“There is no greater power on Earth than Story.” – Libba Bray
Mayflower hosted the National Setting of the United Church of Christ’s First Annual Earth Day Summit on April 22. It was a big day for the UCC, our first national earth day celebration thanks to Zoom and livestream and the leadership of Brooks Brendt.
We fell in love with our denomination all of over again as we witnessed the faithful, powerful, tenacious, sacrificial actions all around the country of this small but mighty denomination.
Saturday, April 22, 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM CST: VIEW THE DISCUSSION
National UCC Summit (virtual on Zoom) featured renowned climate activist, theologian, and author Jim Antal as the keynote speaker and a panel of expert Minnesota organizers.
Saturday, April 22, 1:30 – 3:00 PM CST: VIEW THE PROGRAM
An amazing program held at Mayflower: Music, prayer, a call to Action, and a Readers’ Theatre presentation “Hope From the Front Lines,” personal stories of courage and hope from rural, small town and urban Minnesota.
Sunday, April 23, Worship: Jim Antal was Mayflower’s guest preacher. LISTEN TO HIS SERMON
Hello I have a personal story to share for your “Hope From the Front Lines”. I serve as a settled ordained UCC Pastor at United Protestant Church In Morgan Park MN. I am a little over half way through my Doctorate work which is on writing an Earth Based Christian Spirituality. The title of my dissertation is “The Earth Gives Love”. This is a spirituality and way of life I am writing on. There is a sample of my writing in the UCC Pollinator Blog Archives titled “A Spiritual Approach to Healing the Earth and Ourselves”. My hope is to give Christian’s a voice to say I worship God in nature through the birds, trees, and waters.
My actual work in this spirituality is that I reserve a good amount of time each day to be at one in nature wether running, gardening, surfing, or in quiet contemplation. Our latest work at the church is this last summer I was informed that a large section of the pollinator plants at the former United Seminary grounds were to be removed for a new gymnasium. Myself with other folks from the church drove to the cities and transplanted these plants to Duluth, creating three large pollinator gardens on our property. They all made the transition well and this year we are going to create protective boxes to raise Monarch butterflies.
Thank you for the consideration,
Peace,
Mitch Nelson