Last month, the Season of Creation, or Creationtide, enabled us all to concentrate on our year-round focus looking at ways to save our planet through our ongoing work with Care for Creation.  In this article, we look at some of the events and activities featured from across the diocese and bring you two new stories of a truly vibrant month.

At the very beginning of Creationtide, early September, the youth group at All Saints Anglican Church in Luxembourg wrote and performed a play, no less!

Good News Travels Fast

A Youth Leader and a church member (Lisa Dishman and Ann Thorogood) wrote a play for Creationtide called 'Good News Travels Fast' - a musical that highlights the beauty of God's creations such as birds, bees and trees, and how they enrich our world /environment. The main characters are birds that fly across continents, helping us see God's wonder in nature and our diversity.  The two protagonists were Sebastien (a sparrow) and Leo (a songbird), with other supporting cast members like Naomi. The main themes are 'unity in diversity' and celebrating how creation inspires us to worship God.  According to Ann, the inspiration was that "...I wanted people to see what the kingdom of God is like...the beauty of all His creatures...".  For Lisa, it was about creating something for the arts festival. " Something international and diverse with a positive message, in different languages."

Audience member Marianne stated; "This is refreshing. Even in the desert, there's abundance of life...what a God we serve!"

Through Creationtide

Throughout this period, we have featured stories from St Margaret's, Budapest and All Saints, Luxembourg as well as St Nicholas', Helsinki and St Georges, Berlin

We've shared many chaplaincy posts on social media of harvest festivals, food donations, fundraising and other wonderful occasions, and a main feature has been videos of youth from across the diocese sharing something of their hopes for our planet's future and what they particularly love about God's creation.  We heard from young people from Serbia, Morocco, France, Belgium, Lisbon, and Finland.  If you haven't seen them yet then please do, and leave a comment of encouragement for them.  You can find them all here:

Towards the end of Creationtide, Holy Trinity Geneva, held an amazing event - here is Revd Glen Ruffell (Anglican Communion Geneva Representative at the United Nations) to tell us about it:

Climate Fresk in Geneva

As Creationtide draws to a close, Holy Trinity Geneva brought in Anita Urassa, a Sustainability Consultant, to help us audit our lifestyles so we responsibly care for the world God has given us.

With a degree in Sustainability, Anita has worked for Nestle, Swiss Youth for the Climate, and heads up advocacy and stewardship at Geneva's Emmanuel Episcopal Church.

Climate Fresk is an educational workshop designed to help people engage in an entertaining way with the complexities of climate change, using data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

Anita led us in exploring the consequences of human actions. In an interactive game, we saw how the average air temperature at the earth’s surface has increased 12 degrees since the 1900s. We looked at how housing and commercial building is responsible for 20% of our greenhouse gas emissions, and at the increasing levels of glacial melting.

We understood that as the oceans warm, so they expand, leading to increased flooding. As they absorb more carbon, so the pH level changes, making them more acidic and killing off the smallest creatures like Pteropods – which form the basis of the entire ecosystem. As they die, so the food of fish disappears. As fish die, so the food of dolphins and sharks disappears. And so on…eventually affecting human opportunities and working to the detriment of our flourishing.

We then explored “overshoot day”, the point at which we use more than is sustainable in a year – for example, the UK uses a year’s worth of resources in just 6 months! After that, we looked at how we can consume in greener ways, reduce single use plastics, and avoid food waste.

The group enjoyed the evening and particularly found the mapping exercise invaluable. Seeing the sequential flow of events, how things compound, really brought home the urgency of action.

Creationtide illustrated what a vibrant and dedicated diocese we are.  

Please continue to send us stories about how your chaplaincy is working towards caring for creation:

communications@europe.anglican.org