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Overview Season of Creation 2023 Resources Season of Creation Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint Ideas for Reducing Waste

Season of Creation Resources 2023

The following is a outline of various resources parishes may use for the Season of Creation 2023, designed and gathered by the Diocesan 5th Mark in Action Committee.  We provide for you,

  1. A theme for each week
  2. Scripture options
  3. A short body of teaching in video or text.
  4. An accessible parish challenge.
  5. Hymn and prayer options (CP="Common Praise",Canada,1998; SANC="Sing a New Song",Canada,2022; CH4="Church Hymnary, 4th edition",Scotland,2005;RH-Anglican/United "Red Book",Canada,1971)

Some teaching elements are forthcoming.

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Sept 3 - All Relations

  • Reflection Video: The Rev. Dr. Scott Sharman
  • Scripture: Genesis 1:1-2,31a; 2:7
  • Challenge Ideas:
    • Celebration: How do you feel connected already to the rooted and unrooted beings of our world?
    • Take 5 min of silence as a parish meditating on the land the church building is situated on, what the land was 20 years ago, 100 years ago, 1 million years ago.  This is important imagination to help discern how to behave on the land now.
    • Take 5 min as a parish - hand out small peices of paper and encourage people to choose one non-human part of our world/cosmos and write three ways that they are connected like a family.
  • Prayer:
    • Help us, Lord, to know the sanctity and interconnectedness of life. Help us to be like the moose who sheds its antlers, so that we shed the old ideas, habits and opinions that no longer fit. Help us to let go, to be open to new learning, growth, and the teaching of the spirit. Help us to see the Earth as the community to which we belong, so that we may accept the responsibilities you have given us.  Amen.
  • Hymn Suggestions
    • All Creatures of our God and King. CP 355
    • For the Beauty of the Earth. CP 429
    • Is This the Way CH4 242
    • Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee. CP 425
    • God Who Gives Life Its Goodness. CP 428
  • Other Resources

Sept 10 - Soil

  • Reflection Video:
  • Scripture: Luke 13:6-9 (parable of the fig tree)
  • Challenge Ideas:
    • Celebration: How do you care for soil at home and church already?  What gifts does the soil give you?
    • Discussion: What chemicals are being used in church/home landscaping.  Are there any that you could easily do without?  What would be the effect to you of doing without them alltogether?
    • Review: In 2012, as a diocese, we committed to moving away from single-use plastics, how is that going in your parish?
    • How many beings that live in the soil can you name as a parish?
  • Prayer:
    • We join with the earth and with each other.
      To bring new life to the land.
      To restore the waters.
      To refresh the air.
      We join with the earth and with each other.
      To renew the forests.
      To care for the plants.
      To protect the creatures.
      We join with the earth and each other.
      To celebrate the seas.
      To rejoice in the sunlight.
      To sing the song of the stars.
      We join with the earth and each other.
      The recreate the human community.
      To promote justice and peace.
      To remember our children.
      We join with the earth and each other.
      We join together as many and diverse expressions of one loving mystery: for the healing of the earth and the renewal of all life.
  • Hymn Suggestions
  • Other Resources

Sept 17 - Air

  • Reflection Video:
  • Scripture: Job 28:23-28
  • Challenge Idea:
    • Invite people to choose what they feel most able to do next in reducing carbon impact: Reduce (commercial, non-local) meat intake to once or twice a week only, Take public transport one day a week, bicycle to work one day a week, move to a primarily 100mile diet and eat seasonally, grow one plant you can eat at home, carpool to work or church, upgrade your home to use less energy, plant a tree.
    • Have someone in the service google, "what 20 firms are behind a third of all carbon emissions?"  (link) or otherwise present the data to the congregation.
    • Invite a company to give you a solar quote for the church.  (Do you know, if it is put on a 10 year loan the payments will often balance what you would have paid in electricity bills?)  Do you know one local company is Anglican owned and run: www.hme.ca?
  • Prayer:
    • Creator God, we pray for simplicity, for fair use and fair trade of resources. Help us reduce our consumption, to save energy and water, to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and automobiles. We pray for safe travel for cyclists, pedestrians and those who are ride-sharing and using public transportation.  Help us move to increased consciousness, so that the well-being of the entire Earth community is our primary concern.  Amen.
  • Hymn Suggestions
    • I feel the Wind of God Today (Lyrics Red1971 #282; tune CP508)
    • O Lord of every shining constellation   (CP411)
    • She comes Sailing on the Wind (CP656)
    • The Spacious Firmament on High. (CP 426)
    • Wind upon the water (CP408)
    • God who touches Earth with Beauty   CP422
  • Other Resources
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Sept 24 - Fire

  • Reflection Video:
  • Scripture: Genesis 15
  • Challenge Ideas:
    • Confirm that you have a yearly and monthly maintenance plan for your church heating system to maintain its efficiency.
    • Invite a quote to know what it would cost to a) upgrade your church heating system or b) insulate the church, and what energy savings could be expected. (Some furnaces can be retrofitted for higher efficiency.)
    • Ask if there was anyone in the church who grew up with home heat from a different source than natural gas or electric.  Ask them how that changed their experience of home.
  • Prayer:
    • O Great Spirit whose breath gives life to the world and whose voice is heard in the soft breeze, we need your strength and wisdom.  May we walk in beauty.  May our eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.  Make us wise so that we may understand what you have taught us. Make us always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes, so that when life fades, as the fading sunset, our spirits may come to you without shame.  Amen.
  • Hymn Suggestions
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  • Other Resources

Oct 1 - Water