Among the many different ways to celebrate the Season of Creation, the event’s ecumenical network has suggested a few ideas, some of which are enumerated below. Be sure to share your experience on how you celebrate the Season…
Photos and videos
Take photos of your community in action. Your photos will be shared with people around the world, and could inspire prayers and action to protect creation. (Kindly ask consent to share people’s images, and refrain from close-ups of children without parent/guardian permission). Please upload your photos at seasonofcreation.org.
Social media and blogs
Post images and stories while you plan and during your celebration. Be sure to tag your post or tweet with #SeasonofCreation, and it will appear on the Season of Creation website.
Pray and worship
Prayer is at the center of our lives as Christians. Praying together deepens our relationship with our faith and brings forth new gifts of the Spirit. As Jesus taught us, “… where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). The following suggestions will help you shape a prayer or worship service during the Season of Creation.
1. Host an ecumenical prayer service
Hosting a prayer service is a simple and beautiful way to celebrate the Season. While a prayer service that stays within your church community is welcome, this Season offers a wonderful opportunity to connect with Christians outside of your parish and local network. Encourage your pastor/priest to preach a sermon on creation or integrate creation themes into prayers or Bible studies during the Season of Creation. Consider how creation themes can also be incorporated into other aspects of the service, such as the procession, the presentation of the gifts, children’s messages, and more.
2. Hold your worship service outside
To celebrate God’s creation fully, it is good, where practical, to take our worship outside a building and to worship in the context of God’s creation – which is already worshipping God eloquently as every creature, and even mountains, rivers and trees worship the Lord simply by doing what God created them to do. You might like to consider a site of environmental significance. If it is a place of great natural beauty, the focus would be on giving thanks to God and committing ourselves to protect the site and others. If it is a place of environmental degradation, the focus is on confessing our environmental sins and committing to actions of healing and restoration.
3. Organize a Creation Walk or Pilgrimage
You might consider organizing a contemplative walk outside to meditate on the gift of God’s creation and our response to be in deeper communion with all life. You could organize a pilgrimage to a significant ecological site or to a site that has suffered ecological or social injustice. You could study ecologically themed Scriptures, or prayers such as the “ecological rosary,” while walking.
Encourage sustainable living
1. Make sustainable lifestyle changes on an individual level
The Season of Creation is a wonderful time to reflect on how our lifestyles affect the environment and to make a commitment to more sustainable ways of living. The good news is that making more sustainable lifestyle choices in just a few areas adds up to a big difference overall. As the saying goes, “Let us live simply so that others may simply live.” Living simply is a way to ensure our planet is truly a home for all.
2. Make sustainable changes on an institutional level
Changes at an institutional level can have a huge impact and result in tangible reductions in negative environmental impacts. Practice the Roadmap for Congregations, Communities and Churches for an Economy of Life and Ecological Justice developed by the World Council of Churches to change the way we deal with the economy and our ecological surroundings. Conduct an energy audit of your institution’s facilities to look at key areas such as heating, lighting, ventilation, and insulation to offer many opportunities for immediate carbon-footprint reduction. Many Church networks now have platforms to support families, churches, and congregations that want to make sustainability changes. For example, the Vatican is launching an interactive “Laudato Si’ Action Platform,” which will support Catholic institutions and families to review their impact and take action across several areas.
3. Hold a Sustainability Event
a. Organize a beach or waterway clean-up during International Coastal Clean-up Day this September. Christian environmental stewardship organization A Rocha offers a beach clean-up guide to help those who want to organize their own events. It can be downloaded at www.arocha.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Litter-clean-up-manual-Mar-2020.pdf
b. Take your clean-up a step further by including a plastics brand audit, a citizen science initiative organized by Break Free from Plastics that involves counting and documenting the brands found on plastic waste collected at a clean-up to help identify the companies responsible for plastic pollution.
c. Hold an educational event where you serve a meal that is good for the climate!
d. Start a community garden that can support and invite the local community to participate.
e. Consider having an ecumenical tree planting event that incorporates a prayer service. Ask for guidance on how to select a tree from the local Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) office and environmental groups. You may link it to the “75 Trees for the 75 Years of the UN” sustainability event to support the United Nations’ initiative on climate change.
f. Develop a healthy habitat to help restore local lands and support local biodiversity. A biodiversity toolkit can be downloaded at www.worldwildlife.org/teaching-resources/toolkits/biodiversity-toolkit
For more information, visit seasonofcreation.org
