Commission on Creation Care

  • Our Purpose:

    Our Purpose:

    Our purpose is to engage Episcopal parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of Wisconsin to live sustainably as God commissioned us. All faith communities are welcome to participate.

  • Statement of Beliefs

    Statement of Beliefs:

    Earth and all life are God’s great gift. We have not been good stewards. Time is short. We must do our part in restoring God’s gift in a way that does not result in injustice to the vulnerable. We believe in the interdependent web of God’s creation.

  • Our Focus

    Our Focus:

    Our focus is on the relationship between God and all of creation, of which we are but one small part. We honor Scripture, Tradition, and Reason while focusing on our faithfulness to God’s Creation.

  • Our History:

    Our History:

    The Commission was created by resolution at the October 2021 Annual Convention of the Historic Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee and maintained by the reunified Episcopal Diocese of Wisconsin in July 2024.

We will carry out this mission by:

    • Offering resources that congregations may draw on for prayer, homilies, liturgy, and Christian formation.

    • Encouraging parishes to have two or more Sundays with dedicated Creation Care sermons.

  • Educating ourselves and our congregations about the global environmental crisis:

    • Including prayers every Sunday for Creation.

    • Including Creation Care in all curriculums.

    • Organizing Creation Care Teams.

  • Working toward zero-emissions in all our church buildings, using clean energy, and creating habitable grounds for all life.

  • Networking at the local, regional, and national levels with other organizations that protect Creation.

  • Setting goals and measuring the results of our efforts, including making ethical investments that protect God’s Creation.

Our Grants:

Every year we try and offer grants to support you in this important work. More information coming soon for 2025.

Current Grants
Prior Awardees

Resources:

Loving Formation

For God’s sake, we will grow our love for the earth, water, air, and all of life through preaching, teaching, storytelling, and prayer.

Loving Formation Resources

Liberating Advocacy

Liberating Advocacy

For God’s sake, standing alongside marginalized, vulnerable peoples, we will advocate and act to repair Creation and seek justice for all people.

Liberating Advocacy Resources

  • Advocacy Tools for Loving Your Neighbor:
    (1.5 Hour Video)
    From the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: "To advocate is to do the work of the spirit of God, which is nothing less than the work of love.  Advocacy is the practical work of love, seeking justice, working compassion, living humbly, advocating for equality, and human dignity for all, who have been created in the image and likeness of God."

    How It Works: Becoming a Creation Justice Church in Five Steps 
    (Website)
    The United Church of Christ’s Creation Justice Church program assists congregations in making the ministry of environmental justice an integral strand in the DNA of their faith community. A congregation can be designated as a Creation Justice Church by taking these five steps.

  • Episcopal Public Policy Network: 
    (Website)
    As we are called by God to care for creation, The Episcopal Church supports policies that protect the natural resources that sustain all life on Earth. The Church calls for policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote sustainable energy, encourage the safe and just use of natural resources, and support communities impacted by a lack of environmental stewardship and environmental racism.  

    United Church of Christ Environmental Justice Ministries
    (Website)

    Creation Justice Ministries:
    (Website)
    Creation Justice Ministries (formerly the National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Program) represents the creation care and environmental justice policies of major Christian denominations throughout the United States. We work in cooperation with 38 national faith bodies including Protestant denominations and Orthodox communions as well as regional faith groups, and congregants to protect and restore God's Creation.

    The RENEWAL Project and the Religious-Environmental Movement 
    (Website)
    The RENEWAL Project has been designed to make the documentary and its inspiring stories available to people and organizations who want to be a part of this growing movement to protect life on our planet and reverse the damage that humans have done to the environment.

    Faith in Place Environmental Advocacy:
    (Website)
    Communities across the world are facing the devastating impacts of climate change and environmental pollution. At Fatih in Place, we work with communities to educate and empower them to take action on environmental crises. We also recognize the disproportionate burden these crises have on historically disadvantaged communities and communities of color and work to ensure justice is centered in the solutions we support. Learn about the history of environmental racism, the policies we support, and ways to take action below.

  • 5 Ways to be an Environmental Activist
    (Article)
    Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright gives an instructive discourse on why environmental justice is so critical to progress.

    Citizen's Climate Lobby: 
    (Website)
    Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy climate change organization focused on national policies to address the national and global climate crisis.

Life-Giving Conservation

For God’s sake, we will adopt practical ways of reducing our climate impact and living more humbly and gently on Earth as individuals, households, congregations, institutions, and dioceses.

Life-Giving Conservation Resources

    1. Gather 12 to 24 months of gas and electric utility bills and put in a spreadsheet to analyze your energy cost and use (an in-house Energy Audit).

      1. Find out where the problems are.

      2. Your maintenance person can help here,

    2. Make a list of equipment that needs to be replaced today or soon,

    3. Educate yourselves: do research in the areas you have problems.

    4. Watch the Commission on Creation Care video: How to Decarbonize your Facility: A roadmap and guide to reduce the carbon footprint and save money. Click here to watch the video. 

    5. Plan your strategies with your building and grounds committee or and energy consultant.

      1. Changing to LED lighting is an easy place to begin and saved money for years, but it is best to bundle several items together for a larger project,

      2. Reducing air leaks in your building envelope is a high priority and helps with comfort,

      3. Next, look at HVAC and alternative energy options that fit your situation.

  • 52 Ways to Care for Creation
    (PDF)
    From Creation Justice, it’s one step each week of the year!

    10 Tips for Your Green Team 
    (PDF)
    From Faith in Place, here are ten things to check (or check off).

  • Carbon Tracker: 
    (Website)
    Thanks to the Episcopal Diocese of California, our whole church has a new tool to support anyone who wants to make more life-giving choices about how we inhabit the earth. This is a web-based application that helps individuals, households, congregations, and even dioceses to measure your carbon footprint and take steps to shrink it to fit a sustainable life.    

    Cool Climate Calculator:
    (Website)
    A carbon footprint estimator, to figure out how much greenhouse gas you are emitting and how to cut down.

  • Focus on Energy Net Zero Toolkit 
    (Website)

    Five Steps to Becoming a Cool Congregation
    (Downloadable Startup Kit)

  • Good News Gardens
    (Website)
    The mission of the Good News Gardens movement, as led by The Episcopal Church, is to partner with people in transformational agrarian ministry that feeds body, mind, and spirit. Good News Gardens is a church-wide movement of individuals, congregations, schools, colleges, seminaries, monasteries, camps and conference centers involved in a variety of food and creation care ministries – gardening, farming, beekeeping, composting, gleaning, feeding, food justice advocacy. The list goes on and on. Collectively Good News Gardens share their abundance, their prayers, and the Way of Love in their communities and beyond. 

  • Greening Your Personal Life and Environment (PDF)
    Conserve Energy Future (Website)
    Install Renewable Energy at Your House of Worship (Website)
    Refuse Single Use Plastic (Website)
    Insulating and Weatherizing Your Home (PDF)

    1. Midwest Renewable Energy Association: (Website)
      Promoting clean energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable living through education and demonstration since 1990.

    2. RENEW Wisconsin: (Website)
      RENEW Wisconsin’s Solar for Good initiative fosters the expansion of solar power among mission-based nonprofits and houses of worship in Wisconsin.

    3. Couillard Solar Foundation: (Website)
      We have one mission: to help Wisconsin nonprofits get solar for their organizations.  Nonprofit organizations all over Wisconsin are looking for ways to take part in the renewable energy revolution happening right now.  The Couillard Solar Foundation (CSF) was created to help them do just that.

    4. Power Purchase Agreement: (Website)
      A solar power purchase agreement (PPA) is a financial agreement where a developer arranges for the design, permitting, financing and installation of a solar energy system on a customer’s property at little to no cost. The developer sells the power generated to the host customer at a fixed rate that is typically lower than the local utility’s retail rate. 

    5. Legacy Solar Co-op: (Website)
      Legacy Solar Co-op is a Wisconsin-based, member-owned cooperative providing solar and energy efficiency products and services. Our goal is to bring people together to support local and statewide solar and other clean energy initiatives.

    6. Federal Funding for Energy Work at Houses of Worship: (Website)
      Courtesy of The Nature Conservancy

    7. Episcopal Renewable Energy Non-profit (EREN): (Website)

    8. Federal Funding Resources for Nonprofits and Houses of Worship Briefing: (1 Hr. Video)
      Presented by Interfaith Power and Light

  • Geothermal 101: Making a Zero-Carbon Energy Future a Reality
    (On Demand Webinar)
    Courtesy of Clean Energy for America

    A Natural Solution to Climate Change 
    (Website)
    What we do between now and 2030 will determine whether we can slow warming enough to avoid climate change’s worst impacts. We must drastically cut emissions and remove some carbon from the atmosphere. Fortunately, plants naturally absorb and store carbon. By protecting natural habitats and carefully managing farmland and forests, we can store billions of tons of this “living carbon.” 

    Decarbonizing Your Church by James Liedel. Created for the Commission on Creation Care

    The Letter: A Message to the Earth In 2015, Pope Francis wrote The Letter, an encyclical on the environmental crisis. Pope Francis and climate activists around the world share the same concern. 

    Getting Away from Plastics

  • Geothermal 101: Making a Zero-Carbon Energy Future a Reality
    (On Demand Webinar)
    Courtesy of Clean Energy for America

    A Natural Solution to Climate Change
    (Website)
    What we do between now and 2030 will determine whether we can slow warming enough to avoid climate change’s worst impacts. We must drastically cut emissions and remove some carbon from the atmosphere. Fortunately, plants naturally absorb and store carbon. By protecting natural habitats and carefully managing farmland and forests, we can store billions of tons of this “living carbon.” 

    Decarbonizing Your Church by James Liedel.
    (1 Hour Video)
    Created for the Commission on Creation Care

    The Letter: A Message to the Earth 
    (Video)
    In 2015, Pope Francis wrote The Letter, an encyclical on the environmental crisis. Pope Francis and climate activists around the world share the same concern. 

    Getting Away from Plastics
    (1 Hour Video)
    Courtesy of Sarah Marie Streed. Created for the Commission on Creation Care

Meet the Creation Care Commission

  • Dcn. Gregg Schneider

    Co-Chair

  • Ira Leidel

    Co-Chair

  • Sarah Marie Streed

    Commission Member

  • Susan Gillespie

    Commission Member

  • Susan Adams

    Commission Member

  • Jane Stenson

    Commission Member

Contact Creation Care