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Connecting the Church in Ministry
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Faith & Environment |  |
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In the fall of 2009, eMinistry will partner with the Faith & Environment Network in Spokane, Washington to offer a series of teleclasses and webseminars on the care of Creation. These classes -- divided into the three tracks below -- will provide an accessible opportunity for people both locally in Eastern Washington and across the Church to learn about various aspects of environmental sustainability, and positive, proactive steps that each of us can take to protect and care for God’s Creation.
Faith and Environment Network -- Fall 2009 Program
Creation Care 101: Education, Contemplation and Action!
Track 1: Practical Advice for Greening your Everyday Life
Track 2: Congregational Tools for Environmental Sustainability
Track 3: Building Community for a Healthy Environment in Eastern Washington
Creating A
Non-Toxic Environment At Home Or In Your Congregation
Leader: Felicia Reilly
Date: Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Time: 10:00 pm Eastern (60-minute teleclass) -- beginning at 9:00 Central, 8:00 Mountain, 7:00 Pacific
Cost: $10.00 Please read eMinistry's registration policies before you register. Get a 20% group discount if you bring a friend -- click here for more information!
Class size: Limited to 15
Class#: ENV-105
This class will explore ways that you can create a more sustainable way of life by using non-toxic cleaning methods and green living practices. We'll look at how to avoid common toxins found in homes and churches, make safe cleaning products, and find new ways to reduce your impact on the earth. Join us and learn how how you can save money, save the earth and live better with minimal effort!
Felicia was born and raised in Lewiston, Idaho and graduated from Whitworth University in 2003 with a BA in Psychology. She is married and has one son, who is two and a half.
A Theology of
Creation Care
Leader: Tom Soeldner
Date: Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Time: 10:00 pm Eastern (60-minute teleclass) -- beginning at 9:00 Central, 8:00 Mountain, 7:00 Pacific
Cost: $10.00 Please read eMinistry's registration policies before you register. Get a 20% group discount if you bring a friend -- click here for more information!
Class size: Limited to 15
Class#: ENV-106
How can we help congregations think about environmental issues and challenges? This brief exploration will suggest that we begin by engaging some of the primary “creation” texts of Scripture with “faithful imagination.”
We will look at the texts and consider the relationships they imply, the questions they raise, and the faithful living they invite:
Join us to begin this engagement of text and environmental questions in an effort to faithfully locate our place and the church’s place within creation.
Tom has worked in various capacities with the ELCA, the Anglican Church and the Methodist Churches in Southern Africa, and many ecumenical agencies in the US and abroad. He is a member of the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council, the Audubon Society, the Center for Environmental Law and Policy, and the Faith and Environment Network in the Spokane area. He lives on 40 acres of woodland and meadow south of Spokane in a strawbale house with a solar system as its primary energy source.
The Kingdom of
God is Like a Farmer's Market: Exploring the Intersections
of Food, Faith and Justice
Leader: Craig Goodwin
Date: Thursday, September 24, 2009
Time: 10:00 pm Eastern (60-minute teleclass) -- beginning at 9:00 Central, 8:00 Mountain, 7:00 Pacific
Cost: $10.00 Please read eMinistry's registration policies before you register. Get a 20% group discount if you bring a friend -- click here for more information!
Class size: Limited to 15
Class#: ENV-107
In 2008 Presbyterian Pastor Craig Goodwin and his family embarked on a year-long experiment of consuming everything local, used, homegrown and homemade. One of the central themes of their year was discovering the many intersections of faith, food and the Kingdom of God.
In this
class Craig will share from this experience and lead the class into a larger
discussion of how our faith in God might inform our decisions as consumers
of food. Class participants will learn why "locavore" was recently dubbed
word of the year by the Oxford English Dictionary and why local food,
neighborhood farmers' markets and backyard chicken coops are all the rage.
Participants will learn how to nurture a Christian voice in this cultural
moment of such interest in food systems.
Craig manages the Millwood Farmers' Market hosted and run by his church.
He is a Master Food Preserver,a backyard chicken wrangler and is on a
lifelong quest for the giant pumpkin. For more background you can visit
Craig's blog at
www.yearofplenty.org.
How to "Green" Your Congregation
Leader: Phyllis Strupp
Date: Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Time: 7:00 pm to 8:15 pm Eastern (75-minute teleclass) -- beginning at 6:00 Central, 5:00 Mountain, 4:00 Pacific
Cost: $12.00 Please read eMinistry's registration policies before you register
Class size: Limited to 15
Class#: ENV-100
When it comes to the environment, Episcopalians have a great opportunity to put their faith into action and make a difference. This new teleclass will explore ways in which you can take the first steps in sharing your passion and concern for the environment with the members and clergy of your congregation.
You'll learn from the success stories of others in the Church -- and get concrete suggestions for how to launch a green team in your congregation; how to engage the clergy in green ministry; where to turn for help or resources in the church and benefit from the growing, laity-driven green movement that is proliferating across the Episcopal Church. You'll discover the topics that offer the best approach to building environmental awareness (hint: they are not recycling, light bulbs or climate change!)
Join Phyllis and others from across the Church for an information-packed hour of presentation and discussion -- and get prepared to green your congregation!
This training is made possible in part by funds from the Roanridge Trust, administered through the Office of Congregational Development of the Episcopal Church Center,815 2nd Ave., New York, NY 10017. Please click here for additional important information about eMinistry's Roanridge projects.
Phyllis is a brain fitness coach, helping people enrich their lives with fun, practical ways to encourage brain health and growth. From 1988 to 2007 she worked as a financial resprentative with Northwestern Mutual, specializing in insurance and benefit products, and has held financial management positions at Dun & Bradstreet and Equitable Life in New York.
Learn more about Phyllis at her website: http://www.phyllisstrupp.info
LITURGY AND THE EARTH:
An Introduction to Worship through a Creation Season (with Skip
Vilas)
Leader: The Rev. Franklin “Skip” Vilas
Date: To be rescheduled
Time: 7:00 pm Eastern (60-minute teleclass) beginning at 6:00 Central, 5:00 Mountain, 4:00 Pacific
Cost: $10.00 Please read eMinistry's registration policies before you register
Class size: Limited to 15
Class#: ENV-104
In the early 1990s the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Morristown, NJ began to celebrate a Creation Season from the Feast Day of St. Francis in early October to the beginning of Advent. Over the next decade, the idea of a liturgical Creation Season spread through many denominations from Australia and New Zealand to Europe; the Church of England now has a month-long celebration in September.
Skip Vilas has written: “ For other churches that celebrated the Creation Season over a long period of time, it became one of the most inspirational and involving seasons of the year, drawing members of a younger generation to worship which honors the Earth as a gift from God. It also fueled the development of environmental activism, as members of local congregations discovered spiritual mission through their deepening sense of the sacredness of all of life.”
This summer in Anaheim, the General Convention referred a resolution on establishing a liturgical Creation Cycle back to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music. It is hoped that as a result of this teleclass, congregations in many different dioceses will incorporate a Creation Cycle into their worship life, providing feedback on their experience for the SCLM to consider.
Join us for an exploration of liturgical resources for a Creation Cycle, and how they can enrich your congregation's worship life and help your members to enter more deeply into caring for God’s Creation.
This training is made possible in part by funds from the Roanridge Trust, administered through the Office of Congregational Development of the Episcopal Church Center,815 2nd Ave., New York, NY 10017. Please click here for additional important information about eMinistry's Roanridge projects.
Skip was born and grew up in New York City. Attending Yale University and Virginia Theological Seminary, he was ordained to the Priesthood of the Episcopal Church in 1960. He has served as curate in St. Mark’s Church, New Canaan, Ct. and rector of St. John’s in Beverly Farms, MA, St. Anne’s in Brooklyn Heights, NY and St. Paul’s in Chatham, NJ.
In the 1970's, Skip was Priest-in-Charge of Trinity Church, Wall Street and St. Paul’s Chapel in Lower Manhattan. He served for 5 years as Program Director of the Diocese of Connecticut, and for 6 as Executive Director of Wainwright House Conference Center in Rye, NY. Since retirement from Chatham in the year 2,000 Skip and his wife Joyce have served as an interim team at All Saint’s, Bay Head., the Port Newark facility of the Seamen’s Church Institute, St. Andrew’s in New Providence and most recently have completed two years at St. Luke’s in Gladstone-Peapack, NJ.
During his career, Skip had been involved in the field of mental health, serving in the Carter administration as one of 12 members of the President’s Commission on Mental Health.
Skip and Joyce have been members of the congregation of St. Mary’s-by-the-Sea since 2001. They live at the Four Seasons community in Lakewood, and have two grown daughters, Virginia and Deborah, who are residents of Manhattan.
PAST CLASSES:
Exploring “The Genesis Covenant” with Bishop Steven Charleston
Leader: The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston
Date: To be offered Fall 2009
Time: 7:00 pm Eastern (60-minute teleclass)
Cost: $12.00 Please read eMinistry's registration policies before you register
Class size: Limited to 15
Class#: ENV-103
In its July meeting in Anaheim, California, the Episcopal Church’s General Convention will consider a resolution that the Church sign on to the Genesis Covenant, “thereby making a public commitment to work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from every facility it maintains by a minimum of 50% within ten years.”
The Genesis Covenant was first proposed in June 2007 by The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, in a sermon at St. Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle during an interfaith conference on the environment. He asked a simple but powerful question: If we, who are people of faith, do not act to save this planet, who will do it for us? Who are we waiting for?
He challenged people of all religious traditions to imagine the impact of a single, unified effort – the Genesis Covenant -- to reverse global warming by every faith community in the United States. He held up the powerful vision of all faith traditions working together with an historic witness to not only environmental justice but also global reconciliation. Today the Episcopal Church is set to be the first to endorse the Covenant. To date the Presbyterian Church, the ELCA and the Buddhist community at Naropa University have joined the dialogue.
We invite you to join this conversation with Bishop Steven Charleston to learn about the Genesis Covenant. He’ll look at what it will mean for the Episcopal Church to commit to the Covenant, and how you as an individual can support this effort in your diocese and your local congregation. The focus will be on organizing your faith community to work actively to address the crisis of climate change in this tangible, measurable way. A key component will be carrying this organizing message throughout the interfaith communities of North America.
This training is made possible in part by funds from the Roanridge Trust, administered through the Office of Congregational Development of the Episcopal Church Center,815 2nd Ave., New York, NY 10017. Please click here for additional important information about eMinistry's Roanridge projects.
Bishop Steven Charleston
is widely recognized as a leading proponent for justice issues and for
spiritual renewal in the church in both the United States and Canada. He has
been called "one of the best preachers in the Episcopal Church," leading
worship services ranging from a revival style service in Texas to Lenten
Services at Harvard University. A citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma,
Bishop Charleston was born and raised in that state in a family that has had
a long history of service in the Christian Native American community. Both
his grandfather and great-grandfather were ordained ministers of the
Presbyterian Church, serving among the Choctaw People in rural Oklahoma.His vocation in the church has been extensive and varied. He was the national staff officer for Native American ministries in the Episcopal Church; tenured professor at Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota; the VIth diocesan bishop of Alaska; and the President and Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Currently he is the Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of California.
He is married to Suzanne Charleston, a working artist with several paintings chosen for the permanent collection of the Anchorage Museum of Art. Her website is: www.suzanneartist.com. Their son, Nick, is a student at the University of Phoenix.
"Greening" Your Church Meeting or Conference
Leader: Phyllis Strupp
Date: Last offered Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Time: 7:00 pm to 8:15 pm Eastern (75-minute teleclass) -- beginning at 6:00 Central, 5:00 Mountain, 4:00 Pacific
Cost: $15.00 Please read eMinistry's registration policies before you register
Class size: Limited to 15
Class#: ENV-102
Several Episcopal dioceses are stepping up to the plate by planning diocesan conventions with green themes and/or green practices. The Episcopal Church is working on how to make General Convention 2009 more green. But no matter what size meeting you’re planning, there are things you can to do make it more ecologically responsible – and at the same time raise your participants’ awareness of environmental concerns.
In this class we’ll explore how to use a “green” lens to look at the meeting decisions you already make -- and we’ll suggest concrete practices you can model for your participants -- so that your congregation and diocese can cut the ecological impact of “when two or three are gathered together.”
This training is made possible in part by funds from the Roanridge Trust, administered through the Office of Congregational Development of the Episcopal Church Center,815 2nd Ave., New York, NY 10017. Please click here for additional important information about eMinistry's Roanridge projects.
Phyllis is a brain fitness coach, helping people enrich their lives with fun, practical ways to encourage brain health and growth. From 1988 to 2007 she worked as a financial representative with Northwestern Mutual, specializing in insurance and benefit products, and has held financial management positions at Dun & Bradstreet and Equitable Life in New York.
Learn more about Phyllis at her website: http://www.phyllisstrupp.info
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Copyright © 2009 The eMinistry Network |
Felicia Reilly
W. Thomas Soeldner (MDiv, MA, Certificate in Advanced Leadership
Studies) is Pastor of Salem Lutheran Church, Spokane, WA, with a private
consulting practice in organizational development, strategic change, and
executive coaching. He has served as a pastor, an elementary school
principal, a high school principal and teacher, a university lecturer, and a
missionary-educator/organizer for 10 years in southern Africa. He has 14
years of study and training in Bowen Systems and its application to
organizations. 
Craig Goodwin is the senior pastor of Millwood Presbyterian Church in
Spokane, WA and has been an ordained pastor for over 12 years in the
Presbyterian Church (USA). He has a Master of Divinity Degree from Fuller
Seminary and is in the final stages of completing his Doctor of Ministry in
Missional Leadership at Fuller. H
The Rev. Franklin E. Vilas, D.Min., known to his friends as "Skip", has
has been engaged for decades in the ministries of environmental stewardship
and ecojustice. He is the founder of the national Episcopal Environmental
Network (