Seminar presenters Josh Richardson and Meghan Reha explained the urgency of climate resilience, while inspiring hope for the future.
By Jessica Griggs for Mennonite Church USA
Meghan Reha speaks on climate resilience during a Follow Jesus ’25 seminar.
GREENSBORO, N.C. (Mennonite Church USA) — Josh Richardson, pastor of St. Louis (Missouri) Mennonite Fellowship and CEO of Brugmansia Ministries, and world renewable energy expert Meghan Reha, from Mennonite Church of Normal (Illinois), presented the seminar “Climate Resilience: The Future of Local Ministry,” on day 2 of Mennonite Church USA’s Follow Jesus ’25 national convention, in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Richardson began the seminar by identifying the impact that climate change has on local communities and ministries, such as the need for more cooling stations, stress placed on healthcare system, increases in prices, supply chain disruptions, job losses and the need for clean water. He encouraged participants to begin looking at how they could make changes in their communities and ministries now, rather than waiting until disaster strikes in their area.
He said, “We need to start thinking about the world that we’re living in and not the assumptions that we want to make about the world that was before us.”
Richardson inspired hope in the face of the challenges that climate change presents by offering tangible ways to make a difference and saying that it has never been cheaper nor easier to begin to put these practices in place than it is now.
Reha continued the seminar by reminding participants that climate disasters can happen at any time and can cause overloads for our energy systems, leading to energy failures that further complicate the effects of the climate disaster. She identified several ways for communities and congregations to begin planning, such as creating go bags and disaster plans or providing some of the church’s land for congregants who want to start a small-scale farm. She also emphasized the importance of including everyone in disaster plans, including the unhoused, disabled and those with fewer resources, so that everyone in the community has enough food, shelter and care resources.
She said, “In the climate world, it really is about trying to let go of the path that we imagined we were on and being present to the path we’re actually on, because in that path, there is tremendous capacity for delight, for joy, for relationships … We are more resilient and able to change.”
During the Q&A session after the presentation, participants requested practical advice on how to put climate resiliency into action at their churches and in their communities. Pastor Stephen Lowe, of Morgantown (West Virginia) Church of the Brethren-Mennonite, questioned how older churches lacking modern infrastructure, like air conditioning, could practically implement climate resiliency, amid rising heat and concerns of other natural disasters.
He said, “I came to this seminar because we have been seeing the effects of climate change in real life and in real time in West Virginia. There have been floods in the counties around us that have affected our neighbors, so climate resiliency feels like something we need as a community and can be an important ministry to the world around us.”
Mennonite Church USA is an Anabaptist Christian denomination, founded in 2002 by the merger of the Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church. Members of this historic peace church seek to follow Jesus by rejecting violence and resisting injustice. MC USA’s Renewed Commitments state the following shared commitments among its diverse body of believers: to follow Jesus, witness to God’s peace and experience the transformation of the Holy Spirit. Mennoniteusa.org