I’ve focused on climate change for my harvest festival sermon this year. I’ve already preached it at Rocester and Denstone, with Croxden tonight and Hollington next week. It has, so far, been well received. the Rocester one benefited from using a screen and powerpoint, which meant I could show pictures and some quiz questions. This week’s blog will be that sermon.
The St Michael’s Youth group produced a film about creation and our care of it during the summer. We watched it at the Rocester harvest festival and it is now on the St Michael’s Facebook page. I am not sure if I can put a video in this blog. But here’s the link to the FB one: https://www.facebook.com/134949096527678/videos/376517433231192/
They are great….. the young people of today are really concerned about the environment and I agree that we should be more concerned and actually change how we behave…. but…. it isn’t easy!!!!
We’ve had a great holiday – wonderful scenery in north east and north west – Northumbria and the Lake District. Hate to think how much we’ve clogged up the environment with petrol fumes. Magnificent mountains, waterfalls, lakes and rivers. The company was pretty good too. We were mostly self catering but did have a few days in hotels and I was surprised in one of them to find a book in the bedside drawer. Any guesses?
I left the bible and read her book! It was a collection of all her speeches, so a bit repetitive and didn’t take long to read. Impressive that she is taking on adults and making progress.
I read a page of her book to the congregation:
Friday 20th September’s strike – did you see anything on the news about it? Such a shame that she has come under attack from those who don’t agree with what she is doing. Standing up for what is right – and especially if it means people have to change their habits – has never been popular.
But, as Christians, we should be involved in making the world a better place – for everyone, not just our nearest and dearest.
A video clip was shown at St Michael’s of Bishop Clive the diocesan lead on the Environment. The other churches had me reading: hesaid: “Our diocesan vision includes a prayer that we become a church ‘that partners with others in seeking the common good, working for justice as people of hope.’ As we grow deeper in our love for Jesus, we learn to love our neighbour, which applies to the whole of creation as much as our human neighbour. So often the care of creation has been seen as a marginal preoccupation within the life of the Church. But by making small changes to our own lifestyles and campaigning for the government to make big changes we can be part of halting the progress of climate change.”
In the video clip bishop Clive was urging clergy to support the action on Friday and clear their diaries. Not so easy for me as I had a school in church that day for harvest festival. But I spent the rest of the day preparing my harvest sermon on the subject of climate change.
So – we need to do something…
there’s a saying…. ignorance is bliss. Once you become more educated on a subject it is more difficult to ignore it.
so… how much do you know about climate change? Congregations were split into 2 teams to do the quiz:
Climate Change Quiz
the quiz was a bit of fun, but at the same time helped us to realise the importance of this subject, especially the fact that so many scientists are supportive of it. I hope you enjoy doing the quiz.
I also came across a charity called Operation Noah.
Home
There’s a call to churches regarding climate change. I skimmed through the pdf which you should be able to see on the following link. I read the final paragraph out in full. It is about the hope we have in God. Christians do not live without hope. And because we have hope we do not despair.
Click to access Final-ON_Declaration_web.pdf
I hope you are able to access the pdf. It’s worth reading and I left a copy in each of the churches.
Elizabeth Jones' Diary 