Caring for God's creation in your church

Worship resources

Here are some Quick tips for including eco-justice in the worship life of your church from Eco-Justice Ministries.

There are resources available to help you include gratitude for and concern for God's creation in your worship service. There are additional resources available to help you plan for Earth Sunday.

Christian Education

Eco-Justice Ministries has some Quick Tips for including Eco-Justice in the educational program of your church.

Our children are the people who will be most impacted by our neglect and destruction of the bountiful earth lovingly created by God, so incorporating care for creation is especially important in your N-12 Christian Education program. But Christian Education isn't just for kids! Involve adults in caring for creation as well.

Congregational Life

Quick Tips

Greening Congregations Handbook

Earth Ministry has published a handbook to help congregations "go green." It's called Greening Congregations Handbook: Stories, Ideas, and Resources for Cultivating Creation Awareness and Care in Your Congregation.

This 225-page Handbook is a “tool box” for all who want to foster creation awareness and care in their congregations. It helps readers actively respond to the question, “Why should people of faith care for creation?” The Handbook also helps congregations develop an enduring, creation-honoring focus within all dimensions of congregational life.

“The Greening Congregations Handbook is a gift. It is just what the churches have needed – a well-researched, clear, comprehensive, and imaginative ‘how-to’ manual on implementing the ecological vision of the abundant life. Thank you, Earth Ministry, for this splendid present. May we all use it well.”

- Sallie McFague, Carpenter Professor of Theology Emerita, Vanderbilt Divinity School; Distinguished Theologian in Residence, Vancouver School of Theology; and author of The Body of God; Super, Natural Christians; and Life Abundant

Covenant Congregation Program

The Environmental Justice Covenant Congregation Program provides guidance for including care of creation in:

Worship - In worship, we will celebrate God's grace and glory in creation and will declare that God calls us to participate in the redemption of the world by cherishing, protecting and restoring creation.

Learning and Teaching - We will seek opportunities for ourselves and our children to learn more about the wonders of creation, the threats posed by human beings to the survival of creation and the possibilities of our participating in God's redemption and justice.

Lifestyle - Our individual and congregation's lifestyles will respect and cherish creation. We will form habits of consuming, conserving and sharing that serve to protect and restore the environment. In particular, we will reuse and recycle as many materials as we can and seek ways of limiting our consumption of fossil fuels.

Community, National and Global Involvement - In our community, the nation and the world, our congregation will witness to and participate in God's redemption of creation by supporting public efforts and policies which support vulnerable people and protect and restore the degraded earth.

Church newsletter

Consider writing a regular Environmental Justice column for your church newsletter to help spread the word about important environmental issues. Or you could use the latest issue of a double-sided Creation Stewardship newsletter is available for download on the home page of this website. You can either reproduce it or display it on a bulletin board.

Need more ideas?

Earth Ministry has lists of what other churches have done in 1999 and in past years. Perhaps some of these activities will be just what your congregation would like to do.