Caring for Creation

Week 1
Gratitude for Creation, Suffering and Deep Hope
4/27 9:30 am Worship
Text: John 20:1-18
Sermon: Hope Through Tears

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Week 2
Our Creatureliness in the Creation/Earth
5/4 9:30 am Worship
Text: John 21:1-19 and Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-17 (inclusive language)
Sermon: Called to be Creatures

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Week 3 Mother’s Day
In the Face of Loss and Challenge: Resilience and Care
5/11 9:30 am Worship
Text: John 10:22-30
Sermon: Listening for a Voice
Preacher: Pastor Donna Dempewolf

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Week 4
The Path of Engagement and Action
5/18 9:30 am Worship
Text: John 3:7-10, John 13:31-35,
Sermon: A Path and Plan of Resolute Love
Preacher: Rev. Howard White

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Click the speaker to read their bio
Donna Dempewolf
Pastor
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Donna grew up in beautiful southeastern Minnesota, near Spring Valley. Soon thereafter, she ventured to the city, completing degrees at the University of Minnesota, Boston University, and Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. 

Before entering ministry, she worked in corporate America, including a season living and working abroad. Donna has served churches in suburban, urban, big steeple, and town and country settings. She has a heart for inclusivity, and envisions a church that is willing to experiment with new ways to share God’s love. 

Donna appreciates the active and contemplative life. She enjoys hiking, cycling, meditation, creating mosaics, and conversing over a cup of coffee. She shares a home with a rambunctious mini-golden doodle named Ignatius (Iggy), who loves to bark “hello” at their neighbors. 

Clay Oglesbee
Guest Speaker
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Panel discussion facilitator on May 18: Reverend Clay Oglesbee is a retired United Methodist pastor  and currently a supplemental Chaplain at Mayo Hospital, Rochester. 

Mary Lynn Oglesbee
Guest Speaker
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A trained and experienced facilitator/retreat leader for the Center for Courage and Renewal (based on Parker Palmer’s writings.) She has served on the board of Women in Northfield Giving Support (WINGS) and Northfield Shares. She is a retired clinic administrator for Fairview Health and grandmother to Cormac and Ada.

Howard White
Guest Speaker
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A retired ELCA Lutheran pastor.  He has served eight different congregations and also worked for 15 years as a capital fundraiser for churches.  Northfield UMC was one of his clients.  He has lived in Northfield for 33 years with his wife Janet, who served Northfield UMC as associate pastor some 20 years ago. Howard has been active in Citizens’ Climate Lobby since 2016 and served as the Northfield chapter co-leader (with Janet Petri) since 2018.  He is also CCL’s liaison to the office of Rep. Angie Craig.

Timothy Reinhold Eberhart, PhD
Guest Speaker
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Director of Center for Ecological Regeneration and Robert and Marilyn Degler McClean Associate Professor of Theology and Practice at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. He holds degrees from St. Olaf College, and PhD and Masters of Divinity from Vanderbilt University.  He teaches theology and ethics, focusing on relation of Christian doctrine to environmental, economic, political, and social change.  His most recent publications include Rooted in Grounded Love: Holy Communion for the Whole Creation and The Economy of Salvation: Essays in Honor of M. Douglas Meeks. A trained Methodist elder, permaculturalist, UMC Earthkeeper and co-chair of the Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies. 

He lives in St. Paul with spouse Becky and has two grown children.

 

Mark Seeley, PhD
Guest Speaker
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Former Extension Climatologist and Professor Emeritus of Soil, Water, and Climate for the University of MN where he managed the Weather and Climate Education Program. He has been a weekly commentator on Minnesota Public Radio’s Morning Edition and writes a weekly blog, “Minnesota Weather Talk.” He has helped Twin Cities Public Television produce award-winning documentaries and is author of the Minnesota Weather Almanac and co-author of Voyageur Skies: Weather and Wilderness in Minnesota’s National Park. 

He has degrees from UC Berkely, Northern Illinois University and University of Nebraska. He has multiple service awards such as from the MN Crop Production Retailers Association, MN Agri-Growth Council, Sigma Xi, MN/Dot, and U of MN Deans, the Siehl Prize, the University President’s award. In addition to work for the U of MN and MPR/TPT he is also a NOAA fellow and visiting scientist for the UK Meteorological office.
 

Kiara Jorgenson, PhD
Guest Speaker
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St. Olaf Associate Professor of Religion and Environmental Studies. A theologian with degrees from St. Olaf College, Denver Seminary, and Luther Seminary. Research areas include Protestant ecotheologies, vocation, ecofeminisms, agrarian studies, ecological resistance movements, childhood studies, and the theology of motherwork. She teaches about ecotheology, place-based spirituality, Biophilia, theo-ethics of climate change, and culture of nature. 

She has multiple publications, most recently, Ecology of Vocation: Recasting Calling in a New Planetary Era, and edited Ecotheology: A Christian Conversation as well as in a variety of journals on interdisciplinary topics ranging from ecological ethics to vocation of children to indigenous influence on Christian watershed liturgies. 

Kiara lives on the prairie near Nerstand’s Big Woods with her spouse, young daughters, and an assortment of furry friends. She enjoys historical fiction, gardening, running, hiking, yoga, photography, and fabric arts.
 

Caring for Creation: What Then Shall We Do? (John 3:10)

An invitation from Tim Goodwin and Clay Oglesbee (retired Elder)

Starting on Sunday, April 27 our congregation will host a four-week worship-and-teaching series, Caring for Creation: “What Then Should We Do?” We invite our members, as well as guests from the wider community, to consider together current understandings of climate change or climate crisis, the implications for us and for all in these times. We ask, depending on our understanding of what is taking place, what is a faithful response? “What then shall we do?” (John 3:10).

Why are we offering this series? Studies and observations by most trained scientists today indicate that we are undermining our planet’s ecosystems and its healthfulness for living creatures by the extent and rate of burning fossil fuels and emitting carbon dioxide and other gasses like methane into our atmosphere. In fact, 99.3 percent of active researchers and scientists say that we are experiencing “incontrovertible evidence of planetary-scale warming” due to the Greenhouse Effect (carbon dioxide and other gases accumulating in the atmosphere which tends to hold heat on the surface or in the oceans). The effects include:

  • Arctic sea ice is being reduced by 12% per decade since 1979 (the air conditioning for our planet)
  • Some monitored wildlife vertebrate and fresh water species have been reduced in numbers by 75-85% since the first Earth Day fifty-five years ago (World Wildlife Federation)
  • Sea levels are rising, and there are more and longer-lasting heat waves and global drought so that public health and adequate food and water supplies are threatened
  • Increasingly powerful and damaging hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, hail and flooding point toward increasing losses and insurance costs
  • Infectious diseases or pandemics are more common and spread more rapidly due to intense and extended heat waves
  • Global climate refugees are said to be in the tens of millions now and projected into the billions in decades to come
  • Carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere will linger for decades or centuries or longer, and will already indefinitely affect quality of life on earth; carbon storage and many other technological steps are needed to slow, reduce or eliminate carbon emissions

Our Leadership Board, while holding varying opinions about climate change, has agreed it is important and timely to examine
scientific evidence, to observe our own experiences, and to reflect together on how our Faith guides us to care for the planet,
and what actions we each might take. We are open to many answers to these questions; the point is to share questions, share
our values, and act to Care for Creation.

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