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Caring for God's Creation Love and gratitude for God's creation lie deep within religious life. From mountaintops to forests, green pastures to still waters, stars in the sky and lilies of the field, we experience the grace of our Creator and the gift of our presence here. With Earth in grave environmental peril, many religious Americans are seeking to respond through our faith. Through the many gateways and galleries of this website, we offer resources and accounts of how people of faith are acting upon God's mandate to be stewards of our precious Earth. Partners in Stewardship The National Religious Partnership for the Environment is an association of independent faith groups across a broad spectrum: the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Council of Churches U.S.A., the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, and the Evangelical Environmental Network. Each Partner — in common biblical faith but drawing upon its disctinctive traditions — is undertaking scholarship, leadership training, congregational and agency initiative, and public policy education in service to environmental sustainability and justice. Together, they seek to offer resources of religious life and moral vision to a universal effort to protect humankind's common home and well-being on Earth. |

St. Ann’s Episcopal Church, Woodstock, IL Keeping water clean is a top priority for the Green Team at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Woodstock, IL. When members conducted a green audit to identify ways for the parish to become more environmentally responsible, they identified stormwater management as a key concern. Large concentrations of pollutants enter water systems in developed areas covered with impervious surfaces like roads and roofs. These surfaces don’t allow water to penetrate...
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Diocese of Joliet, IL Article by Mark Indreika taken from Catholic Explorer 7/23/2008 As the Catholic Church continues to raise its voice in defense of the environment, people across the Diocese of Joliet are heeding the call, participating in educational programs and implementing new, environmentally friendly technologies. Education JustFaith was a series of workshops in the Diocese of Joliet, a 30-week program on Catholic social teaching. Maribeth Meaux, coordinator of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development in...
Read moreLutheran Church of the Reformation St. Louis Park, MN At first, church members were suspicious of pulling ...
Read moreMaryland Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD Sometimes a church can’t see an outreach opportunity for the trees. That was the case for Maryland Presbyterian Church in the northern suburbs of Baltimore, MD. The church is surrounded by four acres of sloping woodland, populated by oaks and tulip poplars. Members once viewed the property’s wooded lot as a hindrance to ministry because it limited the church’s visibility in the neighborhood, but now the church is attracting...
Read moreA Rocha In the Algarve, a beautiful Mediterranean landscape in this southernmost region of Portugal popular with European tourists, a British-based ...
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Catholic Diocese of RichmondEcological Working Group St. Paul, VA Educating congregants about the...
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Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, WA A one-time Carless Sunday event at Grace Episcopal Church in Bainbridge Island, WA, has grown into a long-term program that is raising awareness about global warming. Inspired by Earth Ministry’s “On the Road” program, the church sponsored its first Carless Sunday April 2007. Organizers created a large map of the island, divided it into zones, and created lists of parishioners in each zone. They hung it in the...
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Archdiocese of Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA In the crowded metropolis of Los Angeles sprawling ...
Read morePoint Loma Nazarene University San Diego, CA Church of the Nazarene In 2003, when Point Loma Nazarene University student Celeste Howe ...
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Adamah Fellowship Program at Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat CenterFalls Village, CT In 2005, Adina Allen was an undergraduate environmental studies student at a university in Boston, MA taking an intensive course on the geopolitical issues connected with oil and water. She was looking for information and tools to engage with the paradigm shift of humans and their relationship to the world. She wasn’t satisfied that her academic learning was translating into practical experience. Adina...
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Third World Mission Trips, International A version of this article By Anton Flores originally appeared in the Summer 2007 issue of Creation Care magazine. The concept of “leave no trace” is to provide a guideline for reducing our impact on the natural environment and on the experience for other visitors of God’s wonderful creation.
Read moreFirst Presbyterian Church Kirkwood, MO For the third consecutive year in 2005, First Presbyterian Church in Kirkwood, Missouri will celebrate Earth Day through hands-on community service: cleaning up local creeks. The Social and Environmental Concerns Committee of First Presbyterian sponsored the first annual Community Stream Clean-Up in April 2003. On that first Stream Clean-up day, twenty-eight volunteers of all ages ventured into four storm water creeks with large trash bags.
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New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey Increasingly secular and religious groups alike are using shareholder resolutions as a tactic ...
Read moreMission Year, Atlanta, GA A version of this article by Leroy Barber originally appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of Creation Care magazine. Leroy Barber lives in an unjust American landscape. The people in his church live in one of Atlanta’s urban sacrifice zones. If you sat down to list the social ills that are unequally visited on his neighborhood, you might be able to name a few of the most prominent. But environmental injustices likely...
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