Stories for the Healing of Creation
The Lutheran Church of the Cross Creation Care Team is installing a pollinator habitat and creating youth educational opportunities about the importance of pollinators. Their goal is to create 25 gardens within a 30-mile radius of Brainerd. Read more about their important and fun initiative here.

An EcoFaith microgrant was awarded to Lutheran Church of the Cross to support this work.
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The St. Paul Area Synod Care of Creation Work Group has embarked on a quest to understand and encourage the regenerative agriculture movement in Minnesota. Read more about this effort from Don Schuld's reflection from our Called to Arise series here.
Action Opportunity This Weekend

If you cannot attend the Treaty People Gathering this weekend but still feel called to act, here are a few other ways you can help Stop Line 3:

3. Host an action hour in your congregation or community where you let people know about Line 3 and help them take action. All the materials are in English and Spanish. 
4. Defund the pipeline by divesting and organizing others to divest from Line 3. Learn more about divestment here.

If you would like to contribute art or banners to the Treaty Peoples Gathering, learn more here.

Thank you for joining us for the EcoFaith Summit on April 17th!

Here is the link for the full video recording of the Summit:

Here is a link to the playlist for all the pieces from the Summit:

Here is a description of the speakers.

If anyone is interested in native milkweed seeds, you can email Alicia Green at mallardlake0806@hotmail.com and she will ship them the seeds along with information!!! Great activity to involve kids!!!
Season of Creation Workshop
For those unable to attend the Workshop on the Season of Creation led by Pastors David Carlson and Mark Ditmanson on May 27, the recording is available here! 
Passcode: T&T4MF=# 

Share with your worship team, and get in touch with us with your questions and ideas!
EcoFaith in Worship and the Word
Preaching for the Whole Creation
Creation in Preaching

June 13 Pastor Mark Ditmanson, Bethlehem Lutheran, Grand Marais

There are times of the year when I walk past a majestic red pine in the forest south of Poplar Lake. It is an immense tree. This particular tree is close to the path and the open ground beneath it provides me the sign of the busy red squirrel in the upper branches. At times scattered around the path there are hundreds of twigs and bundles of needles with cones attached as the busy squirrel drops them to collect later. More than once when I stop to admire the cones I can
hear her scolding me from the heights, ‘leave them alone, those are mine!’ She is too high to see, but my imagination pictures her whiskers stuck back on her cheeks with pine sap. And in truth I have seen a squirrel happily munching on sticky spruce cones with
sap glistening off its paws. And when I consider her in the tall branches so busy, sometimes I think about Ezekiel 17.

Read the whole reflection here.

June 20 Maria Anderson-Lippert, Christ the Kind Lutheran, Bloomington

The readings for this week, especially the reading from Job and the Gospel lesson,
challenge me to reorient my understanding of my own, and God’s, relationship to
creation. They remind me of the power of God in relation to creation in both the Hebrew
and Christian scriptures, as well as the interplay of our relationship with creation and
with God. As I read, I wrestle with my own complacency, my own sense of
powerlessness, my tendencies towards individualism, and in many ways, my own
struggle with faithlessness.

Read the whole reflection here.

June 27 Kristin Foster
In her book, Native, Caitlyn Matthews writes of the mother whale who grieves for her dead cub for seventeen straight days….. Her pod joins her. Caitlin writes, “The day that Tahlequah’s calf dies, I had no idea….I saw it on the news a few days later, but one I knew, Tahlequah’s presence wouldn’t leave my mind…. It had never been recorded that a whale had carried their deceased baby that long. For seventeen lingering days, her pod alongside her, she wailed in the way only an orca can. There were in communal mourning, and I couldn’t help but ask if humans even know how to mourn anymore.  

Read the whole reflection here.
Sunday Creation Connections
This section comes from Sundays & Seasons and brings creation connections for every Sunday.

June 13 – Lectionary 11/ Pentecost 3
In the parables of the mustard seed and the man spreading seeds on the ground, we can relate the physical growth of plants to the spiritual maturation of people. A single seed anchored by sprouting roots results in a pathway for the nutrients of water and minerals to reach stems and leaves. From this humble beginning it matures into a massive structure that provides a space for other living things. As with a maturing plant, the human growth process from youth to adulthood meets with uncertainty and challenge. Yet as we are anchored in God and feast on the Word, we mature. Together with others in faith, we become a community that gives space for nesting and growth. If you were to describe your Christian journey in terms of a plant, what plant would you be? Why?

Check out the June and July creation connections here.

This Month's Green Tips


Feel free to use these striking Green Tips created by two Synod members for your bulletins and general knowledge! These are meant to inspire earthkeeping action!

Here are Laura Raedeke's Green Tips Lutheran Church of the Cross in Nisswa and here are Steve Spigarelli's Green Tips from First Lutheran in Aitkin.

Book Review
The Way the World Is
by John Polkinghorne

This is not a book about eco-faith issues directly. It is the author’s perspective on how the Christian faith is a lens through which we can discern God’s active presence in the world. It is a unique perspective since the author was a theoretical physicist, teaching at Cambridge, England, and then became ordained in the Episcopal Church. The book gives an interesting perspective on how the science/religion debate can be understood by one who has been schooled in both views of how the world works.

Read the whole book review here.






This book review is by John Hanson, a retired pastor living on Turtle Lake, north of Grand Rapids, with his wife, Linda. He is a member of the NE MN Synod EcoFaith Leadership Team.
June St. Paul Area Synod Care of Creation Work Group Message

“The Talmud states, "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

Chris Erickson
Visit my website at www.urluvd.weebly.com


Read more about efficient lighting here.
Other Events Happening
What We've Been Reading
Here are a few other resources the EcoFaith Team is reading!

For a regular climate related podcast: How to Save a Planet
For a regular energy related podcast: The Energy Gang


The EcoFaith Network of Northeastern MN is a growing network of ELCA Lutheran congregations and their members in northeastern Minnesota with a mission to live out God's call to be stewards of the earth for the sake of the whole creation. Through social media, seminars, resources on current environmental justice issues, project micro-grants and active inter-and intra- congregational conversations, the EcoFaith Network encourages grassroots creation care actions among the Synod’s 133 congregations and leadership within their communities.