Wherever Jesus went, there seemed to be a celebration; the tradition of festive meals at which Jesus welcomed all and sundry is one of the most securely established features of almost all recent scholarly portraits.”
N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus, 43.
At MSA we love this image of Jesus, and this is certainly a year of celebration for us! We started the year celebrating Tom Sine’s 80th birthday and now, in conjunction with our favourite Seattle event – the Inhabit conference – we are getting ready to launch his new book, Live Like You Give a Damn! Join the Changemaking Celebration.
We invite you to join the MSA team -Tom and me, Andy Wade, Katie Metzger, Forrest Inslee and Stefan Schmidt – for the conference this week and for the launch party Friday night. (If you are not in the Seattle area, join the celebrations from afar taking advantage of the special 40% pre-order discount which is still available (last chance is April 16th). Gary and Evelyn Heard, and Mark and Robyn Pierson, long term MSA contributors, are flying in from Australia and New Zealand respectively to join the festivities, and we would love to see you too.
In July we plan to continue the celebrations at the Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina. Tom, Christine, and Andy will present workshops, man the MSA booth, talk about the new book, and enjoy celebrating with friends from around the country. We will be joined by Jensen Roll, a young social entrepreneur who is currently building a tiny house on wheels, which will be a major focus for our talks. It promises to be an exciting event.
On August 5-7 our summer celebrations conclude with our 25th Annual Celtic Prayer Retreat. This year’s theme is Celebrating the Goodness of God with All the Saints. We have expanded the program to include a time of celebration and song on Friday evening and a festival of music on Saturday evening.
On Saturday morning we will once again gather for a time of worship, responsive reading and scripture reflection. As always, we’ll share an amazing potluck feast together, and in the afternoon there will be time to walk the prayer trails and labyrinth as well as participate in creative spiritual exercises.
Many of us will camp on the land, but there are plenty of other accommodation options available from B & Bs on Camano to motels in Marysville and Mt. Vernon.
Mark the date on your calendars and join us for a time of fun, fellowship and festivity.
On Godspace during this Easter season, we are celebrating the resurrection and how we live into Christ’s resurrection world in our daily lives. As Earth Day approaches we are particularly focusing on creation and where we see God’s resurrection glory shine through at this season.
Andy Wade launches the series with Resurrection in the Neighbourhood. Visit Godspace this week for revised resource lists and more inspiring thoughts from those who practice resurrection through their faithful and sustainable practices.
And be sure to check out what Tom’s up to over on his new blog, New Changemakers, where he’ll introduce you to new ideas and young people making a real difference in our world today!
How are you celebrating the resurrection of Jesus and living it out in your life? We hope that you too will discover the party spirit of Jesus this year.
God bless,
Christine Sine
Executive Director MSA
In the last few years, many parents are discovering how wonderful it is to get outside in the garden with their kids. As I have mentioned before, gardening, and interacting with nature is good for our health and well being, especially for that of our kids.
Living near nature dramatically impacts our health and interaction with nature decreases the health gap between rich and poor. Contact with nature helps children to develop cognitive, emotional, and behavioral connections to their nearby social and biophysical environments. Nature experiences are important for encouraging imagination and creativity, cognitive and intellectual development, and social relationships (Read the article). Kids in particular who suffer from nature deficit disorder and attention deficit disorder can have their symptoms alleviated by spending more time outdoors.
For fun worksheets and activities that can be done indoors or outdoors, check out Twinkl’s Earth Day resources.
The Permaculture Research Institute has a great 4 part series on “Getting Kids into Gardening”:
- Creating a Butterfly Garden
- Creating a pizza garden
- Creating a Resilience Garden
- Growing Creativity in the Garden
Edventures with Kids has one of the best list of resources for kids tools, plants to grow and activities to do in the garden that I have come across.
Burpee has a wonderful section for crafts and activities for Kids Gardening.
Curriculum for Children and Gardening
- From Presbyterian Church: Practice just eating
- Jewish Children’s Garden Curriculum is an excellent resource developed by the staff of Shalom Children’s Center at the Asheville Jewish Community Center.
From National Gardening Association
From Container Gardening for kids
- Kids Gardening and “helping young minds grow.”
Ideas for Kids Garden Crafts
A couple of great Earth day videos for kids:
by Christine Sine –
Earth day, one of my favourite celebrations, is April 22nd 2023. It is the 53rd Anniversary so I thought it was time to remind you of some of the resources that we make available through Godspace each year.
- Our free resource, Creating a Faith-Based Community Garden, is full of links, liturgies and ideas for creating both your personal garden and a faith-based garden in your community or church. We also post additional resources regularly on the Facebook page, To Garden with God and I highly recommend this wonderful garden reflection from colleague, Andy Wade.
- Circlewood offers a variety of resources for your Earth Day experience. Whether you listen to their Earthkeepers podcast or read their blog/newsletter articles through The Ecological Disciple, you will be immersed in the connection between Creator God and the created world.
- The official Earth Day website shares opportunities to get involved either in person or online with others that are celebrating Earth Day. The theme for 2023 is “Invest in Our Planet”.
- Nurya Love Parish has put together an excellent resource entitled The Christian Food Movement.
- A Rocha Canada, once again invites us to celebrate Good Seed Sunday with them.
- Let All Creation Praise has links to a number of great resources.
- Australian Religious Response to Climate Change is a multi-faith network committed to action on climate change and offers Climate Action Kits in five different religions: Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, and Jewish. They are available as a free download.
- GreenFaith offers resources including multi-faith eco-spirituality prayers, liturgies and music that would be a great addition to your Earth Day celebration.
- Check out the detail from Blessed Tomorrow’s Carbon Offset Program and see if your house of worship would consider participating.
- Blessed Earth posted downloadable tip sheets for better stewardship and creation care for Earth Day and other various areas of life.
- National Religious Coalition on Creation Care‘s resource list is worth looking over as it contains literature, prayers, and other resources on Climate, Energy, Forests, etc.
- Green heart education has some good Earth day prayers from different religious perspectives.
- The Green Good News share insights on how to “integrate sustainable living and Christian discipleship”. Check out their local initiatives page for ideas to implement in your neighborhood and church.
- Interested in a free, downloadable one-hour program for Earth Day? Catholic Climate Covenant has what you are looking for.
- A local Seattle group called Earth Ministry offers resources for Earth Day as well as other holidays too.
- #CareForCreation started by Creation Justice Ministries is a great way to share on social media and link with others who are advocating for creation care. Consider sharing this list of 52 Ways to Care for Creation for Earth Day.
- Creation Justice Ministries has a wonderful resource centre. with resources on many aspects of creation care including bible studies, liturgies, information sheets and much more.
- Interfaith Power & Light has many resources available including a list of Climate Prayers and Sample Sermons.
- Young Evangelicals for Social Action an organization that exists to equip, empower, and catalyze young Christians to love God and love our neighbors through bold, wholehearted, and faithful climate action in our church and community in order to create a more just, equitable, and loving world. They are well worth supporting and joining.
- The Green-Changemaker Challenge is an exciting competition, a collaboration between Ashoka and HSBC, This global innovation challenge is open to changemakers with solutions that are equipping others with the mindset and capabilities to contribute towards building a sustainable and equitable world.
A Few Books to Read
The list became too long so we made it into another post: A Prayer and My Favorite Books for Earth Day, please have a look as this list keeps growing.
It is impossible for me to list all the books that make good reading for Earth Day from a faith perspective.
Resources for Kids
Check out our resource page for celebrating Earth day with kids!
Godspace Resources
Earth Day Resources on Godspace:
Here is a compilation of all the resources posted for Earth Day over the last few years:
- Getting Ready for Earth Day – Resources for Kids
- Earth Day in the Neighborhood – Top 10 Ideas
- Time to Love and “Restore Our Earth” by Lisa DeRosa
- Celebrating Earth Day 50! by Tom Sine
- Native American Prayers for Earth Day
- Celebrate with All Creation
- Earth Day Prayers from 2015
- Garden Blessing for Earth Day
- A Garden blessing for Earth Day 2013
- Earth Day Liturgy
And my favourite Garden liturgy which includes the responsive reading below.
Adapted from Ps 65:5-12
God you call forth songs of joy from all the earth
You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness,
God our Saviour you are the hope of all the ends of the earth
You are the hope of the farthest seas,
When morning dawns and evening fades
You call forth songs of joy
God you call forth songs of joy from all the earth
You care for the land and water it;
You enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water
To provide the people with grain,
For so you have ordained it.
God you call forth songs of joy from all the earth
You drench its furrows and level its ridges;
You soften it with showers and bless its crops.
You crown the year with your bounty,
And your carts overflow with abundance.
God you call forth songs of joy from all the earth
The grasslands of the deserts overflow;
The hills are clothed with gladness.
The meadows are covered with flocks
And the valleys are mantled with grain;
They shout for joy and sing
God you call forth songs of joy from all the earth
Check out all our earth day and garden liturgies and prayers on our Creation Spirituality page.
by Christine Sine –
Practicing resurrection is simple I commented in last week’s meditation Monday, but it is not as simple as I expect when it comes down to the nitty gritty of the ways I interact with others. My tendency to want to talk when I should be listening, to try to take when I should be giving and to insist on teaching when I should be learning often gets in the way.
Teaching, talking and doing are so often about our agendas rather than God’s. If we look deep within ourselves we realize that it is our desire to let others see how much we know or how important we are that drives us rather than what God knows and desires (and often we confuse the two).
I call myself a contemplative activist, and as I think about that today I realize how important that sequence is. Activism needs to be grounded in contemplation. We should to go into the world with a listening and learning attitude or otherwise our actions can hurt rather than heal.
What is Your Response?
Sit quietly, close your eyes and reflect back over your activities this past week. What occasions come to mind in which you should have been listening rather than talking, taking rather than giving or learning rather than teaching? Are there people that were hurt or projects that were harmed as a result? Is there something that you could do in this coming week to rectify this?
This prayer is one that I wrote a couple of years ago during a time of real struggle with my tendency to get my priorities of listening, learning and giving mixed up with the compulsions to talk, take and teach. I need these constant reminders to keep me focused and to reset my priorities so that I do practice resurrection as much as possible in my daily life.
What is Your Response?
Sit quietly in the presence of God with your hands in your lap, palms facing upwards. Take a few deep breaths in and out. Read through the prayer above several times, then watch the video below. Relax yourself in the presence of God allow the words “In quietness and trust is my strength” to lodge deep within your soul. Are there new ways that God is asking you to practice resurrection through contemplation? How might your activism be more strongly grounded in these practices?
By Andy Wade –
Resurrection is all well and good, but what does it mean for my neighborhood? That may sound a bit irreverent, but that thought kept running through my mind as I planted seeds for our garden.
Over the past few years I’ve been exploring the idea of gardening with God and neighbor in mind and what it means to move from boundaries to hospitality in the garden.
This has been a profound journey of baby steps that has opened my mind, as well as our front yard, to a deeper level of sharing the hospitality of God.
Back to my question, “What does resurrection mean for my neighborhood?” If I stick with the narrow view of Jesus’ death and resurrection, then, for my neighborhood, it simply means figuring out how to get more people on the bus to heaven. But in the context of the larger story of God, resurrection is about God, through Jesus, drawing the whole creation together (Eph. 1.9-10, Col. 1.19-21, Rom. 8.20-24). Jesus is the Prince of Shalom, the Great Reconciler, the healer of our brokenness, and the one who makes all things new.
As I continue to ponder these deep, theological concepts, I’m tempted to just stay there, in my head, marveling at the greatness of God. But that does little for my neighborhood. Instead I’m forced to ask, what’s going on in my neighborhood? What good is already happening? Where are the points of brokenness, even division? Are there deep hurts or isolation? As I ask these and other questions then I can look back at my yard and ask, how can this be a place that fosters healing, reconciliation, friendships and support. In short, how can this become a garden of shalom where people, animals, and nature can flourish in the newness made possible in Christ?
These are big, potentially overwhelming questions. Sometimes when my mind goes in this direction, I either become trapped in heady theological gymnastics, or I become paralyzed by the seeming enormity of it all. But yesterday as I sat in my church’s Easter worship service, an image came to my mind. It was of a kayak quietly cutting through glass-like water. In its stealth-like movement it would be easy to miss, but behind this kayak was a wake. Not a huge wake, but rather small, gentle ripples slowly expanding across the water all the way to the shore on either side. Most of us are like that kayak: small, unassuming, often unnoticed, yet called to move through life in such a way that in our path we leave an ever-expanding wake of God’s shalom. Perhaps this is what my garden is to be.
I don’t have this shalom garden all figured out. In fact, I doubt it will ever be finished since the neighborhood, the needs, and my own involvement are constantly in flux. In fact my beginnings have centered, in a way, more on what needs to change in me to make shalom in the garden a reality. I’ve needed to move beyond the borders of public and private – mine and yours. I’ve needed to take little steps in discovering how I can be a more hospitable neighbor. I pray that in the midst of these personal lessons a small ripple of shalom develops.
This year, as I expand our Little Free Library, cultivate our free sun tea and herb garden, and share starts and cuttings with the neighborhood, I pray I may also gain a deeper understanding of the needs in our community. Hospitality is a doorway to friendship and healing, and it’s a doorway that seems to get bigger as we open ourselves more and more to the fullness of the resurrection.
Here is a short video I created a couple of years ago that shows the beginnings of the garden journey I’ve been on. Below the video I have few questions to stimulate your own imagination about how to garden with God and neighbor.
Starter Questions
- Do I know my neighbors?
- Is there a sense of trust in my neighborhood?
- Does my neighborhood feel welcoming or do we live more in isolation from one another?
- In what ways does my front yard communicate welcome and hospitality?
- In what ways does my front yard create barriers, both physical and emotional, to hospitality?
- What is one thing I could remove from my yard to make it more welcoming?
- What is one thing I could add to my yard to make it more welcoming?
- How does my yard express both care and welcoming to people as well as God’s good creation?
- What is one thing I could do this month to foster a deeper sense of community in my neighborhood?
- Who are the most likely neighbors I could conspire with to foster more joy, celebration, and friendship in my neighborhood?
Light of Christ by Mary Harwell Sayler
By Mary Harwell Sayler –
Exodus 34:6-7: “The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed:
‘The Lord! The Lord!
God who is compassionate and merciful,
very patient,
full of great loyalty and faithfulness,
showing great loyalty to a thousand generations,
forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
punishing for their parents’ sins
their children and their grandchildren,
as well as the third and the fourth generation’,” CEB.
Prayer:
Dear loving LORD,
we praise You for passing before us
in the beauty of worship,
in the words of Your Word,
in the forgiveness
and restoration that comes to us
through Your Son, Jesus Christ.
But I don’t have Your patience, Lord,
and frankly, I don’t want to pray for it
for fear You’ll send hard trials
to help me become
ever more tolerant of others!
Forgive me, Lord.
Forgive my lack of trust in You
and my annoyance with myself.
I think I want every pore in me
to exude Your love,
but that’s not really true, is it?
Love costs a lot –
a lot of mercy,
a lot of grace,
a lot of patience,
a lot of faith,
a lot of You!
Help me, LORD, to receive You more fully. Help!
Thoughts: Grace, mercy, patience, faithfulness: These aspects of love repeatedly pass before us without acknowledgement or even awareness that God is here; God is near. I wonder which of those aspects of God’s love is most lacking in my life? Do I dare think about it? If I really, really don’t want to know, could this be a sign that I’m not placing my faith and trust in God’s everlasting love? Do I trust myself to know what’s best for me, more than I trust God?
photo: Kirsty Williamson Lee
by Tom Sine –
I am celebrating the very good news that God is raising up a new generation that not only care deeply about the urgent issues that facing our neighbors near and far but they want to do something about it. They are creating new innovative forms of social enterprise and local community empowerment that often have a lasting impact in the lives of others.
These new changemakers are comprised of gen Y the 18 to 35. Researchers tell us that their younger sisters and brothers, gen Z, are even more intent on making a difference in the lives of others than gen Y. In my book I argue that that I suspect that the Spirit of God is raising up a new generation, largely outside the church, to awaken up followers of Jesus to the opportunity to join these young changemakers in becoming much more people of compassion, creativity and action.
This is an introduction to the video below that answers key questions I address in Live Like You Give A Damn! Join the Changemaking Celebration.
As a discuss these questions I am sure you will discover, as I have, that we all have much to learn from this new generation about how we can join them in creating our best neighborhoods, our best world and in the process often our best lives as well!
Why would anyone want to settle for less and miss the best? Why would anyone want to miss out on discovering how God can use our lives, in concert with a new generation, to make a lasting difference in the lives our neighbors… in times like these? As you listen to these interviews I would welcome your questions, feedback and pushback about this remarkable new changemaking celebration.
I would also welcome the opportunity to learn about innovative ways you are already involved in changemaking. I will share a sampling with of your innovations and feedback with the many others who are interested in learning more about this remarkable new changemaking celebration at my blog site newchangemakers.com
Don’t forget you can pre-order Live Like You Give A Damn! Join the Changemaking Celebration at the special 40% discount price until April 16th.
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