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Bring Life by Restoring Habitat Around You

Nathan Aaberg —  November 30, 2021 — Leave a comment

One of the ways we can live out a whole Christian faith-life, whether as families or as communities of faith, is to restore and maintain natural habitat on our own properties.

Whether or not we do so matters.

Without natural habitat – without food to eat and places to find shelter – much of the wildlife of God’s earth cannot survive.

Restoring habitat usually and primarily means replacing lawn with vegetation that is native to your particular place. But if your property already has areas that you do not keep as lawn or garden, then restoring habitat can also involve removing invasive plant species and, again, planting more native plant species.

To inspire you, I want to share the video below of a presentation by Stephen Barten entitled “Backyard Wildlife: If you Build It, They Will Come.” He gave this presentation for the non-profit group Chicago Living Corridors through the Barrington Library in October.

Stephen, a veterinarian and award-winning wildlife photographer, has been restoring his family’s property in the Barrington area for the last 25 years. In the ~75-minute presentation, he shares photos and trailcam footage of 70 species of mammals, insects, reptiles, amphibians, and birds that have been seen on their property.

If you’re like me, you’ll be gobsmacked by the sheer variety of creatures Stephen documents.

That experience of sharing their world with a wide vairety of creatures is something Jesus and the other people of the Bible would have understood. From bears and jackals to the white stork and partridge, the Bible is full of many references to wildlife in the air, on the land, and in the sea. We need to visualize the many shepherds in the Bible interacting with livestock, wildlife, and complex vegetation ecologies all of the time. We know, too, that King Solomon paid a great deal of attention to plants and wildlife as well. I suspect Solomon and Stephen would have a great time discussing their observations together, despite being native to two very different places.

You will also appreciate the insights Stephen provides about a number of the different species of wildlife he encounters. He even shares tips about living with some of that wildlife, like what to do if you find a fawn.

Stephen and his family do benefit from living within two blocks of a lake and from living in a wooded area with few homes. If you are living in a dense city area or subdivision, you will likely not be able to attract flying squirrels and mink no matter how much habitat you restore. But you will still see God’s creatures and help sustain them.

Now is the time to plan for what you will do with your personal property or church’s property in 2022.

Study the habitats of your area. Figure out where you will source native plants for planting in the spring. Get help from someone who knows those plants in designing your habitat. Remove and treat invasive woody brush (like Stephen describes in his presentation). Start small to get the knack of it all. Plan to plant some native plants (even just a few oak trees) in the spring. Get ready by spring.

There are a wide variety of resources available for learning about native plants and restoring habitat to your property. The organization Wild Ones is a good place to start. I would also highly recommend Doug Tallamy’s book Bringing Nature Home. (And if you don’t have your own property, volunteer to help create and restore habitat at your church or another place.)

Will your property look a little different from your neighbors?

It may.

But work to retrain your eyes and cultural assumptions to be in line with God’s perspective. Ask yourself this question – what kind of culture and values does a yard (or a church landscape) really communicate when the plants there almost completely deprive the life of God’s earth life itself?

A well-designed yard that includes habitat and a bit of well-placed lawn, on the other hand, communicates something very different. That yard communicates that the people of that place care about God, the life of God’s world, and their human neighbors, too.

Enjoy. Learn. Grow. Embrace challenge. Show your love of God. Create habitat.

 

P.S. My wife and I have devoted much of our small property in Grayslake, Illinois, to native plants and maintain the prairie sections with occasional prescribed burns. We’ve been delighted to see cedar waxwings, cardinals, squirrels, chipmunks, voles, chickadees, goldfinches, toads, a variety of bees, monarch butterflies, hummingbirds, house wrens, rabbits, Cooper’s hawk, and a red-tailed hawk eating a rabbit. And, honestly, we’re still learning as we go.

Image of Nathan's home with native plants and prairie habitat using most of space

Here is an image of the habitat around our small home just after a late summer rain. Native shrubs and trees are great additions to your home landscape. This section of our yard includes native trees like hackberry and bur oak. There are also native shrubs like elderberry, serviceberry, nannyberry, and witherod viburnum. A native habitat landscape in Arizona would, for example, look very different. Please share images of the habitat you create on your property with me at wholefaithlivingearth@gmail.com.

 

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10 Thoughts from Giving Two Sermons

Nathan Aaberg —  October 31, 2021 — 2 Comments

Earlier this month I gave two sermons in joint services for two congregations on our Christian calling to be good shepherds of God’s Creation. What was that like? What did I learn? I share my thoughts below:

1. Sharing Whole Faith Ideas in Sermons and Discussions Was Great: I gave the first sermon in a hybrid service with some people present in the space North Suburban Mennonite Church rents out and with some people, including the Christ Community Mennonite Church of Schaumburg, attending by Zoom. I decided to speak in person. And I’m glad I did. Making eye contact as I spoke, I noticed that many people were engaged with the message. That did my heart good, especially in this time of covid. Those unspoken responses and the positive energy during the discussion that followed the service were immensely rewarding.

This blog has been an act of faith. The years of working on it, I realize, have enabled me to crystallize convictions and insights that I’ve hoped to be able to share. I am deeply grateful to both congregations for giving me the chance to do that. I’m especially grateful to North Suburban Mennonite Church, which has always warmly welcomed my family and me in the years that we have known them.

2. Importance of Rooting Principles and Ideas in the Bible: In the first sermon, which was the opening sermon for the Creation Care series, I shared a number of Scripture verses. In the second, I shared several more at the beginning and used an additional verse midway through. I did this to highlight one of my key points – if you are paying attention, you will find that the Bible makes clear that Creation matters to God.

That Creation matters is both very conservative and very radical. It is conservative because it takes the whole Bible seriously.

Believing that Creation matters and living out those convictions are, simultaneously, very radical. Most humans throughout history have taken Creation for granted and used it for their purposes without regard to Creation’s wellbeing. To live and advocate for a different worldview, a Biblical worldview, puts a Christian on a collision course with the human powers that be. Our economy and civilization are built on mining and extracting wealth from Creation without regard to Creation’s own prosperity. To live as if Creation matters to God also runs counter to centuries of Christian disregard for Creation in theology and church life. In short, the Christian advocate for Creation is a human monkey wrench in the secular economy and in traditional Christian culture.

Most radical of all, loving God and loving our neighbors by preserving Creation means a Christian approach to economic activity would involve restraint and limits. Our American culture celebrates freedom above all else. Calling for restraint and limits to protect and prosper the wellbeing of the whole Creation is, in our setting, supremely radical. It is radical even as it honors God and leads us on the path to true wealth.

Is God our treasure or is treasure our treasure? How we treat Creation answers that question.

3. Several Insights Seemed Especially to Resonate: I made a point to talk about what a Biblical perspective on human exceptionalism really is. I also called attention to the cross and the crucifixion. The cross, as I’ve written, was a tree. It now lives as a symbol for the Christian faith. And in its “symbolness” we no longer see that it was a tree. When we don’t see it as a tree, we don’t see the crucifixion as a pivotal moment involving God, Creation, and humanity. These insights seemed to resonate.

4. Speaking is Very Different from Writing: This is likely not news! While I certainly have developed ways of thinking and expressing the insights I’ve had (and been given), they have mostly been in written form. I did not want to just read a sermon so my brain and tongue needed to figure out how to articulate in spoken words what I had spent so much time writing in my blog posts. I need more practice doing this.

5. So Much More to Say: Two 25-minute sermons were not nearly enough (at least for me). There is so much to say about the Bible, Creation, and how we should be trying to live with it and prosper it. My major challenge in planning both was choosing what not to include in order to give a cohesive and focused talk. I’m ready to write a book and/or develop a podcast.

6. The Challenge of a Diverse Audience: I came to appreciate the challenge of speaking to a diverse group of people. From the discussions that followed the services, it was clear that members were at different places in their thinking about their lives and Creation. How does one introduce ideas and theology that are new to some and that are standard operating practice for others? I did not want to overwhelm the first group. Nor did I want to seem to be soft-pedaling the issues the second group is acutely aware of and has made significant life changes in response to.

7. Is There Hope?: The question of what kind of hope there is for God’s Creation is a fraught one. It comes up, directly and indirectly, in almost every conversation.

The truth is that the scale of the problems for Creation is immense, and many trends are negative. Just one example – I shared information in my second sermon from the Environmental Working Group about the metastizing of factory farms across the Iowa landscape. In 1990 there were 789 factory farms (Confined Animal Feeding Operations in industry parlance), where at least 1,000 animals are kept. In 2019, the figure was 3,963. Animal waste from these factory farms is now estimated to be 68 billion pounds per year. Human waste from the 3.15 million human residents of the state is estimated to be 1 billion pounds. Unlike the animal waste, the human waste is treated. Every new factory farm means more animal suffering, more misery for neighbors, more overuse of antibiotics, more degradation of the streams and rivers of Iowa, and poorer quality food.

This is just a small example of the forces at work in our world. I haven’t even mentioned climate change and how populations of unique species of Creation are shrinking and even winking out at a growing rate.

In my second sermon, I noted that the declining condition of God’s earth is a symptom of system problems. So restoring health to God’s earth will not come about just from families recycling and making more God-honoring food choices, although those are important.  It will take changes to systems. And system change is challenging at a whole different level.

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a Christian climate scientist, is a wonderful voice of hope, as you can hear in this interview. Yet, as appealing her positivity is, I believe she underestimates how structural, cultural, and even theological our issues are.

Where am I? I have ultimate hope most days. I am committed to doing what I can here and now. Simultaneously, on many days, I perceive what has been lost and what is on the verge of being lost. My heart sinks into lament and despair. Yet, I know God is a creative, surprisng God. And God’s earth can surprise us with its resilience. I don’t know how to tie up all those threads I feel and think. The neatness and tidiness of “hope” doesn’t seem to capture them all.

8. Food and Farming – The 20% of the 80/20 Rule?: The Pareto principle says that in most human endeavors approximately 80% of the results come from 20% of the activities or factors involved. As an example, for many non-profit organizations, a large percentage of donation incomes will come from a relatively small number of donors. So when we think about where to focus Christian commitment to living out a whole faith that includes Creation, it makes sense to figure out what is the pivotal 20%.

While decisions about energy, landscaping, and simplifying are also important, I would ultimately choose food and farming. This was why I chose to focus the second sermon on food and farming and invited Bryce and Jen Riemer to be part of the discussion after that service.

One reason is impact-related – approximately 50% of the world’s terrestrial surface is used for growing food. We eat multiple times a day. And each time we eat we are choosing the kind of farm system our brothers and sisters experience and how God’s earth is treated. What’s more – choosing to eat with love and consciousness for God, God’s Creation, and our neighbors is good for our health and a spiritual discipline.

The challenge, of course, is that in a community of farmers making judgements about what kind of food is congruent with the God of the Bible and what isn’t gets personal and controversial very quick. And, oftentimes, more God-honoring ways of raising food are more complex and time-consuming and are not subsidized by the U.S. government. So the foods become more expensive.

How to reconcile all of that is one of the challenges we all will need to wrestle with. But who said doing anything the right way with one’s values is easy? it’s not easy being a good parent. It’s not easy being a devoted spouse. it’s not easy being a good friend. It’s not easy being good at a challenging job (like being a health care worker the last two years).

It’s the same with shepherding Creation. I am hoping that North Suburban Mennonite Church (and Jesus followers in other churches) will not content themselves with platitudes. I am hoping they will focus their personal change energies on their eating decisions and find help in making the best food choice decisions.

9. A Need for More Expressed Anger: Perhaps it’s legacy of my Midwest Lutheran background. Perhaps it’s a legacy of my introverted nature. But I found myself speaking in a largely reasonable and calm and sometimes even light-hearted way. In retrospect, I wonder if I would have been better served to have added in more anger and urgency. What works better? Did the fury and despair of the Old Testament prophets bring about change in their time? But do we call 911 in a calm and deliberate voice when our child is in mortal danger?

I believe I need to be both full of grace and love while also authentically open about the full range of emotions I feel around these topics.

10. How Would My Message Go Over in a Different Kind of Church?: My wife was talking to a Christian friend recently and told her friend about my sermons. Her friend gave her a blank look. “What is Creation care?” she asked my wife.

That was a good reminder that there are many churches right now who would never dream of devoting a service, much less a month’s worth of services and discussions, to Creation.

So what would it be like to present the ideas behind this blog and my sermons to congregations where many of the members have not thought about the topic or might even see the topic as the intrusion of progressive politics into a spiritual setting? Would they be open at all? Would I even be the right person?

I don’t know. But I pray God will show me the path I should walk in the years that remain. I pray I will have opportunities to make a difference for how Christians walk in God’s world. Even if that brings challenges.

I pray, too, I pray will be able to bring together Christians who are doing their very best to creatively restore God’s earth for encouragement and community.

 

P.S. The sermons were recorded. I plan share them with people who are interested.

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Is There Hope?

Nathan Aaberg —  October 4, 2021 — Leave a comment

The North Suburban Mennonite Church in Libertyville, Illinois, has invited me to speak to their congregation and Christ Community Mennonite Church in Schaumburg on October 10th and 17th.

I’m looking forward to it and am grateful to be invited. My family and I spent one year with the congregation some time back. Learning about Mennonite history, singing their music, and understanding how they read the Bible and live their faith made a deep impression on me. My faith would not be what it is without that time with them.

They started their month of services centered on Creation yesterday. During the conversation session that followed the service, I was struck by a trend that two different people’s comments related to. One was a biology teacher who shared that her students despair over the trajectory of the world in light of population trends and climate change. She fears that communicating the trends our world faces without also offering some hope leaves her students in a bad place.

Another person shared (and here my memory doesn’t serve me well) of a young person who had tried to commit suicide in part because of the perception the young person had that he/she was, just by living, contributing to the destructiveness of climate change.

What do we do with that?

First, we must affirm that in the face of the facts we are facing, some level of despair, anger, and sadness are normal and healthy. A person who can shrug off climate chaos and the disappearing of beautiful, complex life is not, in my mind, fully human. It would be as if we expected a child whose parents are getting divorced to be upbeat and calm.

Second, we take all this to confirm what we read in the Bible. There is a fundamental sin and dysfunction in people which results in sin and dysfunction in our human systems of how we treat God’s earth and each other. Sometimes what people in despair need is not false hope or anasthetics but resonance. Knowing that others care and also see the same problems and feel the same things makes us feel less alone.

Third, we need to accept that the pain people are feeling and the diminishment of the earth are signals that we can’t ignore as followers of Jesus. We must be people of action. We sometimes fall into passivity. Yes, God is at work, but there is no sense in the Bible that we are to do nothing. We must be able to offer people in despair a chance to be part of concerted efforts to chance what is causing the problem in the first place.

Fourth, we share stories of regeneration – of people’s hearts and lives through life-changing faith in Jesus and of the earth by people and communities who have committed themselves to action.

That is a response written in a hurry. But I recognize I need to wrestle with this more.

I am grateful to have been part of the conversation and look forward to sharing more thoughts next Sunday. I hope to be able to offer a video recording later.

 

P.S. I want to welcome members of the North Suburban Mennonite Church and Christ Community Mennonite Church in Schaumburg who are coming to this blog for the first time. Please use the Topics sidebars to jump to blog posts around different topics. In particular, I’d encourage you to click on the START HERE topic category.

Two posts in particular that I’d encourage you to look at are:

True Human Exceptionalism

 

And my first blog post ever:

William Wilberforce’s Whole Faith

 

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A New Kind of Faith Community

Nathan Aaberg —  September 30, 2021 — Leave a comment

I’ve written from time to time about my challenges in finding a church that felt complete and whole to me. Not surprisingly, a big part (but not the only part!) of that challenge has been my unwillingness to be committed to a church where God’s Creation is not seen as significant to God’s purposes.

Yet I long for community around faith in the God of the whole Bible and in Jesus.

I have asked myself whether I could be wrong and misguided. I know that many Christians find deep satisfaction in their church lives. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis portrays a junior devil being advised to encourage his assigned human target to search far and wide for a “suitable” church. This, it is suggested, will make the human a critic when God actually wants humans to be pupils. Is that me? Could I have the wrong expectations for what church is supposed to be? Are my expectations too high? Should I work to be a voice within a church for paying more attention to Creation? I know good and faithful people who are doing that.

Here’s the thing – I’m in my late 50s. I know what resonates and what doesn’t. I have sat in the pews of many churches and found myself feeling empty and even heartsick. Even as I know others find deep meaning in churches, I must listen to myself. My mind, heart, and body are telling me something that I must finally respect.

I am indeed hungry for a Christian community of faith. But faith communities as they are commonly done in churches don’t seem to be the right place for me. That leaves me with several options. One would be continuing to search for the right one. Another is to give up on having a faith community.

A third is coming up with something different.

For more than a year I’ve found myself musing on what something different might look like. From what we know of the early gatherings of believers from the New Testament and from the examples of the Quakers and Amish, it’s clear that the modern, mainstream approach to church is not the only way to do a faith community. (For much more provocative thoughts, check out Pagan Church by Frank Viola).

So here I put myself out on a limb. I will share the unique elements of the faith community I’d like to see that I have come up with to this point. Down the road, I’d like to flesh out each element in greater detail and explain why I believe each is important to have. Here I just want you to see how everything fits together as a whole.

(One last word before you read the unique elements – holding everything together would be worship and discipleship of Jesus and the God of the Bible and of Creation with communion and baptism.)

Focus on personal transformation to whole holiness: The faith community would invest significantly in enabling its members to become more holy in every aspect of their lives. There would be concerted efforts made to provide members with the guidance, support, and spiritual development tools to open themselves to the Spirit, to become more like Jesus, and to live out the fruits of the Spirit that God offers. After several years as a member, a person could literally not be the same person they were when they joined.

Instruction in Kingdom living: God loves us and this world. How we live in it matters deeply. Yet never before have so many people lacked fundamental knowledge about the craft of living. There is an infinite amount of wisdom to be gained from the Bible and from people who approach living with compassion and wisdom. This faith community would invest in helping its members grow in Kingdom living in every aspect of life. Marriage. Money. Growing food. Cooking. Parenting. Prayer. Art. Advocacy. Friendship. Carpentry. Productive conflict. Conversation and the use of words. The fellowship would be a center for just and satisfying living skills that would benefit members and other people in the local community.

Tapping Kingdom gifts: This faith community would collectively help each member identify and use their unique spiritual gifts and their other gifts for God’s kingdom within the faith community and in their lives in God’s world. The community as a whole would honor and celebrate each and every member’s gifts and how they are being used on a regular basis. Spiritual entrepreneurship would be encouraged and fostered. The community would seek to grow each person’s gifts and their use of those gifts. The faith community would be a dynamic place where people become better and fuller versions of themselves.

Rich with art and song: We are made in the image of a creating Creator God. We are meant to be creative in ways that are generous, good, and just. Art can also free and open our hearts.The community I envision would be a vibrant place of diverse music and artistic expression by adults and children. Each member’s voice and creativity would be encouraged, valued and heard. There would, for example, be a wide variety of music – traditional, modern, acoustic, chants, jazz, international, and of all emotions.

Surprise, variety, and diversity of tone: Every month there should be surprise and freshness in the format and tone of the worship. While there should be some consistent elements and themes, there should also be great variation and creativity. Members should arrive in expectation of surprise and engagement with an infinite, surprising God. There should be services of lament as well as services of celebration and everything in between. Our lives, our relationship with God, and the books of the Bible itself are all complex and nuanced. Consider the emotions of Job, the Psalms, the prophets, and even Jesus. Worship should reflect that complexity and diversity.

Fellowship commitment to certain ways of living: I’ve been very struck by the concept of ordnung from the Amish. The ordnung is an unwritten set of guiding rules among a particular group of local Amish on how they will live. I am not suggesting that the community of faith I write of be like the Amish in terms of prohibiting electricity and the use of cars, for example. There should be freedom in many things. However, the community’s members should have a common commitment to living patterns that are consistent with the fellowship’s convictions. This doesn’t seem so far removed from the early house churches of the New Testament. One good example would be Sabbath – honoring the Sabbath should be something people of faith do because it honors God and it brings so many blessings. But there could be latitude for how exactly each family would actually carry that out. Does this all sounds cult-like or Puritanical? That’s not my intention, although I know what I suggest is radical. But imagine if a community of faith did their best to live out similar convictions outside in the world  that were not only good for each person but also good for how the community as a whole functioned?

To build or not to build: There is value in having a building that is the center of a faith community’s gatherings. It puts the community on the physical and mental map of a community. But maintaining the building can draw away resources from actually living out God’s Kingdom. The Amish, for instance, don’t have church buildings but meet at each other’s homes. That might be one option. Another might be using a building as both community center and place of worship. Or perhaps a barn could function as meeting space, worship space, farm building, restoration hub, learning space, art space, and dance hall. In any case, there should be careful thought given to whether and how the community invests in a building.

Community common life reflect a 100% commitment to Kingdom living: As an example of this, common meals, like the Lord’s Supper and potlucks, should come from farms where God’s earth has been respectfully treated. If there is a church building, then it and its landscaping should be as Creation friendly as possible. Green burial would be the standard burial method.

Communal, interactive, creative worship: Worship should not be a passive, spectator experience. Members should be as involved as possible. There should be interaction along with singing by all attending and insights into the Bible. Hands-on activities, like foot-washing, should be used as much as possible. People should share insights from their own lives. In this community, the sacredness of the God of the universe would intersect with the real people the community brings together.

Membership means something: I envision people needing to acquire a base level of Bible and faith knowledge and committing to certain patterns of life before they would become members. To become a member, a person should first be given a thoughtful understanding of how the Bible works and what a whole faith looks like. There would be classes and mentorships. And, as per Hebrews 10:24-25, members would, like fitness buddies, goad and push each other towards good deeds and faithfulness while also encouraging and consoling each other when difficulties come. In a loving and engaging way, members should give and receive feedback on how they are living and contributing to the faith community. Yes, I know this sounds restrictive and perhaps exclusionary. It’s not intended to be that way. But it is intended for membership to mean something. The Christian faith is hurt deeply by card-carrying church members who act in ways that reflect badly on the faith. (Read more about lessons in membership from the history of a church in my previous post.)

A place of seeking, open discussion, and whole Bible inquiry: This would be a community where people could ask questions and seek God. Because Jesus’ Bible was the Old Testament, understanding how the whole Bible fits together and what wisdom we can gain from the whole Bible would be a fundamental and engaging part of the life of this faith community. I’ve been tremendously inspired by Tim Mackie and The Bible Project in this regard.

Creation as fundamental part of the whole faith-life: Creation would not be ignored nor denigrated in this faith community. It would be celebrated, savored, and cherished. As part of the whole range of member commitments would be a commitment to being as holy as possible in our interactions with God’s Creation. Members called to devote their lives to protecting and restoring Creation in the world as a ministry would be celebrated and supported just as much as anyone else called to live their life for mission.

Thoughtful, intentional planning for how the faith-life is shared: Sharing Jesus and the eternal life Jesus offers would be a key element of this faith community. Life skill classes and art demonstrations would be ways of attracting people just as would creative sharing of the Bible’s messages. Members gifted with teaching and explaining would be empowered to provide classes and other venues for engagement. There would be a system for how seekers would be welcomed and taught about the faith-life of this faith community.

A different kind of leader: Because this faith community would be worshipping and living out the Christian faith differently, the skill set and character of its leader or leaders would need to be different. Ideally, the leader or leaders would be deeply rooted in a whole understanding of the Bible and would help build the right “architecture” of the community while coaching and encouraging members to grow in their gifts and faith-lives. The leader or leaders would have little ego but would get the most joy out of seeing the community and its members having success as a community that learns and lives the faith together.

 

What to Call This Community?

For a while, I thought about calling this faith community a “whole faith church.” But now that seems needlessly provocative and limiting. “Church” also conveys expectations of what will and won’t be done. Rather than struggle against those expectations, I believe its better to use a fresh word that suggests something distinct.

The phrase “fellowship” seems better to me. “Fellowship” has strong Christian roots and a sense of common labor and work. But it does not carry with it long engrained assumptions about how it will be organized. There’s a freshness and unboundedness to it.

Here is a quote from a blog post of Grace Theological Summary that resonates with me. The post describes the origins of the Greek word we translate as “fellowship” and what Christian fellowship entails:

The word fellowship is derived from the Greek word koinonia. Koinonia can be defined as “holding something in common” and is specifically used 20 times in the New Testament (e.g. Phil. 2:1-2, Acts 2:42, 1 John 1:6-7). Koinonia describes the unity of the Spirit that comes from Christians’ shared beliefs, convictions, and behaviors. When those shared values are in place, genuine koinonia (biblical fellowship) occurs. This fellowship produces our mutual cooperation in God’s worship, God’s work, and God’s will being done in the world.

I love that phrase – “mutual cooperation in God’s worship, God’s work, and God’s will being done in the world.” Even the term “cooperation” suggests an interlocking of efforts and resources for a common goal. “Work” and “God’s will being done” are even stronger in conveying the focus of the fellowship – a common commitment to down-to-earth action springing out of faith.

The faith-life of early Christians was known as the Way. We need to again convey being a believer as being a way of understanding God and the world and a way of loving God and God’s world in our everyday lives.

Fellowship, it seems to me, suggests a group of people committed to some task or way, like the diverse fellowship we see in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The word carries with it notes of engagement with life with a larger purpose. It also suggests mutual dependence in very practical, real ways.

That feels right. That’s the kind of faith community I am looking for.

How about you?

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Before You Hit Play: Tips for Hosting a Climate Change Documentary Screening for Your Faith Community (Guest Post)

Nathan Aaberg —  April 25, 2021 — Leave a comment

In February I shared a blog post by my friend Ryan O’Connor that reviewed several climate change documentaries for sharing with your church or other faith community. When Ryan was first working on the post, I asked him to also share insights he’s gained by organizing documentary showings himself. You can find those wise insights below.

I highly recommend that you take to heart the wisdom he offers. Group dynamics, especially around topics that have become politically polarized, can be hard to handle. Combining your good intentions with thoughtful preparation gives you a much better chance of having a successful event. Thanks again, Ryan, for sharing your insights.

 

On a dark evening in November, I briefly addressed a small crowd gathered in our church’s auditorium. I nervously smiled, realizing I didn’t recognize many of the faces in the crowd. I thanked them for coming.  Then I dimmed the lights.

As the documentary began, I futilely tried to scan my speaking notes in the dark. Had I mentioned my purpose and goals as intended? Was I ready for tough questions? And most importantly, was our planning sufficient, or were there things I glossed over in my eagerness to gather people and hit “play”?

Hosting a movie screening can be an effective, low-barrier way to attract a crowd. It will only be effective, however, to the extent you plan from the big picture to the little details. So, using a Q & A format, I will share what I’ve learned about good planning for these kinds of events.

What are your goals?

If you are planning on screening a movie, or hosting any type of event, I strongly encourage you to work through the following questions oriented around the goals for your event. Be as specific as you can and write you answers down on paper so you can refer back them throughout your planning. Let your goals inform your selection of a film, and be sure to watch the movie yourself prior to settling on it.

What outcome are you trying to achieve in hosting a movie screening?

While a desire to educate others may be the initial goal, the desired outcome is usually something more than deeper knowledge. Be transparent with attendees and state your hopes at the start of your meeting. In addition, recognize that your desired outcome may require more than just a one-time event, and think about how you will follow up.

What actions do you want attendees to take afterwards?

Again, knowledge itself is usually not the goal. In addition, merely giving people knowledge doesn’t necessarily lead to action. What would you like people to do, either corporately or privately, during or after attending your event?

What are barriers to action?

Try to think like a participant, perhaps discouraged by the enormity of the problem and unsure what actions to take, wondering if their actions matter, confused by climate science misinformation, or just busy with life and other important issues. Think through who you’re most trying to reach and how you can reduce barriers for them. Be prepared to address feelings of discouragement or skepticism about pie-in-the-sky solutions.

How can you set up the meeting timing, duration, and physical space to achieve your outcome, desired actions, and reduce barriers?

Think about the things like what day of the week and time of day to host your event, as well as whether you want to provide childcare or perhaps a virtual option so parents of young children can attend. Little things like snacks and room set-up matter too. Rows of long tables are great if you want people to take lots of notes, but if you want to include a small group discussion, round tables or no tables at all might be a better choice.

Who is your intended audience, and how will you advertise your event?

If you want more than your usual attendees to come, you’ll probably have to do more than just put it in the church bulletin. Would the pastor be willing to make an announcement from the pulpit an encourage people to come? Maybe even preach a sermon on the topic? Personal invitations are the best way to get people to come. For my event, my preschool-aged daughter and I handed out small flyers at a different church social event a few weeks prior, and several people came solely from the personal invitation.

How will you respond if there are tough questions?

You don’t have to be a climate expert to start a conversation. In large part, that’s why you’re screening the movie rather than speaking yourself. As a facilitator, it’s not your job convince skeptics in the moment. Resist the temptation to get into debates with people. It is okay if not everyone agrees.

While it is important to refute obvious falsehoods, it is equally or more important to treat others with respect and charity. However, it will give you more confidence if you have a plan for how you will respond to difficult questions. Often, the best answer is to state that you’re not a climate scientist, reiterate that we’re united around common goals like caring for God’s earth and all people, and that you’d be happy to follow up afterwards.

That being said, if you’re looking to moderate a session and want to brush up on climate science, excellent resources are the state-level climate summaries from NOAA, which cover both changes observed to date as well as major impacts expected by mid to end of century, tailored to each state in the U.S.

If you’re concerned about how to respond to specific questions, like the reliability of climate models or “Hasn’t the climate always changed?”, the website SkepticalScience.com, has numerous rebuttal articles that correct misinformation. While an excellent resource, the sheer volume of articles and technical details can be a rabbit hole. I keep it bookmarked to respond to follow-up questions, if needed, rather than to prep myself for hypothetical boogeymen.

If you’re looking a good hard copy resource, a book on climate science specifically written for people of faith is A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions by renowned climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe and her husband and evangelical pastor Andrew Farley. Published in 2009, the book provides an excellent summary of climate science along with discussion of how Christians should respond. The book and its faith-based commentary makes it an excellent companion to the websites above, which are regularly updated with climate impacts observed to date and the latest future projections.

Another good resource is A Catholic Response to Global Warming, by Steven Coleman. While written for a Catholic audience, it contains an excellent summary of both the moral and scientific urgency for people of all faiths and is very accessible at only 24 pages.

A practical example: my story of screening The Human Element

Back to my screening of The Human Element. As the stories on the screen unfolded in the darkened room, my nerves settled down. I went through the mental checklist of my goals, the schedule for the evening, and the big-picture outcomes and actions around which I had planned the event.

My primary goal was to educate others and spur a conversation with church members about observed climate impacts and personal concerns about future changes. Secondary goals included recruiting new members to our care of creation team and getting feedback on other topics attendees would like to learn about in the future.

With those goals in mind, I made sure to have each person sign in as they arrived and included a check box for them to indicate if they were interested in joining the team.  I also provided a handout for each person that included the discussion questions and a list of potential future topics, along with instructions for them to check off their top three.

Because part of my goal was in part to foster discussion and sharing, I had set the room up without tables, and following the movie I had people circle their chairs into small groups of 4-5 and discuss the following questions:

Which stories in the film resonated with you most?

How has climate change impacted you and your community, or those close to you?

What are common values you share with those suffering the impacts of climate change, either in the film or in our local community?

What is the role of us as individuals and collectively as a church in helping to address climate change?

Following the small group discussion, we reconvened for a short large group report-out so that everyone, including myself, could hear a summary of the discussion.

There was a challenging reaction immediately after the film. Before we broke up into small groups, I asked the group for one or two people to share their immediate reactions.

An older gentleman from the back of the room blurted out gruffly, “Depressing!”

As the movie had ended on a positive note, it wasn’t what I was expecting. I didn’t try to argue with him. I just acknowledged that yes, climate change can be a depressing topic, but that there are also reasons to have hope, both from common ground solutions and from our faith.

And then I simply introduced the small group discussion and moved on to the next thing as planned.

I also wanted peopled to commit to an action–one new thing they could do in their personal lives to care for the Earth and for the poor suffering from environmental degradation. Recognizing that one barrier is not knowing what to do, I provided a handout of potential, high impact actions for consideration, such as signing up for a green power program through their utility, eating less meat, buying locally grown food, and changing commuting and driving habits.

At the end of the meeting, I asked everyone to take five minutes to write down their personal action commitment. I suspected that for some people, a secondary barrier might be a feeling that the issue was so big their actions wouldn’t matter and that they might be in the minority in trying to change their habitats. With this in mind, I ended on a hopeful and encouraging note. Quoting St. Paul, I noted that we are mutually encouraged by each other’s faith (Romans 1:12). By sharing our intentions, we can support each other in what we plan to do and be inspired and encouraged at the same time.

In the end our team felt the event was a success.

We had a good turnout, including many people who responded to personal invitations—we weren’t just preaching to the choir. We doubled the membership of our creation care team. We got several ideas for future topics.

But most importantly, we brought members of our community together for a conversation, started breaking down barriers to action, and planted the seeds for bigger personal and collective steps down the road.

 

Have you hosted an event for your church or other community of faith about climate change? How did it go? What did you learn? Have you found other resources that are especially effective? Feel free to email me at wholefaithlivingearth@gmail.com.

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