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Christians around the world are invited to give particular attention to praying and caring for God’s creation as part of the global Season of Creation, observed from September 1 to October 4 every year.

In our diocese, the diocesan Vision Implementation Teams for Engaging God's World and Worship Resources are encouraging parishes and individuals, during these 34 days, to reflect on creation as part of our ongoing season of discipleship, asking ourselves, how does our call to discipleship inform our relationship to the land, earth and sky of God's good creation? And then to take action in some way both personally and corporately.

Parishes are particularly encouraged to use this time to consider the motion passed at our 2018 synod regarding single-use plastics (see below) and implement policies to meet our 2023 target to end the purchasing these products.

The theme of Jubilee reflects three interlocking themes – greed, inequality and destruction of God’s Earth. Jubilee is a time to renounce overconsumption and economic systems based on constant economic growth at the cost of the Earth and those who are poor. Jubilee is a time when those who have consumed the most must make restitution to those who have suffered the most. Jubilee is a time of rest for the land from constant exploitation, to restore ecosystems and people.

There are many resources in the Celebration Guide found on the Season of Creation website. Knowing how busy everyone is, we’ve put together a few ideas for how you might use particular resources from the guide – for each idea the page number in the SoC Celebration Guide is indicated. There are other ideas and resources listed here as well for how through prayer, practice, action and advocacy your parish can acknowledge the Season of Creation. — Season of Creation Celebration Guide

HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED

Pray 
1) Integrate care of creation into homilies (p22, SoC Celebration Guide)
2) Put the 2020 SoC Prayer on parish websites (p12, SoC Celebration Guide)
3) Encourage Intercessors to include the ecological emergency in their prayers
4) Use the Prayer of Confession (p24, SoC Celebration Guide)
5) Use the ACEN prayer addressing environmental racism
6) Use the Eucharistic Prayer from Anglican Church of South Africa (approved for use in our diocese). Download in Word format below.

Practice
1) Read ACEN Statement on Environmental Racism and learn about how this applies in our context
2) Use the Earth Examen (page 25-26, SoC Celebration Guide) – this could be done with a small group

Act

  1. Clean local waterways for International Coastal Cleanup - or if you’re located near a beach, do a sampling regarding the presence of microplastics – here’s a great resource from A Rocha about how to this.
  2. Plant a native species tree and plan for its care
  3. Encourage reduction of personal carbon footprint (page 28-29, SoC Celebration Guide). Check out this guide from Columbia University for ideas.
  4. Consider institutional changes to reduce carbon footprint – how might you make changes as a parish? If you haven’t worked on reducing single-use plastics as part of our Synod 2023 Green Church plan, that’s a great place to start! Watch Living the Change for more ideas about reducing consumption as a spiritual practice.

Advocate (page 32, SoC Celebration Guide)
1) The Celebration Guide has lots of ideas for how we as individuals or as a diocese might advocate for policies that address the ecological crisis – perhaps your parish might learn about advocacy that could be done here in Canada and more specifically BC.

Diocesan Synod 2018 - Notice of Motion #16 Single Use Plastics

That:
1. Parishes and synod office curtail the purchase of products with single use plastics, including rigid foam (Styrofoam and other brands), and to end such purchases by 2023; and

2. The Engaging God’s World [Vision Implementation Team] raise awareness with the members of the diocese and also advocate on behalf of the diocese.

a) With manufacturers to seek and use alternatives to the use of single use plastics;

b) With the food industry (restaurants and grocery stores) to eliminate the use of rigid foam in their packaging and ‘take out’; and

c) With the general public to reduce its use of single use plastics; d) With government to pass regulations that will lead to the elimination of the manufacture, sale and use of single use plastics.

3. Diocesan Council report back to the next sitting of synod on the steps taken to affect this motion and the effectiveness of those steps