Christians Challenged To Connect With God’s Creation During Lent
A Rocha UK, a Christian environmental charity, points out that Lent “gives us the opportunity to reflect on the practice of fasting and commit to giving up something that brings a real benefit to nature and helps address climate change.”
In fact, caring for nature over the next six weeks, Christians around the world can improve lives through eco-friendly, sustainable lifestyles emphasizing the transformative nature of Lent. Using the slogan, “Get Outside in Lent,” A Rocha UK has issued a range of resources and ideas that can be downloaded and used by churches, families and individuals.
“A Rocha UK is pleased to join Christians from across traditions to bear witness to the injustice and cruelty of the climate and biodiversity crises and to pray for faster action,” said Andy Atkins, Chief Executive of A Rocha UK. “We particularly pray for more politicians of all political parties to recognize that ecological breakdown is compounding injustices, and for them to grow in the moral leadership necessary for a more effective response — for people and nature.”
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Suggestions range from directly engaging with nature to becoming more environmentally conscious in daily life. Each week, Christians can focus on specific ways of finding God in nature by discovering the beauty of trees and remembering that God made them or exploring flowers, insects and animals. Bible texts like Mathew 6:26 “look at the birds. They don’t plant, harvest or save food in barns but your heavenly Father feeds them.”
In Luke 12:27, Christians can “consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these’ are highlighted to encourage mediation and thought.”
There is also a “prayer walk guide” encouraging Christians to use their senses as an act of worship. Numerous activity suggestions are made showing how the walk can be used as a sensory focus for exploring the trunk of a tree, considering its size and strength and using these thoughts as a way of praying about climate change and wildlife. Alternatively, Christians could watch the way an insect moves and mediate on their role in creation.
At its simplest, Christians are recommended to adopt an eco-friendly action for Lent. It might be to go plastic free, buy local or explore technology free times. Churches can make a commitment to join the eco-church movement, discovering how to steadily improve the grounds around and within church buildings making them environmentally sustainable.
The power of prayer is also being invoked with plans for a special Lenten Vigil in London. Christians from all over the UK are being encouraged to gather outside the Houses of Parliament to bear witness to the impact of climate change and pray for the future of our world.
It began on Ash Wednesday with a special service at St John’s Church Waterloo, they walked to Westminster and initiated the vigil. Prayers will be said continuously all day and every day until Feb. 24 when it will finish with an open air service opposite Downing Street in Whitehall.
This Lent Vigil has been organized by a coalition of Christian organizations — A Rocha UK, Christian Climate Åction, Tearfund, Christian Aid, CAFOD, Green Christian, Operation Noah, the Salvation Army and JPIT (a Baptist Union, Methodist Church and United Reformed Church team working for peace and justice).
The vigil’s organizers point out that “prayer is powerful. It can bring transformation. Lent offers us a season both to lament the failure to address the climate crisis and the hope of change as we approach the resurrection transformation of Easter.” Participants can pray at home or at Westminster, for an hour or more. Within days of the vigil being announced, organizers said, people had signed up in large numbers either to attend in person or to pray at home.
A Rocha UK is a Christian charity undertaking practical nature conservation and education with local communities, primarily churches and Christians. Around 7,000 churches across England and Wales form part of its ecumenical Eco Church helping churches link environmental issues and Christian faith, with practical action to care for the earth.
By completing surveys and undertaking improvements to their surroundings, churches are considered for Eco Church Awards at either Bronze, Silver or Gold level. Typical actions include creating gardens, introducing sustainable heating systems, worship and teaching and community engagement.
Judging by previous experience of A Rocha’s Lenten appeals, the effects could be widespread. In 2023, the English Speaking Church on Ibiza, in Spain, and Formentera adapted A Rocha Lenten resources to make them more applicable to life on Ibiza, creating its own 40-day Lenten focus sheet.
The appeal resulted in numerous practical community environmental tasks being undertaken around the island, as well as reflections from people as far away as Singapore.
Angela Youngman is a freelance journalist who has written for a wide range of national and international publications.