The Loka Initiative at the University of Wisconsin (a partner of LWCCN) is presenting a major online summit, Resilience in the Anthropocene (RITA), on August 8-10. This is free and will bring together researchers, academics, experts from communities most impacted by environmental devastation and climate change, clinical and counselling psychology practitioners, and contemplative leaders to discuss eco-anxiety and climate distress within a framework of inner, community, and planetary resilience. Though not from a Christian perspective, I think the material could be incredibly useful for all of us working with Christians and churches. Here are a few major themes to be covered:

Dimensions of Emotional Distress: Understanding the psychological and emotional impacts of the environmental and climate crises through an intersectional and justice lens.

Exploration of Coping Mechanisms: Learning from contemplative practices, clinical and counselling psychology, nature-based and Indigenous wisdom traditions to cope and even thrive in uncertain times.

A Framework of Resilience: Collaboratively designing a new framework of inner, community, and planetary resilience that sustains us all.

Free registration link is here!

A unique partnership event hosted jointly by the Lausanne/WEA Creation Care Network and the Loka Initiative of the University of Wisconsin-Madison was held last month (10-12 November). The 3 day Zoom consultation was the result of a year long effort by Ed Brown (LWCCN/Care of Creation) and Dekila Chungyalpa (Loka). The event was closed-door and the invitation list was drawn from LWCCN members around the world, and featured almost half younger leaders (under 40) and about 30% women.

Here’s a brief description:

Creation Care at the Crossroads is online consultation event jointly hosted by the Lausanne/WEA Creation Care Network and the Loka Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

This closed-door event is designed to pick up where the Jamaica Call to Action left off. The Jamaica Call to Action is a summary document produced by participants at the Lausanne Consultation on Creation Care and the Gospel held in Montego Bay, Jamaica, in November 2012. The Call to Action quickly became the guiding manifesto for evangelical Christians engaged in creation care, and led to the formation of the Lausanne/WEA Creation Care Network, a group that now has members in more than 140 countries. 

We hope that this convening and the ones that follow will lay the foundation for an updated Call to Action that will reflect the intent of the original and continue to guide the global evangelical creation care movement in this moment in time. This Consultation is the first of three planned convenings, the second one of which will be planned for the Spring of 2021 and third one hopefully in person, sometime late in 2021. 

The Consultation consisted of almost 70 participants, coming from 25 different countries, with more than forty percent young leaders, and almost one third women. Some have had experience on the ground working with church missions, some have worked on environmental and climate issues, some are preachers, and some are scientists.

Links to Consultation presentation recordings will be available soon.