with people, agencies and organizations to help make our communities healthier, safer and better places for everyone to live and work. We believe that our work is about building community and building capacity to address root causes of poverty and injustice. We come together for this important and public work because when every one person does better, everyone does better.” Cindy added, “JONAH’s sustainability team held their monthly meeting / lunch at Plymouth this spring. I gave a presentation about our project during lunch and ended up joining the team.”
The project has, of course, been a “seedbed” for members of the congregation, with lots of them native plant seedlings to start their own gardens. And it’s created the opportunity to build relationships with neighbors whose property borders that of the church.
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Madison-Area Churches Gather ‘Round Using Speak With the Earth
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During May and June, Memorial UCC in Fitchburg and McFarland UCC in McFarland jointly hosted a book discussion of Speak with the Earth and it Will Teach You by Daniel Cooperrider. Four discussion sessions were held. Each session focused on one of the four sections in the book (Rivers, Mountains, Trees and Clouds). The discussions were led by different members of the group, and about 15 people attended each discussion. The sessions were held outdoors:
- on the gazebo Memorial UCC
- in the shade of the trees on the McFarland UCC campus
- at Lake Farm Park on the shore of Lake Waubesa (two sessions)
Author Daniel Cooperrider joined us for the last gathering. He asked the group questions and answered questions from the group. Daniel closed the session by reading a section of the epilogue aloud.
Memorial UCC received a grant from the Wisconsin Conference Creation Care Team to help offset the cost of the books for its members. After the discussion, Memorial will ask members to donate their books to be recycled to other congregations.
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Daycholah Center Stewardship:
Preserving and Protecting Effigy Mounds
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A continuing priority of United Church Camps, Inc. is to create a respectful and responsible plan to preserve and protect the effigy mounds on the Daycholah Center property.
UCCI is collaborating on this work with the archaeology department at the University of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Ho-Chunk tribal historian. Other current efforts include the first educational signage related to the mounds. (See photo.)
Plan to learn more about this work when you or your congregation participates in a camp, retreat or other event at Daycholah. (Full calendar of events here.)
In addition to the work on the mounds, plans are progressing for a multicultural welcome center including a flag display and fire ring, part of a shared vision for lifting up the history and celebrating the present vibrancy of Native American peoples in Wisconsin. These initiatives are part of UCCI’s ongoing efforts to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, and to join people throughout the Wisconsin Conference in working in partnership with Native groups.
Please support these efforts. You can contact the Rev. James Schleif, UCCI executive director, to learn how you and your congregation can advance this work.
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Original Children’s Play Anchors Creation Care-Focused Worship at Plymouth, Madison |
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“Dr. Noah, it's been forty days and nights now
that your machine has been operating.
I haven't noticed any changes.
It feels hot as ever."
Children participating in the education program at Plymouth UCC, Madison, staged a special production during worship on June 4: “The Antediluvian Project,” an updating of the Noah story, based on an original script by Plymouth lay leader Rick Reiner.
“Antediluvian” means “of or belonging to the time before the biblical flood.” The play followed the adventures of Dr. Noah and her fellow scientists as they worked on a society-wide effort – with the support of legislators and the general public – to develop solutions to the climate crisis.
A central prop in the production was a fantastical “machine” – a metaphor for all the work and sacrifices that solving the climate crisis will demand. The prop was the subject of many works of assembly by the children, and astounded the audience.
Many additional elements of the day’s worship supported the themes of the play – themes such as “What promises are you making to care for God's creation?” and the need to work together to care for our planet:
- Scripture: Paraphrase from Genesis 1-2: "The Creation" (based on the poem by James Weldon Johnson)
- Children’s Anthem: O Great Earth (by Linnea Good)
- Prayer of Invocation: A Sioux Prayer (from Chief Yellow Lark, 1887)
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Hymns from the New Century Hymnal (#28 “For the Beauty of the Earth,” #402 “De Colores (Sing of Colors),” #569 “Touch the Earth Lightly”)
- Gathering Prayer (from the Uniting Church in Australia)
The script is available here and congregations are invited to consider mounting their own productions.
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Creation Care Grants Power Projects at Congregations Across Wisconsin |
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Did you know that congregations all over Wisconsin can benefit from Creation Care grants? If your congregation has a project to benefit creation, from a faith formation curriculum, to speakers, events, native plantings, energy efficiency and more, we encourage you to apply. Our grant application can be found on the Wisconsin Conference website here.
Note: Click on the map image to enlarge it.
Listen to these inspiring words from Mary Iserman, writing on behalf of the Ripon First Congregational Church, about the progress they’ve been making using the grant they received to create a garden:
We worked with a nursery out of Westfield, Wis., and ordered a 64-plant native pollinator garden package and 32 native plants and two native red twig dogwoods to plant in the garden. In the meantime, one member of the congregation has been collecting seeds that we planted around the plants that we have purchased.
One of our members has donated pavers to the church and we included these in the garden. Four of our members have made additional special pavers that were placed throughout the garden.
We also have a bench that was placed in the garden. The bench was achieved through recycling of plastic by the congregation which earned the garden bench from NEXTREX.
Another member, as a memorial, has given a tree to the church. It has been placed near the garden although that is a separate project.
One of our members has contributed a birdhouse.
One of our members has prepared the ground and you will see what a wonderful job he has done. Much of his work was volunteer. He had some help from students of the Crossroads Academy which rents classroom space from the church. (Crossroads Academy helps students that may struggle with the regular classroom setting. Students are able to learn at their own pace and in their own work environment.) Their work was volunteer and was a huge help to us.
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We believe that we have made progress towards our goal of having a native garden on the front side of the church in order to make our church home a welcoming garden for the multicultural and multigenerational community of not only Ripon, but also Green Lake and other adjoining areas as well. We believe that through this garden we can care for God’s creation and provide a relationship with our Creator. We hope to see the college students from the neighboring college sitting and taking respite from their heavy workload. We hope to see others walking by the church grounds stopping to get a breath of fresh air and enjoying the color that is being provided. We hope to see members sitting on the bench and understanding how the environment and climate change and native plants all interact.
Our congregation came together to make this wonderful garden a possibility. The children that helped were quite excited to be involved and we hope that they feel this is their garden as well. We hope this is truly a wonderful pollinator garden. We hope more individuals will understand the need for conservation and see how native gardens can add to our environment. Planting was truly a multigenerational activity.
What a powerful story of building community through creation care!
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UCC Webinar: UCC Trailblazer, the EPA and New Grant Programs
Charles Lee, lead author of the UCC’s landmark report on toxic waste and race as well as the lead organizer of the historic First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, will be one of two featured speakers on environmental justice at the EPA. Lee is now senior policy adviser for environmental justice at the EPA. He will be joined by Jacob Burney, who directs the EPA’s Environmental Justice Grants Division.
Time: 1 p.m.
Date: Aug. 9
Fall 2023: Save The Date
The Immigration Working Group will provide a learning opportunity in a workshop called “Why Fair Trade,” scheduled for 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Sept 28. Contact Lisa Hart at lhart@wcucc.org to begin receiving updates about the work of the Conference’s Immigration Working Group, including its monthly meeting notices.
Reducing Emissions: What Does Discipleship Require?
When it comes to choosing among new technologies like electric vehicles, is complexity standing in the way of your progress? Drive $mart Wisconsin has provided a useful tip sheet to help guide discussion of possible options (including Hybrid Electric Vehicles, Plug-in Electric Vehicles, and full Battery Electric Vehicles.
Follow the Money: Pension Boards UCC’s Sustainable Climate Policy
Of special interest to all those impacted by UCC pensions: “Brian R. Bodager, President and CEO, announces the addition of a new Sustainable Climate Policy to the PBUCC’s Investment Policy Statement. This announcement comes on the 10th anniversary of the passage of the United Church of Christ’s 2013 General Synod resolution urging divestment from fossil fuel companies in the effort to address climate change.” More on the Pension Boards website.
Community Gardens: Not Just in Wisconsin!
Did you see it? The community garden project of St. John’s UCC in Belvidere, Illinois, was featured in the July 23 Mission Message of the UCC Sunday Bulletin Service. You can read about the community garden project on the St. John’s website.
UCC General Synod Creation Care Resolutions
The 2023 General Synod of the UCC saw action on numerous resolutions related to creation care, including: Encouraging a Plant-based Life, A Resolution Urging Planning for and Implementing Electrification, and Free from Plastic Pollution. (Details on the General Synod website.) See the General Synod resolutions page for details on the outcome of each.
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Coming in September: Your Summer Creation Care Adventures!
We want to share your stories about your congregation’s summer creation care adventures. Send us reports and photos, and we’ll publish them in the September edition of the Kairos Newsletter. (Pictured here: Madison Christian Community trip to the Boundary Waters, via Instagram.)
Do you have a news item for the Kairos Newsletter? Send it to Joe Scarry.
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View Franz Rigert's video Announcing the Wisconsin Conference UCC Kairos Call To Action and share with your congregation!
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Sign up for the Kairos Call to Action Newsletter to ensure you don't miss future issues!
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This newsletter is made possible by your contributions to Our Church's Wider Mission Basic Support. |
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