by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Jul 13, 2015
We spend lots of time trying to get children in to church to develop their faith. But there’s an even better venue outdoors for that.
Spending time outside in unstructured play is critical to children’s growth and development. Including their faith development. Playing outdoors increases confidence, inner peace, and a sense of wonder and awe. All the stuff we want them to get from church. Not only that, it reduces depression, obesity, and ADHD. Despite the spiritual benefits of being outdoors, many Millennials and Digitals now experience “Nature Deficit Disorder.” (Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods describes this modern day neurosis.) And with it, comes Spiritual Deficit Disorder.
Here are some solutions for Christian Educators that engage younger generations, inspire fun, and bring out the kid in everyone.
It’s no longer a given that young people will play outside or spend much time outdoors. Returning children to nature, to cultivate a sense of awe and wonder, is a crucial part of Christian education. Connecting the creation to the Creator magnifies the learning experiences of children. Yes, there’s a time and a place for attending Sunday School, church, and other building-based activities. But here are some nature-oriented activities you can do this summer:
The Basics
Get Creative
- Design a Vacation Bible School that takes children outside. Give them time for play, reflection, and outdoor exploration.
- Tell a Bible story or parable outside. Help young people make a connection between the words of scripture and the world around them.
- Take children on nature walks. Focus on streams, birds, trees, flowers, clouds, bugs, animals, or other nearby natural features.
Go All Out
- Create an outdoor play environment on church grounds for use by Sunday school classes and the surrounding neighborhood. Incorporate trees, sandboxes and birdhouses to observe wildlife, and paths and bridges to explore interesting natural features.
- Clean up and green up an unused or abandoned area in your neighborhood as a child-to-child outreach from your church. Engage the children in your church to create a green play area for other neighborhood children.
- Put together a church camping weekend. Design a worship service that incorporates readings from Genesis and the Psalms as well as silent meditation time. Focus on caring for the creation as a way of loving God.
- Design a summer retreat in which adults mentor young people in the vital connection between spirituality and nature.
At Home
Take a Sabbath from the computer and the television. Spend time outdoors. Garden, hike, fish, camp, hunt, go bird-watching, enjoy nature walks. Take children, grandchildren, and other children with you. Introduce them to the wonders of nature. Breathe deeply. Relax. Enjoy!
Step Away From the Screen
It’s not only children who develop Nature Deficit Disorder. Adults get it too. We have traded green time for screen time. So here’s an idea. Put down your phone or turn off your computer and step outside right now for a much needed breath of fresh air. Yes, right now. Feel your spirit begin to fill up again. And your sense of awe and wonder begin to return. Now, isn’t that better?
Adapted from 7 Simple Steps to Green Your Church by Rebekah Simon-Peter, (C) Copyright 2010.
Photo of boys running courtesy of chrisroll at freedigitalphotos.net.
Photo of girl blowing bubbles courtesy of pat138241 at freedigitalphotos.net.
by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Feb 9, 2015
‘Tis the season of red: red hearts, red candy, red cards, red bows, red boxes of chocolates…all for Valentine’s Day. I love red as much as the next person, but when it comes to how followers of Jesus show love, I believe green is the new red.
In the church we know green as the color of growing in Christ, of maturing in faith. It’s the color of Ordinary Season–the weeks between Advent and Lent, and between Easter and Advent.
Green has another meaning as well. It’s also the color of sustainability, eco-friendly practices, and environmental awareness. Both the ecclesiastical and the ecological meanings are deeply intertwined.
They’re so deeply intertwined that I don’t think we can grow in Christ and mature in our faith without taking an active interest in the health and vibrancy of the Creation too. Why do I say this? The Creation is the general revelation of God, revealing God’s own nature. (Romans 1:20) We have been given dominion over it and asked to be caretakers of it. (Genesis 1-2). So wiping it out is like erasing God’s own imprint on the planet. Not a good idea. Christ himself is the firstborn of all Creation, through whom all Creation has been made. (Colossians 1:15). We have a responsibility toward it, as much as toward one another. That’s why I say green is the new red.
I want to share with you five things to start doing to green your love of God and one important thing to stop doing immediately.
Start Doing: Incorporate awareness of the Creation in Worship
When we gather to worship God we are joining our voices with the majestic choir of creation. Just as we humans gather to praise God through song, liturgy, sermon and communion, so the creation offers its praise to God, too. The psalmists write that the earth rejoices, the coastlands are glad, the trees clap their hands, and the heavens and earth praise God.
Sing: So many of the traditional songs of the church lift up creation. Sing them!
Pray: Ask for God’s wisdom in how to fulfill our role as stewards of the Creation. Focus on different aspects of the earth weekly such as different animals, rivers, forests, oceans, beaches, soil, and sky. Use your prayers to affirm positive advances being made.
Children’s sermon: Teach children about our interconnectedness with nature. Jesus told stories incorporating sky, sheep, goats, birds, flowers, mountains, and fields. So can we!
Sermon: Develop a yearly series on our deep relationship to the Creation. Incorporate the new four-week Season of Creation into your liturgical calendar. It highlights the work of God the Creator and the wonders of creation.
Observe Earth Sabbath or Environmental Sabbath, a worldwide ecumenical day of reverence for the earth around June 5, World Environment Day. Gather with other congregations in your area to hold an interfaith service. Consider patterning your service after the United Nation’s Environmental Sabbath Programme.
Holy Communion: Recognize Christ as the firstborn of all creation, our oneness with him, and by extension, our unity with creation.
Stop Doing: Thinking It’s Too Hard
All of us live on one planet. We all share the same water, air, earth, and sky. God would not give us something to do that we are not capable of. Read the Green Bible (NRSV) to get grounded in the Word in a new way. Start a Green Team. Read Green Church with your friends. Or simply begin with a prayer for courage. Just don’t say it’s too hard! Love always wins. Especially if it’s green.
Adapted in part from 7 Simple Steps to Green Your Church, by Rebekah Simon-Peter, (c) copyright 2010.
by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Mar 7, 2012
John Wesley famously said, “The world is my parish.”
I believe this generation of Christians is called to claim the whole Creation as ours.
Even as people are suffering from hunger, thirst, the effects of war, unemployment, and a dizzying array of natural disasters, the Earth is suffering too. Climate change, polluted oceans, disappearing species, melting poles, and deforestation are taking their toll on the interdependent web of life God created.
Our fates are tied. We are seeing with greater clarity that what we do to the Earth, we do to each other. And what we do to each other ripples out throughout Creation.
Resurrection Sunday and Earth Day are just around the corner. Both focus on fresh, new life. This is a perfect time to start a green ministry in your church!
But don’t worry about biting off more than you can chew or gulping more than you can swallow. Instead take the “S.I.P.” approach.
1. Start! Even if it means starting small. Many churches recycle. Now take the next step and close the recycling loop. Stock the restrooms with 100% recycled paper products. I like Marcal’s Small Steps toilet paper. Or switch from regular coffee and tea to Fair Trade. Or make sure lights and equipment are turned off when not in use. Small steps build consciousness and momentum.
2. Make it Intergenerational. A recent Barna poll shows that young Christians leave the church in part because the church seems anti-science, and doesn’t deal with the problems of the real world. You can address that. Take a Mother Earth Mission trip and connect with the youth and young adults in your church and community. Clean up a local river or waterway. Pick up trash. Plant trees. Include boomers and seniors, too. This is a concrete way to reach out beyond the walls of your church while making a statement that Christians care about the environment.
3. Preach! Pastor, your impact is larger than you know. Fossil fuels create a sizable carbon footprint. But you have an even larger spiritual footprint in people’s lives. When you preach or pray something it becomes REAL. Check out Green Church: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rejoice! for sermon ideas. Or try incorporating a simple refrain,in your weekly prayer concerns like, “For the gifts of earth and heaven we are grateful. Help us hear the cries of creation, and teach us to be wise stewards of this good gift.”
Six years ago I preached a sermon on recycling. It was summer and most folks were gone. As far as I could tell it was a big fat dud. But one person was listening and it touched something in him. He started a little recycling ministry. That grew into a small business. One that is continuing to this day. It has changed the consciousness of that town. You never know the power of your words!
Here’s to the Resurrection and Renewal of all Creation! Including your congregation. 🙂
