Welcome to the Creation Care Resource Page!
As Episcopalians, we celebrate God’s creation and acknowledge our duty to be faithful stewards of our environment. Here in the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, we are blessed to live in an area of beautiful and rich natural resources. Yet our rivers, streams, forests, and mountains are not immune to the effects of pollution and greed. And the global crisis of climate change impacts all of God’s creation, no matter where we live.
The Creation Care Committee is a group of people from all over the diocese who share a commitment to this ministry with a goal for supporting this work throughout our region in a variety of ways. Our mission is shaped by the three goals of the Episcopal Creation Care Covenant: loving formation, liberating advocacy, and life giving conservation.
If you’d like to be involved with this committee or have questions, please contact our convenor Katie Ruth at katieimruth@gmail.com
Story Collection
We believe in the power of stories to inspire and influence change—and here’s where YOU come in! We’d love to hear about ways you or your parish are caring for creation. These stories can be anything from sharing a favorite prayer, telling us about how you’ve reduced your church’s carbon footprint, or making us aware of how you’ve advocated for environmental policy change. These stories will inspire us all to further action. We’ll hope to eventually share some of these stories and pictures here.
Click here to share your creation stories with us: https://bit.ly/3JVY88S
Creation Care Plan
Drafted for DioCPA
Last year, Bishop Audrey Scanlan requested that our committee review General Convention Resolution A087 and provide guidance on next steps. In conversation with the Bishop and endorsement from the Council of Trustees, the Creation Care Committee is pleased to publicly present this drafted Creation Care Plan to the wider Diocese.
Funding for Creation Care Projects
Share your creation care plans with us!
The Creation Care Committee of the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania invites you to share your creation care plans with us. We have a small amount of funding that we intend to distribute to fund projects across our diocese in 2024. We anticipate funding about 10 projects at about $500 this year (individual projects may receive more or less funding than this depending on need, a maximum of $1,000 will be granted to any one project). Your project must be implemented between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024.
Are you, for example:
- Installing alternative energy or finding ways to reduce your energy consumption?
- Planting native trees?
- Installing a stormwater mitigation practice?
- Planting a pollinator, native, or food garden?
- Hosting an environmental education program?
- Advocating for an environmental issue in your community?
Projects must be led by and in support of an Episcopal parish/ministry located in the Central Pennsylvania Diocese. Interested parishes are encouraged to apply, with endorsement from church leadership. This funding must be used in support of a specific project and not the generic work of a creation care team.
Because we have limited funds, we will give priority to proposals that will result in an improvement in the environment or energy efficiency, that will have a substantial impact on the community or people in need, or that will be a building block for greater care of creation in the future. If applicable, refer to the ways your project will support one of the steps outlined in the draft of the Diocesan Creation Care Plan.
Please fill out the form below with as much information as possible. A member of our committee may reach out to you with further questions. If your project receives funding, you commit to delivering a short written report back to the Creation Care Committee by December 31st, 2024.
TIMELINE:
Applications open: March 15, 2024
Applications close: May 31, 2024
Application review begins: June 1, 2024
Funding decisions announced: June 30, 2024
Funding will be distributed in as timely a manner as possible after funding decisions are announced.
If you have questions about this form or are seeking additional resources to support planning a creation care project, please reach out to the lead of our Creation Care Committee, Katie Ruth.
Apply Here: https://forms.gle/jNZtHsVQVKpaFCVQ7
Suggested Resources
Please let us know if you have other suggestions for us to add to the list. Please note that resources shared here are not equivalent to organizational endorsements by either our committee or the Diocese.
Episcopal Creation Care
https://www.episcopalchurch.org/ministries/creation-care/
Episcopal liturgical resources, learn about the Episcopal Creation Care Covenant framework, information about national church advocacy at the United Nations, and more!
Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light
Free native trees available in the Spring & Fall, environmental education programming, congregation resources & multi-faith network, information on PA-specific advocacy, and more!
Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology
International multi religious project contributing to a new academic field and an engaged moral force of religious environmentalism.
Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake
https://www.interfaithchesapeake.org/
Watershed resources, green leader training program, site assessments (limited to Lancaster County), and more!
Interfaith Power & Light
https://www.interfaithpowerandlight.org/
Cool Congregations Grant Program, Faith Climate Action Week, and more!
Articles/Books/Other Resources
Articles
- What is a Watershed?
https://www.chesapeakebay.net/discover/watershed - Landscaping with Native Plants
https://www.dcnr.pa.gov/Conservation/WildPlants/LandscapingwithNativePlants/Pages/default.aspx - Climate change is a justice issue – these 6 charts show why
https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-a-justice-issue-these-6-charts-show-why-170072 - PA’s polluted Susquehanna River is poisoning the bay. What can be done
https://www.ydr.com/in-depth/news/2021/02/02/pennsylvania-polluted-susquehanna-river-poisoning-chesapeake-bay-what-can-done/3766011001/ - Rain gardens are a practical, ecological and theological solution for houses of worship
https://religionnews.com/2022/02/09/rain-gardens-are-a-practical-ecological-and-theological-solution-for-houses-of-worship/
Books
- Watershed Discipleship, Ched Murray
- Longing for Running Water: Ecofeminism and Liberation, Ivone Gebara
- What Climate Justice Means and Why We Should Care, Elizabeth Cripps
- Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Creation Care Committee Member List 2023 - 2024
Katie Ruth, Chair
Sarah Klinetob Lowe
Maggie Chappen
Janie Coyne, Secretary
Victoria Wilcox
The Rev. Barbara Anne Hutchison
Sylvia Neely
Rob Gokey
John Gould
Greg Williams
Barbara Blakistone
Mel Graves, Liaison to Council of Trustees
