Season of Creation 2022

Introduction

How to use: click on RED  TEXT, to follow links

EcoCongregation Scotland have for many years offered resources for churches to use, creatively, according to their circumstances, for “Creation time’ or Season of Creation.Material presented here is original, andfrom staff members of EcoCongregation Scotland, unless otherwise indicated.

We have taken care to invite contributions from those in, or just concluding training for Christian leadership:we always welcome conversations with colleges and those providing training.

This special approach to the internationaland ecumenical celebration and challenge that is the Season of Creation acknowledges the continued use of the Revised Common Lectionary by manylocal churches, but following Scotland’s hosting of the United Nations COP26 Climate Conference last year, we are compelled to assert more firmly than ever,that to follow Christ in the years of crisis that lie ahead, we need to be more open than ever to the creative leading of the Spirit in building our spiritual resilience as people of hope beyond hope, in which the hugely ambitious project of Net Zero is a response of faith, offered in dependence on grace.

In such times, and with such urgency, the gift of the scriptures shines through, inviting playfulness, wonder, and other equally serious aspects of our faith to come into their own, unlockingthe green treasures which, like the ancient wisdom of the indigenous peoples of the Earth, and the fellow creatures on whose lives we depend, have so easily been sidelined or despised.

We learn to join the shout of ‘Hosanna’-God help us! - echoing throughout Creation, remembering that this is also a joyful shout.

We pray that you will be encouraged to re-read, re-think, recycle and repurpose even the most familiar of scriptures to the glory of God and for Good News for every creature [cf Mark 16:15]

Each week has further comments about those who have provided items, which are by EcoCongregation Staff unless otherwise noted.

Page of "Thematic material." -For use at any time

"Stilling videos" - a resource of  videos to open worship or a time of reflection. 2 mins 20 max length.

Lectionary material:

GREEN STARTERS: quick sharp comments on every Lectionary reading over the five weeks

Week 1: 4th September

Week 2: 11th September

Week 3: 18th September

Week 4: 25th September

Week 5: 2nd October

5 Major Video Reflections, one for each week,  (suitable for "sermon slot" online or study groups)

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Gospels by the Loch:  all 5 Gospel readings, read aloud, by Loch Ossian

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Music Choices: 

We recommend the use of the choices suggested via Trinity College, in which EcoCongregation  Board member Iain McLarty is fully involved. Each week will have some additional items too, and perhaps some new words to old tunes,. 

Trinity College: Songs for Sunday

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What is Creation Time?

In 1989 the Ecumenical Patriarch suggested that 1 September, the first day of the Eastern Orthodox Church year, should be observed as a day "of protection of the natural environment". Ten years later the European Christian Environmental Network (ECEN) widened this proposal, urging churches to adopt a Time for Creation stretching from 1 September to the feast of St Francis on 4 October and this was endorsed by the 3rd European Ecumenical Assembly in Sibiu, Romania in 2007, which recommended that the period "be dedicated to prayer for the protection of Creation and the promotion of sustainable lifestyles that reverse our contribution to climate change".

Since 2008 Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) has compiled a programme of resources to encourage and assist churches to observe Creation Time. These include suggestions on a variety of ways in which churches, groups and individuals could choose to focus on a creation theme at this particular time of the year. Pope Francis made the Catholic Church’s warm welcoming of the season official in 2015 and urges us to "listen to the voice of creation" this year, encouraging participation in the ecumenical Season of Creation.