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Eco-theological worship resources and activities for the 2020 Season of Creation
(LWI) - The theme for the 2020 Season of Creation is "Jubilee for the Earth" and the Celebration Guide has been released.
The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) joins the ecumenical partners of the Season of Creation to prepare this Celebration Guide each year, as a way to invite member churches and organizations to participate in the liturgical season held annually between 1 September and 4 October.
The resource contains an ecumenical prayer service, liturgical resources, meditations, and ideas for action and advocacy that help individuals or congregations animate this year's theme.
"The 2020 theme, Jubilee for the Earth, is an invitation to consider the integral relationship between the Earth and our ecological, economic, social, and political ways of living," says Rev. Dr. Chad Rimmer, Program Executive in the LWFs Department for Theology, Mission and Justice. "While the painful impact of our demands on the Earth are well-known, the need for just and sustainable systems has been underlined this year by the far-reaching effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Jubilee is a call for people of faith to inspire our imagination and courage to restore right relationships with the Earth and all species."
To raise awareness and inspire churches to take up this year's theme, a webinar on "Jubilee for the Earth: New Rhythms, New Hope" has been planned by the Season of Creation steering committee for 8 June at 16:00 CET.
For the Lutheran communion, this liturgical season of prayer and action has become an opportunity to affirm LWF's commitment to address a central crisis of our time – climate change. The 12th LWF Assembly affirmed that climate change "is a spiritual matter. As people of faith, we are called to live in right relationship with creation and not exhaust it."
Honoring this commitment, the LWF invites its member churches worldwide to join in the annual Season of Creation from 1 September to 4 October.
In 1989, Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I declared 1 September as a day of prayer for the care of creation. In the following years, other Christian World Communions endorsed this initiative, and today many churches in the ecumenical family observe the Season of Creation between 1 September and 4 October, the Feast of St Francis of Assisi, as observed by some Western traditions.
Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash.
