"Now the green blade rises from the buried grain" | |
An online publication of the EcoFaith Network NE-MN Synod with Saint Paul Area Synod Care of Creation | |
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Earth’s Cries, Earth’s Call
Becoming Midwives of Hope for the Healing of Creation
Saturday, April 5, 2025
First Lutheran, Duluth and Online
Registration Now Open!
Lead speaker: Dr. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda
Presenter: Dr. Kelly Sherman-Conroy
The ever-increasing cries of creation in crisis could easily overwhelm us.
Instead let them serve as a clarion call to help bring life out of potential death, to help give renewed birth to all creation, to all creatures including ourselves.
Join in becoming midwives of hope and healing.
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View from the Pollinator Plot
by Jan Bilden,
St. Andrews Lutheran Church, Grand Rapids MN
Chair of the Pollinator Plot Steering Committee
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Plotting your Pollinator Plot
The snow lies thickly on our gardens and lawns at this time of year, and it is a time to make plans for the growing season. Whether you are in the beginning stages of planning a Pollinator Plot or have a firmly established plot at your church or home, it is important to give attention to maintenance and improvement and do a little dreaming!
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How to finance? Invite members of your congregation to be stakeholders and contribute to establishing a plot, encouraging both financial and sweat equity, as they are able. Thrivent Action Grants, available to those who are Thrivent members, are designed to fund community projects or events and have been a marvelous source of funding. The NE MN Synod EcoFaith (www.ecofaithnetwork.org) offers microgrants for seed funding for projects in addition.
Read full article here.
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Share and Learn April 10: Pollinator Plot | | |
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Does your congregation have a pollinator plot? Thinking about it? Join the Synod Pollinator Plot folks on Thursday, April 10 at noon via zoom for a Share & Learn on plotting. We will share our stories, get questions answered, and learn about the critical status of the monarch butterfly and how our plots may also be monarch waystations. No registration necessary. Click here for event information and zoom links on our EcoFaith Network Events page. | |
Creation Advocacy Opportunities | |
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Lenten Letter Challenge 2025
from Lutheran Advocacy - MN
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We need you – your congregation, campus, youth group, confirmation class, WELCA group, church committee, or whatever – to be in contact with your Minnesota state representative and senator! It is in relationship with their constituents that our legislators know what we care about, and why. | |
State Funding for Pollinator Habitat | |
Lawns to Legumes is a state funded initiative which promotes establishing native pollinator habitat. Their goals are consonant with those of our own synod's "pollinator plot" initiative. They have been helpful and affirming of our efforts. However, their own funding is in jeopardy. In these unprecedented times of widespread pervasive attacks on what we cherish as basic Christian values - including our calling to protect and restore God's gift of creation - our collaboration with and support of allies is deserving of our time and attention. | |
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The Everflowing Stream Webinar Series:
Advocacy Workshops for Weighty Concerns
from Lutheran Advocacy - MN
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In a time of great division and uncertainty, hope seems to be in short supply. Every day we see harm being done to our neighbors both here and abroad, our planet, and our trust in one another. Join Lutheran Advocacy - Minnesota and our partners in our new webinar series to stay informed and take meaningful action toward a more just future.
Tuesday evenings from 7:00-8:30pm - February 25, March 4, 11, 18, & 25
Topics:
- Minnesota session (including Electronic Waste)
- Immigration
- Care of Creation
- International Disruptions
- Poverty & Hunger
What to Expect
- Non-partisan presentations from trusted LA-MN/ELCA staff and partners
- Review of the ELCA's theological stance (Why do Lutheran's care?)
- Question & Answer time with panelists
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Stories & News
from Congregations, Campuses, Camps, Synods, & Communities
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Worship and Music at the EcoFaith Summit
Paul Jacobson, composer
St. Paul Area Synod Care of Creation work group
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Worship, music, and lately, dance, are a vital part of our EcoFaith gathering. This April we live into the story of the two Egyptian midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to deliver life rather than death.
Read more here.
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Grants are available in amounts between $100-$2000.
Projects in a variety of areas are eligible for seed money funding, including but not limited to:
Art and environment
Community gardening
Community engagement and advocacy
Education
Energy conservation (e.g. solar panels, off-peak water heaters, etc.)
Participation in a regional conference
Pollinator Project initiatives
Special events and speakers
Wilderness encounter
Youth environmental action and exploration
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NE-MN Synod EcoFaith Partner Congregations 2025 | |
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Become a EcoFaith Network Partner Congregation!
- Pray for the Creation and those who work to protect it.
- Include the care of Creation in your ministry.
- Make a financial contribution to support our shared work
- Send members to the April 5 EcoFaith Summit
- Help us share your Creation care story
Join the movement to Care for God's Creation!
See how other Congregations are Caring for Creation in Northeastern MN
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Worshipping with the Whole Creation | |
Green Blades Preaching Roundtable | |
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Transfiguration Sunday
March 2, 2025
Rev. Karen Behling
A Prophetic Call for Climate Justice
As a kid, growing up in the midwest with big piles of snow, I recall playing “King of the Mountain.” The goal of the game was to race to the top of the snow pile, trying to be first, and once up there, expending lots of energy trying to prevent any others from reaching the top. No matter how large the pile of snow, the rules dictated that only one person could be king of the mountain. One’s reign, however, never lasted long, with the constant challenge from other kids trying to dethrone the king.
Read the full reflection here.
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Ash Wednesday
March 5, 2025
Rev. Melinda Quivik
Back here on Earth, each grain of dust is being sliced into sections so thin that it would take 25 of them to equal the width of a human hair. What do the astro-scientists find? They will learn how the things in the universe come together and how they fall apart. They will learn from the dust. The dust will reveal something about who we are in ways we cannot yet imagine.
Read the full reflection here
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First Sunday in Lent
March 9, 2025
Rev. Amanda Kossow
I will be honest, the thoughts I share for this first Sunday of Lent invite you into the wilderness where this mighty struggling takes place. They are not completely cohesive. Rather, they are ruminations of a mind, soul and body endeavoring to live faithfully in the wrestling.
Read the full reflection here
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Second Sunday in Lent
March 16, 2025
Rev. Dianne Loufman
When I hear this Lukan text, I always recall the chapel service at seminary when someone preached about Jesus as the mother hen gathering her chicks protecting them from a storm. One of the male professors sitting behind me commented under his breath for the benefit of his male sycophants that he’d rather worship the One who created the storm than a chicken. They all laughed. I wonder– what offended the professor the most? God compared to a creature, this particular creature or the use of feminine imagery to describe God?
Read the full reflection here
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Third Sundays in Lent
March 23, 2025
Rev. Krehl Stringer
What I would like to suggest (and will elaborate next week with the 4 Lent readings) is a kind of repentance (a Lenten descent) that returns us to our indignity (“you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen. 3:19b)), there to be reacquainted with our imago Dei (in loving partnership with God and all creatures) in restoring and sustaining a co-op of peace on earth.
Read the full reflection here
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Fourth Sundays in Lent
March 30, 2025
Rev. Krehl Stringer
Perhaps as Christians and as a Church, we are finally “coming to ourselves” (like that prodigal in the parable at Luke 15:17)—finding ourselves sick and dying of the dissolute sins and systemic evils we have selfishly pursued—no longer able to deny the styes and the cries we have wrought, but finally brought low enough to confess our transgressions, to be welcomed and restored to beloved community, and be bold about the business of resisting the oppressive powers, of healing the wounded, of feeding the hungry, of sheltering the refugee, of reclaiming the lost, of incarnating the divine commitment to shalom, healing.
Read the full reflection here
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Connections with Creation
March 2025
© 2024 Sundays & Seasons, reprinted with permission
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Read all Connections with Creation for March and April (word docs)
Suggestion: Use them in your weekly church bulletin or announcements!
Follow us on Facebook to see Connections with Creation posted weekly
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This Month's Green Tips
Figuring Out Climate Change:
Global Warming is Making the Planet (including Minnesota) Hotter, Wetter and Drier
"Yes, and How Many Times Can a Man Turn His Head and Pretend That He Just Doesn't See?"
- Bob Dylan
Green Tips are a weekly paragraph on a topic related to Care of Creation. You are invited to use one a week in your bulletin announcements, social media, Bible Studies, or compile them into your monthly newsletter or bulletin boards.
Find Green Tips Here
Researched by Laura Raedeke from Lutheran Church of the Cross, Nisswa
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Book Discussion Opportunities | |
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Through the College of St. Scholastica, Pastor Dave Carlson of Gloria Dei in Duluth facilitates two monthly book discussion groups, to which all are welcome:
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Earth Harmony, Thursday, March 13 - Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological Economic Vocation by Cynthia Moe-Lobeda (2013). Meeting 8:00-9:00 a.m. in person at Chester Creek Cafe in Duluth.
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Religion & Science, Wednesday, March 19 - Building a Moral Economy: Pathways for People of Courage by Cynthia Moe-Lobeda (2024). Meeting 8:00-9:00 a.m. via Zoom. Contact Pastor Carlson for the link or for more information, pastor@gloriadeiduluth.org
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Building a Moral Economy: by Cynthia Moe-Lobeda,
EcoFaith Summit 2025 Lead Speaker
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Building a Moral Economy
Pathways for People of Courage
by Cynthia Moe-Lobeda
Lead Speaker at the 2025
EcoFaith Summit of the Upper Midwest
Enjoy a 2-minute preview: Book Trailer
Early praise for Building a Moral Economy
“Cynthia Moe-Lobeda welcomes us, her readers, into a personal conversation about despair and hope, drawing us close with her own honest voice. This poetic volume resonates with emotional intelligence about readers’ feelings about extreme inequality and the accelerating climate crisis, and offers prompts for reflection and action. It’s an enlivening and empowering read, joyfully offering stories and voices of people of many faiths and nations who are carrying out varied efforts for planetary healing.”
Betsy Leondar-Wright, Author of Missing Class: Strenghtening social Movement Groups by Seeing Class Cultures and The Color of Money: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide
“Economics has famously been called “the dismal science”. Who knew, then, that a book about building a moral economy could be engaging, inviting, inspiring, constructive, pastoral, prophetic, therapeutic, and rich with stories? This one is, and it’s Moe-Lobeda’s finest writing and most important project to date.”
Larry Rasmussen, Lead speaker at the 2024 EcoFaith Summit Author of The Planet You Inherit: Letters to My Grandchildren When Uncertainty’s a Sure Thing
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Save 30% on the book through Fortress Press with the discount code EcoFaith25. Offer valid on domestic orders only through April 30, 2025. | |
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Check out the Green Lectionary Podcast!
Creation Justice Ministries produces a podcast that it describes as "a conversation on scripture with a creation justice lens." Check it out here!
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Trying to figure out how Faith and Science work together every week?
Listen to The Faith and Science Podcast, following the Revised Common Lectionary each week and try to answer that question. It can be found at wherever podcasts are found or at
https://thefaithandsciencepodcast.podbean.com/
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Read. Watch. Listen. Share! | |
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EcoFaith Network
NEMN Synod
Living out God's call to be stewards of the earth for the sake of the whole creation.
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St. Paul Area Synod
Care of Creation
We are called to care for God's creation as a central part of our Christian faith and identity.
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