July 16, 2024
Rev. Susan Toller led a series of Faithful Climate Conversations in her church. These discussions led to more conversant and curious congregants, when it comes to talking about the climate crisis.
“By engaging in three conversations using the conversation guides, our group seemed to all feel more comfortable with our feelings and ideas about how to take action on climate change.”
While completing my diaconal ministry studies within the United Church, I led a series of three climate change conversations during February 2024. These conversations were very helpful. They enabled participants to express their feelings about climate change, obtain scientific and technical information, and consider how to take action. I really enjoyed seeing how they learned and opened up more to understanding climate change (and justice) during the third session.
The Climate Conversation sessions were held as weekly Zoom discussions. Any interested members of my church were invited to attend. The conversations followed the outlines provided in Faithful Climate Conversations 1, 2 and 3 & 4 (I merged these two). The same six people generally attended all conversations and became more engaged during the third conversation. I held a fourth session focusing on climate justice and the Wet’suwet’en opposition to the Coastal Gas Pipeline, asking our church congregation to participate in Amnesty International’s write-a-thon in support of the Wet’suwet’en. I found the climate justice issues required a bit more clarification, as people weren’t aware of the disproportionate impacts that some sectors of society and other countries are experiencing.
Some follow up activities happened after the conversations. Participants offered to speak briefly in church about what affected them the most about the conversations. They posted information on bulletin boards about predictions for local weather changes for our city. I wrote a newsletter article about the conversations.
Some of the most interesting discussions centered around why people resist engaging in climate justice, and climate action ideas for our church. The interesting information about the psychology of why people resist engaging in climate justice, and an accompanying video helped us understand perspectives and resistance to climate change/justice. I appreciated the positive approaches to help participants engage in climate action. We had some good brainstorming and came up with some realistic climate action ideas for our church.
The conversations guide was very well outlined and provided links to lots of online resources to access. I found it fairly easy to lead technical aspects of the discussions due to my background in environmental studies, but leaders without relevant experience should be comfortable facilitating as long as they review the information in advance. Each conversation includes lots of activities, and it might feel simpler to choose a few of them and not feel like one has to get through it all. The distinction between climate change and climate justice may require some specific definitions and discussion. It might be helpful if activities could focus a bit more on faith principles and teachings.
Overall, I really enjoyed the Climate Conversations. By engaging in three conversations using the conversation guides, our group seemed to all feel more comfortable with our feelings and ideas about how to take action on climate change. I hope these ideas will percolate in participants’ minds and help us improve our vegetable garden, implementation of our energy audit, and any other ideas about how to address climate change and justice in our community! Thanks for inspiring me to raise awareness of the need to care for our Earth.
Tags: Faithful Climate Conversations, FCC