Bethel-Bethany UCC in Milwaukee Joining Nationwide Ranks of ‘Cool Congregations’

Interfaith Power & Light, the faith-based environmental action organization, has recognized 22 congregations among 125 across the country who participated in the 2024 Cool Congregations Challenge. The annual contest accepts applications from congregations around the United States that are working to address global warming by reducing their carbon footprint as they create models of sustainability within their communities. 

Bethel-Bethany United Church of Christ in Milwaukee is one of the 16 congregations awarded a $500 runners-up award.

Bethel-Bethany UCC won a Cool Planner award for its plans to decarbonize their facility by electrifying – switching to heat pumps powered by solar panels on their property. They are part of a city of Milwaukee pilot program called Cream City Climate Challenge & Green Congregations Initiative (second bullet point in link). Before participating fully in the program, the congregation will consider a formal “Resolution for the Journey to Decarbonization.”

“Bethel-Bethany United Church of Christ and the other national winning congregations are casting a vision for the kind of world in which they want to live and then carrying it out with practical actions that make a real difference in creating lasting solutions to climate change,” said the Rev. Susan Hendershot, president of Interfaith Power & Light. 

The 2024 Cool Congregations Challenge saw participation from several other Wisconsin congregations, and UCC congregations across the country are one of the largest cohorts of participants. (See full participant list.)

Earth Day Every Day!

Time: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Date: Saturday, April 27  

Location: Middleton Community Church UCC, 645 Schewe Road, Middleton (off Old Sauk Road on the west side of Madison)

On the Saturday after Earth Day, we're hosting a Community Sustainability Fair and EV Car Show. This family-friendly event includes free admission, free popcorn, free drawings (including an electric lawn mower!), live music, and activities for kids, as well as dozens of exhibitors, speakers, and owner-shown electric cars! Lunch and ice cream will be available for purchase from local food trucks. 

We also welcome volunteers (contact Carol Phelps), and if you have an electric vehicle you’d like to show at the fair this year please sign up here.

Read the complete story here.

Events

CCT WEBINAR - Saving Pollinators Leads to Invasive Plant Control

Cindy Haflin, Plymouth UCC, Eau Claire, will tell about how HER congregation transformed the church property and in the process made connections with the neighborhood. Plymouth has converted a substantial part of the church’s grounds to a diverse pollinator garden by dealing successfully with pervasive garlic mustard and other invasives.

Time: 7 p.m.

Date: April 7

Register now

CCT WEBINAR - Falling in Love with the Natural World – Ecological and Emotional Literacy 

John Bates, naturalist and author of 10 books on the Northwoods and Upper Midwest, will lead a webinar on the sacred connection we make when we experience both the “outer” and the “inner” landscapes associated with Nature. 

Time: 7 p.m. 

Date: May 9

Register now

IN-PERSON – Great Lakes Collaborative – Gathering in Wisconsin

Participants from numerous UCC conferences will gather this summer in Wisconsin to advance the “Adopt a Body of Water” campaign and other advocacy objectives of the recently formed Great Lakes Collaborative.

Date: Aug. 18-20

Location: Cedar Valley

For more information or to help with this event, email Creation Care Team co-chair John Helt.

Reflection



Making ‘the emotional translation of our ecological understandings into the way we enact our lives …’

The following reflection is from author and naturalist John Bates:

The study of the natural world requires a deep connection to two landscapes. One is the outer landscape – our observations of, and experiences with, the natural world. This grants us a scientific understanding, wherein we begin to gain a sense of place via our ecological literacy. 

The second is our connection via our emotional literacy to our inner landscape. Here we work to find the emotional translation of our ecological understandings into the way we enact our lives. 

Physicist Chet Raymo wrote, “Two things are required to truly see, knowledge and love. Without love, we don’t look. Without knowledge, we don’t know what it is we are seeing.”

What we are seeking in nature is much larger than science. We want an intimate relationship, a sacred connection, the discovery that we are indeed part of a living community that is mostly non-human, and that has value and purpose in itself. We want to belong. We seek a membership within this Earth, and to the specific places we find ourselves. 

John Bates is the author of 10 books on the Northwoods and Upper Midwest and a contributor to seven others. John has been featured on Wisconsin Public Television several times and has been a frequent guest on Wisconsin Public Radio. He has worked as a state forest naturalist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and owns Trails North, a naturalist guide service. He also conducts outdoor classes for the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, Nicolet College, the North Lakeland Discovery Center, and many others. For 31 years he has written a biweekly column, "A Northwoods Almanac," for the Lakeland Times in Minocqua.

John Bates will provide a webinar in conjunction with the Creation Care team on May 9 – see EVENTS above.

Planning for Earth Month from UCC Climate Justice Ministries

April is Earth Month, and for congregations, it can be a great time to further discern how to best answer our first calling as Christians: the caretaking of God's creation. Congregations can make a plan to make the most of the month. For Earth Sunday, the UCC has partnered with Creation Justice Ministries to produce an Earth Sunday resource on plastics entitled “Plastic Jesus: Real Faith in a Synthetic World.”

Songs For Creation

Every year, Creation Justice Ministries produces a resource to help congregations observe Earth day. For the first time, the UCC has commissioned and co-written three original pieces of music that tie into the resources’ main themes. As you prepare for Earth Day this year, we invite you to explore these songs and find ways they can speak to your congregation. Learn more.

Damascus Project Offers Spring Course on ‘Ecospirituality’

Dr. Trish Zimmerman will offer a four-session course on ecospirituality for the Damascus Project from April 10 through May 15. Ecospirituality asks how to attend to the Holy within our ecosystems, our homes. Amid escalating climate catastrophe, encountering Wisdom across the historic breadth of Christian spirituality helps us learn within place and (en)counter the grief of our damage to what the Creator called “good.” Each week we will encounter other spiritual traditions as they offer Wisdom to enrich ecospiritual connections while nesting our learning in our own environments.

Zimmerman is an associate professor of religion at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and teaches in the Environmental Conversation there. She is a member of First UCC in Northfield. Nourished by decades of studying Christian mystical texts, she draws rescue wisdom from our natural world. She has written on acute climate grief and models of mystical theology. Her current book is A Mysticism of Place, where she’s especially smitten with the prairie, boreal wilderness, and hardwood forests and sites of spiritual wonder.

Full course details and registration on the Damascus Project website.

Kairos Grants Return for 2024  

Thanks to a Neighbors in Need grant, and with some funding from the Wisconsin Conference, the Creation Care Team can again help underwrite Creation Care-focused projects.  This year we will give a priority to projects with strong community connection and impact, and will only fund upcoming projects (not for reimbursement for completed projects). Congregations can receive up to three  grants over the life of our grant program. 

The grant application is being updated and will be available soon; please wait for the new application to be posted to submit proposals.  We hope to be able to help several churches this year.

From UCC Climate Ministries

Freedom from Plastics Campaign

Electrification Checklist Initiative

Vote for Climate Hope Campaign

Art Contest for Children and Youth

To give our children and youth a voice this election season, while also reminding adults of their responsibility for the next generation, the UCC will be conducting a Vote for Climate Hope Art Contest in 2024. Art submissions will be accepted through April 16. Participating churches should register now to receive important information and updates.

Register Your Congregation to Be a Host Site for the Faith Climate Forum

Blessed Tomorrow will be hosting a faith climate forum on April 16, and they are looking for host sites that will livestream the event. Each site that has at least 15 people registered will receive $450 to support refreshments and childcare or travel support. Learn more and register.

Earth Day Summit Is April 20, in person and online

The UCC's second annual Earth Summit on April 20 will feature author and activist Bill McKibben. He will deliver the Jim Antal Keynote Lecture titled "Energy from Heaven or Energy from Hell?" The 2 ½-hour summit also will feature a panel of grassroots leaders and a video showcasing the environmental ministries of our host congregation, the Church of Christ at Dartmouth College. Register to join us.

Summary of Wisconsin’s Green Fire’s Legislative Activities During the 2023-2024 Session

The Wisconsin Legislature has completed its work for the 2023-2024 session and will not return until early January 2025. Following the November 2024 elections, the Legislature will have a whole new look while Gov. Evers will remain in office until at least 2026.

While there were 20 bills that Wisconsin’s Green Fire worked closely on, either supporting or opposing, here are the top six bill summaries.

To read the top six summaries from this session click here.

Photo: Madison skyline from Lake Mendota. (Photo by Michael Cain.)

Photo of the Month:

Creation Caring Church Camps: We Love Pollinators!

James Schleif, executive director of United Church Camps Inc., shared this photo from Cedar Valley:

The relationship we have developed with our local “apiarist” has been a blessing, and Cedar Valley is now selling locally sourced honey from our beehives, and there are plans for a future pollinator garden. At the time of writing, nighttime temperatures are freezing and we are prayerful that the cycle of seasons will include blossoming plants and flowers to accommodate the appetite of our honey bees as they emerge from winter slumber.  May God bless our bees!

To learn more about outdoor ministry and summer programs at all three UCCI sites in Wisconsin – Moon Beach, Daycholah Center and Cedar Valley – see the UCCI website.

(Do you have a photo that demonstrates the splendor of God's beautiful, but fragile, Creation? Send it to the Kairos Newsletter via sfwebb@tds.net and we’ll consider it for use in an upcoming edition!)

Here’s how you can get involved in Creation Care efforts within the Wisconsin Conference and beyond:

• Participate in the conference’s Creation Care Team – contact one of the co-chairs, Bob Ullman or John Helt.
• Provide content for or help prepare the Kairos Newsletter – contact one of the editors, Susan Webb or Joe Scarry.  
• Join in some of the many activities planned for 2024 by the Creation Justice Team at the UCC national setting. (See details under “Events” above.)