Great Lakes Creation Care Collaborative Kicks Off Justice Series

The Great Lakes Creation Care Collaborative invites you to a Zoom series, offered by the Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan Conferences of the United Church of Christ.

In response to a shared concern over the threats to our vast watershed systems with fossil fuels and chemicals, and an awareness of the Indigenous Peoples who are directly affected economically, physically, and spiritually, the MN, WI, and MI UCC Conferences are collaborating to offer educational resources for continued advocacy and engagement with and for God’s gift of Planet Earth. The series will explore creation care justice through the lens of Indigenous rights, divesting from corporate greed, and liturgical language that keeps the health of our planet and all God’s creation in mind.

“Treaties Broken, Earth and Lives in Crisis: How do we change the narrative for the land and all its people?”

January 13, 2022
The MN Conference hosted Frank Bibeau, tribal attorney for Honor the Earth and White Earth Band of Ojibwe. He is an enrolled tribal member working the past seven years against Enbridge Line 3. He has lived most of his life a half-mile away from the six Enbridge pipelines. He presented his vast knowledge of the treaties through the ages that continue to be broken by white settlements and corporations working with the U.S. government. These activities threaten not only the livelihood of Indigenous Peoples, they also undermine the water and soil we all share.

WATCH & LISTEN TO THE DISCUSSION
VIEW RESOURCE LIST

“Good Money After Bad: How to invest in creation care”

February 10, 2022, 7:30-9:00 pm EST/6:30-8:00 pm CST
In financial terms, “investing” is the process of lending or giving money in support of something – a company, a product, a person, an idea – with hope that what is invested will yield some sort of economic return. “Divestment,” in financial terms, is the opposite of that: taking money away from something in which one has previously invested. Anyone who spends money is both an “investor” and “divestor,” for any time money changes hands, an investment or divestment has been made.

Hosted by the WI Conference, this discussion will examine the ways we choose to spend our money and do damage to the earth and the lives upon it, as well as offer some concrete steps “investors” at every level can take to reduce that damage.

WATCH & LISTEN TO THE DISCUSSION

“Creation Justice from the Sanctuary to the Street: Linking worship, action & advocacy”

March 3, 2022, 7:30-9:00 pm EST/6:30-8:00 pm CST
With the climate crisis and racial discrepancies shaping the narrative of our world, what are we hearing in our churches that speaks to advocacy and action on a regular basis? How can language in the sanctuary change the actions we take outside the building, out into the marketplace, city hall, and the street?

Repentance requires action. The day after Ash Wednesday, Thursday, March 3, the Michigan Conference will host a discussion of Creation Justice language within the life of the church. Explore how liturgical and spiritual practices like communion, baptism, prayer, and fasting move us to action for environmental justice. How can the spaces in our congregations, such as worship, Bible and book studies, and youth activities, incarnate the language of planetary health as a growing necessity? REGISTER

The Minnesota Conference UCC combines our voices to further courageous action, justice, and mercy.