The American Scientific Affiliation is holding their Annual Meeting on the 28^th-31^st of July! 2023 marks the 50^th year of the founding of ASA’s official expression in Canada.

Here is the programme brief:

This conference will explore the intersection of science and faith across a broad range of frontiers. It will be chock-full of lectures, workshops, and discussions on important issues such as climate change, the environment, and artificial intelligence, along with continuing developments in astrophysical cosmology, geology, cutting-edge technologies, evolutionary biology, renewable energies, human psychology, and public health. Our meeting will include attendees from our counterpart Christians in Science in the UK and ISCAST from Australia. Join us in Mississauga in July to celebrate CSCA’s fiftieth anniversary!

It began with a simple question.

Last summer (2022), the Board and Staff serving the Lausanne Movement in Canada asked: ‘What would it look like to collaborate with our mission partners around themes that will help equip Canadians to participate in God’s mission more effectively?’

Creation Care, one of seven focus areas Lausanne Movement Canada has prioritized, was selected for the pilot phase of this project. From February 15 to March 22, we hosted an online webinar experience for interested Canadians to interact with featured guests from A Rocha, Lausanne/WEA Creation Care Network, Tearfund Canada, and Renew Our World. The format provided interaction with clips from the Lausanne Global Classroom: Creation Care content, then built upon the themes each week with interviews, breakout discussion, questions and reflections, as well as prayer. You can learn about how we structured the content here.

For participants, there were some ‘ahas’ around starting local, operating from a place of worship, stewardship, and wonder of God’s creation. One participant, Olivia (a pseudonym), expressed the following during our sixth session,

“We’ve been at this a long time, so how do we renew our spirits in this? We are so busy to do the work of creation care, that we forget to “slow down” and let God refresh us”.

She went on to say,

“I really resonated with that video clip (from Dave Bookless), where he shared, “If you don’t know what to do, pray.” That hit me like a ton of bricks, realizing I’ve been trudging along with the same things for a long time, but maybe it’s time for me to change this—maybe it’s time for me to pray for new revelation. God’s revelation is constant, and maybe my journey is supposed to change.

Praise God for the gift of being renewed, by His Word and Spirit, and through this community of fellow believers, sojourning together in caring for creation. You are welcome to get in touch with Joel at  learn@lausannecanada.com from Lausanne Movement Canada, for further guidance on how you could initiate something similar where you have been planted, to make a difference.

Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA) has trained dozens of young climate leaders to be effective activitists and advocates since 2014. Applications are now open for their 2021-22 class – deadline is March 15.

Here’s the blurb:

We are looking for college students who are ready to take their activism to the next level through community building, civic engagement, and faithful advocacy. 

Applications close on March 15th. In addition to basic info, the application will ask for short personal essays, references, and a short video. Please review the application and plan for sufficient time to gather those materials.

Click here for more information and to apply.

This has been an exciting and humbling journey this year at Against the Grain. Once again; as farmers we have experienced the climate challenges as our unusually wet, cold long spring left spring planting three weeks delayed. We had over 29 varieties of heritage wheat, barley in grow outs and 22 heritage dried beans. We harvested a variety of black barley that has taken 4 years of grow out to re-establish seed stock and was such a joy to see it come off the field. Many visitors including chefs, bakers, consumers and ecologically concerned came to the farm and I have been able to share the wonder of God’s goodness by providing seed to all. I believe this is my mission field and sharing with others the importance of bio-diversity and seed sovereignty is part of my passion as I acknowledge they are His seeds, not to be owned or controlled.

Learn more about Shelley and Tony at
savourottawa.ca/against-the-grain/

And here’s a great video profile of Shelley from the Europe Conference:
https://vimeo.com/236053515