Worship, Spirituality, Healing, Community
Worship Arts Resource Library: United Methodist Creation Justice Movement
which includes A Minute for Mother Earth (a series of short video clips for use in worship)
UM Discipleship Ministries Worship Resources
Worship in Service of Creation (Discipleship Ministries, April 2023)
Worship Resource: For the Creation Waits (Discipleship Ministries, April 2021)
Music for Earth Day and the Festival of God’s Creation (Discipleship Ministries, April 2021)
Fall Lectionary Resource – Season of Creation: Five week worship series based on Lectionary readings from Jeremiah Year C (Discipleship Ministries, September 2019)
Resources for the Season of Creation (Ecumenical, August 2021)
Prayer Suggestions from The United Methodist Book of Worship
Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi for All Created Things – #507
Psalm of the Woodlands – #508
Acts of Congregational Centering – # 470, #471, #472, #473
Prayers of Confession – #484, #485 and #494
Prayers of Thanksgiving – #551, #552, #555, #556, #557, #558
Other Congregational Prayers:
- In Time of Natural Disaster – #509
- For Others – #518
- A Vision of Hope – #521
- For Strength – #524
Talking About Creation Care, Climate Change, and Justice
(This section is under construction!)
- Share your own faith story of coming to the point of creation care action.
- Provide opportunities for children, youth and adults to experience the wonders of nature: nature walks, stream hikes, camping, canoeing, field trips to farms, urban gardens and nature preserves.
- Contribute creation care and creation justice articles and reflections to your church’s newsletter, facebook page, website.
- Share reflections from your faith perspective with the media outreach of other organizations.
- Develop educational presentations and/or utilize existing ones for mid week programs, Vacation Bible School and day camps, adult and youth Sunday School classes, United Methodist Women and Men’s programs, retreats, youth mission and adult mission trips.
The Most Important Thing You Can Do to Fight Climate Change: Talk About It. (17 min TED Talk by Katharine Hayhoe. 2018)
How to Talk with Children about Climate Change. (American Academy of Pediatrics)
How to Talk to Your Kids About Climate Change. Langlios, K. (2021, June 26). Outsideonline.com.
Beginning the Climate Conversation: A Family’s Guide (The Climate Reality Project, 23 pp. e-book) “In this guide, we discuss when to start the climate conversation and how to approach the topic with children. It is not designed as a substitute for formal science instruction. Our goal is to help you navigate a tricky topic so your children can grow into informed young people excited to learn more about how they can make the world a better place.”
Healing & Building Community
(This section is under construction!)
- Provide opportunities for children, youth and adults to experience the wonders of nature: nature walks, stream hikes, camping, canoeing, field trips to farms, urban gardens and nature preserves.
- Share reflections from your faith perspective with the media outreach of other organizations.
- Develop educational presentations and/or utilize existing ones for mid week programs, Vacation Bible School and day camps, adult and youth Sunday School classes, United Methodist Women and Men’s programs, retreats, youth mission and adult mission trips.
- Create community events by inviting outside speakers to your church (soil and water conservation, native plants, gardening, urban recycling updates, food waste, college and university sustainability programs, transportation and vehicle trends, sources of greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy production, future job markets and transitions, current justice or legislative campaigns, etc).
- Share your expertise with others (extended family, church family, creation care team, community organizations): raising food locally, cooking with local and seasonal food, composting, energy efficiency and facility maintenance knowledge, organizing experience, small group leadership skills, scientific background, etc.
How to Find Joy in Climate Action (Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, 10 min TED talk, April 2022)
The Healing Power of Trees. (Crawford, A. , Simonelli, D. February 05, 2025. The Nature Conservancy. nature.org.)
Harmony Creation Care Curriculum (A multigenerational tool, which ” interweaves gardening stories and strategies with Biblical narratives about creation care.”) Available at Cokesbury.com
United Methodist Doctrinal Foundations for Creation Care and Creation Justice Work
The United Methodist Book of Discipline 2020/ 2024
United Methodist Social Principles, Paragraph 160: Community of All Creation
PREFACE
The great lesson that our Lord inculcates here..is that God is in all things, and we are to see the Creator in the glass of every creature; that we should use and look upon nothing as separate from God…who pervades and actuates the whole created frame, and is, in a true sense, the soul of the universe. (John Wesley, “Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount”)
We affirm that all creation belongs to God and is a manifestation of God’s goodness and providential care. Human beings, nonhuman animals, plants, and other sentient and non-sentient beings participate in the community of creation, and their flourishing depends on all the care of God’s creation. Rather than treating creation as if it were placed here solely for humanity’s use and consumption, we are called to practice responsible stewardship and to live in right relationship with the Creator and with the whole of God’s creation (Genesis 1: 26-31; Matthew 6:26-30; Romans 8: 22-24). We are also called to honor the role of every part of creation in healing the whole; thus we praise God with the whole of creation (Psalm 148) and recognize that we are part of complex ecosystems, all valued by God.
We affirm our sacred calling to be responsible stewards and to lovingly tend all that God has wrought. We recognize the inherent worth of God’s creation, celebrate earth’s abundance and diversity, and, along with the entirety of the cosmos, give praise to its Creator. We recognize we are interconnected members of complex ecosystems, intricate webs of life, all of which have their origins in God’s gracious act of creation.
The United Methodist Book of Resolutions, 2016
For biblical context and a deeper understanding of the following General Conference Resolutions regarding creation care and creation justice, see the Climate section of General Board of Church and Society website: https://www.umcjustice.org/what-we-care-about/environmental-justice
For Curriculum suggestions see Learning page