2025’s First LWCCN Webinar: What’s going on in Creation Care 2025: Global & Regional

Wednesday 26th February, 11:00 or 19:00 GMT

Book your ticket: https://buytickets.at/lwccn/1551485, choosing which timing you prefer!

What’s going on with Creation Care in 2025? When are the key meetings and what will they be looking at? Do you have a sense of anxiety and fear due to global events or can you find reasons for hope? How about in your region?

This webinar will both give an overview of key global moments and meetings, and also break into regional rooms to share what’s happening (or you want to happen) in your own region. At our Global Creation Care Forum there was a strong desire for more regional networking, so here’s your chance to get that started! 

Please note, the webinar is free. You can either accept or decline the invitation to contribute towards LWCCN costs.

Mark these dates! The LWCCN Webinars for the rest of 2025

29^th May Thursday, 11:00 & 19:00 UTC– Creation care in the Workplace

4^th September Thursday,11:00 & 19:00 UTC– Children & Young People in Creation Care

4^th December Thursday, 11:00 & 19:00 UTC– Creation & the Arts

Friends, are you seeking stories, insight and encouragement on what caring for creation looks like around the world?

We would like to remind you and draw your attention to a precious resource that does just that! Do check out www.creationcarestories.com

Our Lausanne Catalyst, Jasmine Kwong writes: 

“This new website hosts a collection of short films featuring stories of people of faith in God’s creation. These short films highlight creation care stories in different contexts, including a fisherman-pastor living in a rural, coastal community and a local church in a big city. These videos can be used for personal reflection, and can also serve as a launching pad for discussion in small groups and communities.”

Further, the website has since been updated with discussion questions alongside the videos—to foster further thought, engagement, and dialogue! www.creationcarestories.com/resources

Feel free to contact Creation Care Stories for more information at connect@creationcarestories.com

In our last Pollinator issue, we drew your attention to critical reflections on COP29—the 29^th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, the key global summit addressing challenges and issues of climate change of our time, by climate scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe and a statement from the World Council of Churches on COP29.

In relation to that, we offer here some links from the participants of the Christian Climate Observers Program (CCOP2024@COP 29), carefully compiled by Samuel Chiu.

CCOP is a joint program by 15+ Christian organizations, providing immersive discipleship and training at the annual UN Climate Conferences (UNFCCC COPs) for young Christian climate advocates, scholars, and ministry leaders. This year at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, CCOP had 25 participants from 12 nations, plus 7 leaders providing guidance, teaching and logistic support.

You can find a collection of their reflections, blog posts, interviews and so on here: CCOP2024 Team Members – Reports, Blogs, Articles, Reflections. This publicly accessible page is an ongoing collection, with new links to be added when received from the team in the next couple of months.

We hope these aid your awareness, consideration and prayerful reflection of the COP happenings!

Dear friends, we draw your attention to a new book written by Phillip Donnell, leader of New Creation New Zealand, a Christian environmental organisation specialising in a Kiwi perspective.

Having been involved in the conversation movement for most of his life, Phillip weaves together the hundreds of poems, studies, essays, articles and reflections from his 25 years of experience in this book, with the hope that these will increase awareness of the huge environmental challenges that face us and incite active participation in addressing them.

Questions include classics such as ‘What does ‘have dominion really mean?’ and ‘Is creation care a moral issue?’ to intriguing ones such as ‘Would Jesus go hunting?’.

Each chapter contains an introductory comment, a summary, and questions for reflection and discussion. This book is essential reading for any individual or faith community wanting to actively pursue the commission to “tend and keep” what God has made.

“a tender, insightful masterpiece”
Donald Carter, Parish Pastor, Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Tauranga

To order your copy, please contact newcreationnewzealand@gmail.com, indicating your name, address, and number of copies. Payment details will then be notified. Once payment is made, your books will be sent to you. To find out more about NCNZ, see https://newcreationnewzealand.org.nz.

Dear readers, see https://www.philmpark.com/copy-of-article for the work of Joonhee Elliot Park in highlighting this critical issue of plastic recycling.

He writes,

“The pandemic has given us the indulgence of unlimited use of single-use waste for public health. Humanity will eventually overcome the pandemic, but the disposable masks and plastic containers thrown into our oblivion will leave a genetic mark on our minds and habits, which will come back to us later with a greater calamity. While individuals and societies focus only on the air, water, and food that enter our bodies, we forget that the things we emit are destroying individuals and society into an irreversible state.

This documentary attempts to observe the problem of garbage not from a materialistic point of view but as a discourse of mind and memory, relationship, and future. In particular, by focusing on recycling waste, the goal is to question and update the audience’s current perception, which is merely an enlightening discourse on the economic benefits of circulating resources and the conservation of ecosystems.”

We are excited to feature Dr. Katharine Hayhoe’s plenary talk at the 4^th Lausanne Congress in Korea, now available on YouTube.

Do give her session on Faith and the Future of Creation a listen! She insightfully outlines the integration of faith and climate science in this talk, explores the biblical concept of ‘dominion’, examines today’s pressing climate challenges, and a offers theological framing for our practical action in response.

We highly recommend setting aside a few minutes—only 19!—to listen to her talk!

Dive into Dr Robert Sluka’s new book, Connected by Water—an exploration of his many underwater adventures, connecting with God and the ocean.

This book is available at
https://www.amazon.com/Connected-Water-Robert-D-Sluka/dp/B0DGF74MT2

Bob writes,

Early memories of family vacations to Daytona Beach and the Florida Keys sparked a desire to learn more and experience the vast and wonderful deeds of God in the ocean. I didn’t have the language to describe these events spiritually or even an understanding of how the ocean could relate to my faith. That came much later as our family embarked on an adventure that would take us to various parts of the Caribbean, the Great Barrier Reef, a remote island in the Maldives, India, Southeast
Asia, Kenya, and the beaches of the UK and southern Europe.

While this is the story of my experiences and only a subset of them, the subject of the book is the ocean. I hope that you get to know her more through my interactions with the communities, species, and habitats in various locations. I also hope to trace some of the changes in my thinking through time and take you on a journey to understanding a way of thinking about the ocean and its relationship with God including our part in that. I hope that you will increase your love for the ocean, God, each other, and yourself in a way that will cause you to actively participate in ocean conservation.

The emphasis is on the experiences, the places, sometimes the people, and the learning rather than an exact, full, and detailed account. My hope is that you will enjoy a trip to far-off places and a desire will grow to get to know better the one who made the oceans and all that is in them. This is my attempt to express in words my thanks to God, to tell of His wonderful deeds in the ocean.

Dear friends, we bring you news of yet another book well worth attending to:

The Whole Easter Story: Why the Cross is Good News for All Creation by A Rocha International’s Jo Swinney is a 40-day Lent devotional exploring how the cross transforms not only our own individual connection with Jesus, but also our relationships with each other and our world.  

Published by BRF, all royalties go to A Rocha’s conservation work around the world. Listen to some commendation of her writing:

Narrated with honesty, warmth and the insightful perspective of a storyteller – and accompanied by Jo’s warmly sensitive sketches of particular species – the Whole Easter Story helps us see afresh the immense power and wisdom of the cross for the salvation of the whole world. Thoroughly recommended! 

Professor Paul S Williams—Chief Executive, Bible Society  

This is a truly enjoyable devotional book, providing an excellent guide as we journey through our relationship with God, others and God’s wider creation, as well as God’s own relationship with his creation. Refreshingly honest, laugh out loud, attentive to all of God’s creation – your heart and soul will be fed. 

Jo Herbert-James—Head of Engagement, A Rocha UK

But not only that! Consider participating also in the…

Lent book club

You are warmly invited to join a six-week virtual book club based on The Whole Easter Story. Hosted by Jo Swinney and Jo Herbert-James, the club will run on Wednesdays from 5 March to 9 April 2025, 8 to 9pm GMT.  

Do find out more and book your place HERE. 

We bring you to your attention a resource from our friends over at the International Baptist Theology Study Center (IBTS) at the Netherlands: the Eco-crisis and the Gospel online course.

This course, part of the IBTS Learning Network, is open to members of all and any denominations (or even if you don’t belong to any denomination!), from anywhere in the world.

The course explores how Christians can respond to the current multiple ecological crises, no matter who and where you are placed. You will acquire biblical, theological, and ecological resources for reshaping your understanding of discipleship and attend to concrete practices that may bear witness to Jesus Christ, cultivating lives that are properly aligned with God’s redemption of creation.

Details are as follow:

• Course begins: 3^rd October 2024
• Duration: 10 weeks, 3-5 hours per week
• Format: Fully online, facilitated course of 10-20 participants, with a weekly virtual meeting
• Cost: 150 Euros, scholarships are available
• Language: English

What are you waiting for? Sign up here!

For more information, including who the facilitators are, head on over to: https://www.ibts.eu/programmes/eco-crisis-and-the-gospel-1

The Marine Conservation Programme of A Rocha has produced a Devotional which will help connect the experience of their staff and volunteers in the ocean with their faith.

Download here, but also do check out www.arocha.org/marine where you will be greeted by the good work that AR is doing in this area, alongside many other ocean and faith related resources.