THE EARTHKEEPING
MINISTRIES CONGRESS
THE NORTH AMERICAN COALITION FOR CHRISTIANITY AND ECOLOGY
September 13-15, 1996
Summary Report
How is it you do not know how to interpret the signs of the times? (Luke 12: 56)
THE EARTHKEEPING MINISTRIES CONGRESS
Discerning the Signs of These Times
A Summary Report
by the Board of Directors
The North American Conference on Christianity and Ecology
INTRODUCTION
In an intensive forty-four hour weekend, September 13-15, 1996, over one hundred highly creative and committed participants worshiped, talked, ate, sang, and danced together at the Congress of Earthkeeping Ministries, sponsored by the North American Conference on Christianity and Ecology, at the Cousins Catholic Center in Milwaukee. Teachers, students, scientists, clergy, nuns, seminarians, journalists, environmental activists and homemakers were meeting to interpret the signs of our times, and to pool our wisdom in order to help individuals and Christian churches address more effectively the greatest moral issue of our time – our continuing destruction of God's Earth our home, and of ourselves.
The event was a culmination of two years of consultation among NACCE colleagues to discern the stumbling blocks preventing Christian individuals and churches from taking a right relationship to Earth.
The warning of the Union of Concerned Scientists (1,670 of the world's most prominent scientists), published in 1993, that human beings and the natural world are on a collision course, must be taken seriously. There is an awakened vanguard in all the denominations that realizes the urgency of changing people's images of their relationship to God's creation; but a huge gap exists between them and most local congregations. Few congregations at the present time consider care for creation a ministry with priority for the life of the congregation.
To follow Christ faithfully in the twenty first century we believe the church must offer the spiritual base for an ethic binding social justice and compassion with justice and compassion for the rest of creation. The integrity of creation is fundamental to justice and peace.
At the Congress we examined four major movements, unique to our time, that we consider critical for Christian communities in their relationship to the Creator and creation.
Panels of resource persons, who spoke from their own experience, presented the conceptual framework within which to address these movements. Participants, in four facilitated workshops on these topics, looked at positive trends in the current situation and expressed their hopes and dreams for the churches (a five-year vision). They then analyzed why their vision was not operational. What was blocking it? Once the groups came to consensus on the major challenges, they moved to create strategies that would enable churches to overcome the blocks. The substance of the four workshops, along with the logo and slogan each group created, is contained in the Congress Document that every participant took home.
The following sections, building on the insights of the resource persons and the work of the "town meeting" workshops, provide a basis for action by churches, and new directions for the North American Conference on Christianity and Ecology.
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