July 03, 2024
Carl Cherland hosted a Faithful Climate Conversation (FCC) in Regina. The big change he saw after experiencing the FCC with his congregation was the willingness to fund the solar project (100 panels!) that had been the topic of discussion for a long time. Carl shares a prayer here that emerges from his passion to see the church step up, proclaim redemption and be part of the community of change!
“Our responsibility as Christians is to call out in a prophetic voice, and not only to speak but to act!”
God has given to us the gift of life. With that comes the task of being caregivers, stewards and protectors of creation and life. Is it “self-idolatry” that has caused us over the decades to blindly and greedily establish both individual patterns and global systems of extraction, misuse and abuse of that creation that has created our present environmental crisis? The list of those abuses is familiar: global pollution, exhaustion of non-renewable resources, human induced climate warming, extinction of species to name a few. By these we have deeply upset the sacred balance. We have revolted against the life-giving systems nature of creation that God called “good”. Are we not called as believers to live within the balance of the rest of creation in gentle, caring, balanced and serving ways? We are to live and let live not just for our present but for the coming generations. Earth caring is also self-serving. When we spoil it, we defile our own home!
Eternal God, creator of the earth, the seas, the sky and all that dwells therein, forgive our spiritual selfish and blind ways. We all have been participants in upsetting the sacred balance of the life-giving systems that you established to sustain life. We have polluted your creation, the waters, the soils and the air. Our actions have negatively affected your life-giving systems. We have done this by the habitual patterns of our greed, our indifference, our ignorance, convenience and our unwillingness to truly follow and worship you alone.
Call us daily to individual and system repentance and to change our ways of living, consuming, movement in travel and electrical power generation. Connect us to your greatest summary command: to love YOU, with all that we are and our neighbour as ourselves. Move us by your Holy Spirit to truly repent and to change our ways, drawn by love for you and our neighbour and all life on this planet and also those to come.
Tags: Faithful Climate Conversations, FCC