“Listen carefully, I am about to do a new thing, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even put a road in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.”
(Isaiah 43: 19)
For the first time, the congregation of St. Matthew will be celebrating the Season of Creation, which runs each year from September 1, the Day of Prayer for Creation, through October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology.
Begun in 1989, the Season of Creation has grown into an annual, multi-denominational celebration organized by several of the world’s leading faith organizations including the World Council of Churches, the Laudato Si’ Movement, and the Lutheran World Federation. During this time, the world’s 2.2 billion Christians are invited unite as one global Christian family to pray and care for creation.
This year’s global Season of Creation theme is: “Let Justice and Peace Flow.” What does this mean to us as everyday Christians? Here is one story. You can also listen to an audio version, as well as hear many other stories, about the moral, religious, and ethical dimensions of climate change at the Yale University Climate Connections website: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/05/one-pastors-mission-to-prepare-his-community-for-climate-change/.
One pastor’s mission to prepare his community for climate change
Hurricanes have caused destructive flooding at Rev. Gerald Godette’s North Carolina churches.
by YCC TEAM
MAY 29, 2023
Rev. Gerald Godette is a pastor and scientist. So he’s in a unique position to talk to people of faith about sea level rise, extreme weather, and other climate change impacts.
“My faith is a driving force that gets me excited about telling people that, ‘Look, this Earth is a gift from God, this universe is a gift from God, and we’ve got to take better care of it,’” he says.
For Godette, the issue of climate change is personal. For about a decade, he was a steward and his wife was the pastor at the Saint Paul African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Aurora, North Carolina.
In that time, the church flooded twice: during Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Florence.
Now Godette is the pastor of Reels Chapel in Beaufort, which was also damaged by Florence.
“When I got to Reels Chapel, that church had not been in operation for two and a half years, partly because of the hurricane,” Godette says. “So climate change has really impacted both places where I’ve been severely.”
As a result, he’s passionate about sharing climate change information with his congregants. And he’s dedicated to helping his community prepare now for future storms.
Reprinted from Yale Climate Connections Website, accessed August 14, 2023.
Reporting credit: ChavoBart Digital Media