Willard Metzger is the General Secretary of Mennonite Church Canada.  He currently writes a blog in which he shares experiences and reflections focused about his time of leadership, and has an inspiring message about creation care.

Recently, Metzger was in Durban, South Africa, where approximately 20,000 people gathered from around the world for the UN Forum on Climate Change 2011.  Said Metzger in his Nov. 28 blog, “I came in response to a request to strengthen the presence of the Canadian Church leaders.

During his presence at the 10 day climate change forum, Metzger kept a daily blog of his observations.  “If the earth cannot sustain my neighbour consuming what I consume—then obedience to Christ must compel me to strive for a consumption practice that can also be shared with my neighbour,” wrote Metzger in his first blog entry from Durban.

On day four at the UNCCF, Metzger wrote of the frustrations and fragility of the conference.  With the larger economies hesitating and the smaller economies growing impatient, as Metzger wrote, he was feeling disheartened—until he attended a global youth forum.

A teenage South African girl spoke, encouraging the leaders present to focus on the future.  After first acknowledging the economic dynamics and financial costs involved in climate change she said with emphatic stance, “We need you to make the biggest decision of our lives.  Forget about the money you have to save, you are in a big debt already…You owe this to us!!”

The 10 day blog is a wonderful resource for us involved with MCCN.  As Metzger wrote on Day 9, “Creation care requires all the gifts and strategies we possess as a global family. We need new technologies. We need gifted entrepreneurs. We need committed governments. We need active sacrifice. With this portfolio of gifts, we have all we need to maintain a healthy global community.”

See the entirety of Metzger’s blog here.

Read this amazing story about Mennonite Church of Normal’s creation care activity.

Also, check out the wonderful slideshow at the bottom of the story.

Finally, share it!

To see story, click here.

“Before we dug up the church yard and planted potatoes, I don’t think people even knew we were here,” John Wierwille, pastor of Berea Mennonite Fellowship chuckled. “Now we’re growing, and the farm is no small part of that.”

Berea Mennonite Church is one of at least four 100 Shades of Green congregations with community gardens—though in this case, farm is a better term.

The small urban church has three acres under cultivation and grows over 70 different organic vegetables on the east edge of Atlanta. Now in its second year, the church sells its food at local farmers’ markets and also provides a first fruits tithe to the community, distributed through a free clinic.

Children at Oakleaf Farm

Wierwille, who pastors the congregation and also serves as its MCCN liaison, sees the farm as an integral part of the church’s ministry. “Our relationship with the land is just as important as our relationship with brothers and sisters and enemies and strangers,” he says. For Wierwille, salvation is not primarily individual. “It happens when we work together, risk together, celebrate the harvest together,” he says.

The farm gives the congregation that opportunity, as nearly every member is involved, even the toddlers. Meanwhile, curious neighbors drop in to get food or offer advice on wringing food from Georgia clay.

- Jennifer Halteman Schrock

reported in Mennonite Weekly Review:

Earth Care-People Care was the theme at a children’s peace camp, co-sponsored by Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Va., and local faith communities. Campers learned about sustainable living on visits to Jewish, Christian and Muslim places of worship. They also made ice cream using bicycle power.  Read more here.

by Patrick Maxwell, MCCN staff intern

A garden situated between a Mosque and a Mennonite church in Champaign, Ill., is growing more than produce—it’s also growing relationships.  Members from both the Central Illinois Mosque & Islamic Center and the First Mennonite Church of Champaign-Urbana have been gardening together for two years now.

Their garden is currently full of tomatoes, peppers, carrots, radishes and flowers, but as Brian Sauder, the coordinator of the collaborative garden says, “It’s not really to see how much produce we can create.”  The garden is for growing and developing relationships.

Members of the mosque and church are committed to maintaining the garden, and as Sauder observed, “the understanding and interest is growing [between the two congregations.]” For example, both youth groups have visited each other since the garden began. (more…)

reprinted from the Virginia Mennonite Missions website.

May 11, 2011

by VMM staff

HARRISONBURG, VA. – A group of youth, young adults, and convention delegates will bike to the Mennonite convention in Pittsburgh this summer from Harrisonburg, Virginia. On the way, the group will engage the convention theme of Christ’s reconciling work (2 Corinthians 5:16-20) with both their minds and their bodies, in hopes of better understanding their role in God’s work. Before arriving at the convention, they will also join the Anabaptist Missional Project gathering at Laurelville Mennonite Church Center for a day and a half-long summit entitled, “Renewing the Story: Anabaptism and Mission for Today.”

The group will ride approximately 275 miles through four states to arrive at convention, most of which will be on the Great Allegheny Passage Trail, a bike trail along an old railroad grade with a terminus in Pittsburgh. The group will leave Harrisonburg Thursday, June 30, and will ride an average of 70 miles per day – camping at night – to arrive in time for the July 4 convention opening.

The Anabaptist Missional Project, who will host the gathering at Laurelville, describes itself as “a network of young Anabaptist Christian leaders who love Jesus, care about the church, and seek to be part of God’s mission in the world.” Their core vision is animated by commitments to “Anabaptist faith and identity,” “church as a way of life,” “authentic worship,” “holistic local and global mission,” “young adults as partners in leadership,” and “unity in the midst of diversity.” More information on the network can be found at anabaptistmissionalproject.org.

The 5-day ride will cost $90 per person, plus the $85 registration fee for the AMP gathering. Any persons interested in participating should contact coordinators Lars Åkerson – lars.akerson@vmmissions.org – and Nicholas Detweiler-Stoddard – stoddard.nicholas@gmail.com – by May 27. A training schedule will be made available for riders, and there will be weekly group training rides in Harrisonburg leading up to the ride.

http://vmmissions.org/2011/05/press-release-group-bike-pittsburgh-mennonite-convention-join-conversation-anabaptism-mission-diverse-world/

Mennonites love good food and good company, and Harrisonburg Mennonite Church (HMC) is no exception. For the last three years at HMC, a gardening initiative created by Anne Nielsen and pastor Mark Keller has been combining the best elements of the two: tasty vegetables, and a welcoming, open community.

The HMC gardening project began in 2009, with sixteen small plots available for gardening. Since then, the project has significantly expanded, and the church now boasts 42 individual gardens. The project attracts gardeners from HMC, other churches in the area, and the community at large. Mark Keller says that the garden helps to create a strong community, and churchgoers, community members, and occasional passersby often gather at the garden for impromptu conversations. “A lot of interaction goes on,” he says. “It’s kind of like when you’re walking down the street with a baby or a dog. People feel comfortable talking to you.”

The community-building doesn’t stop with informal conversations, though. A number of the newer gardeners are members of a Spanish-speaking church that meets on Saturday nights in the HMC building. Mostly Honduran, members range from established community members to recent immigrants, and the garden has offered a rare space for English and Spanish-speaking churchgoers to welcome each other into their respective communities. The gardeners have even taken it upon themselves to organize their own get-togethers and dinners, and Wednesday evenings have been set aside for potluck meals made by members of the HMC garden.

Mark Keller says that the garden is a lived example of HMC’s belief in creation care and community interaction. “It causes people to increasingly feel welcome,” he says. Harrisonburg Mennonite has historically been a church that attempts to remain aware of and responsive to the issues surrounding them, and Mark sees the garden as a way for the church to stay true to its values of community and openness while still nourishing the planet. He, and others with him, see the community gardening project as a fine example of faith and belief made relevant.

HMC’s other creation care projects include a meditation trail and walking path. See previous blog entries about HMC from July 2009 and December 2009.

Berkey Avenue Mennonite Fellowship, Goshen, Ind., has had a “battery bucket” in its foyer for about a year now and encouraged members to recycle batteries rather than throw them in the trash.

Recycling batteries sounds simple, but proved complicated when Berkey’s Creation Care Committee learned that the local hazardous waste disposal would no longer accept alkaline batteries. While companies can make money recycling lithium ion and button batteries, alkaline batteries are not cost effective to recycle. This meant almost 90% of the batteries collected were just going in the landfill.  See the solution Berkey chose… (more…)

Congregations participating in the preach-in received Valentines from Interfaith Power in Light to send to their political leaders, urging love for creation.

At least two Mennonite pastors participated in Interfaith Power and Light’s National Preach-in on Global Warming, February 12. The organization challenged pastors to preach a sermon on climate change on this day.

Among the several hundred clergy who participated were Karla Stoltzfus-Detweiler, minister of church community life at First Mennonite Church in Iowa City, Ia., and Spencer Bradford, pastor of Durham Mennonite Church, Durham, North Carolina.

Bradford preached on Matthew 25:14-30, the parable of the talents. He emphasized that this story should instill gratitude for all God’s generous treasures entrusted to us, and that God’s property entrusted to us as servants of Christ certainly includes the earth. Tending it and nourishing its fruitfulness and flourishing for future generations is stewarding it to increase its treasure. Bradford saw parallels between the servant accused of laziness and today’s inability to make changes in our patterns of industry and consumption necessary to sustain and increase the vital flourishing of creation. (more…)