Photo from Canva.
The special offering at Mennonite Church USA’s MennoCon23 convention in Kansas City, Missouri, July 3-6, 2023, will benefit the denomination’s new Creation Care Fund.
“While some of us see climate change as a political, economic or scientific issue, we must also recognize it as a moral issue,” said Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz, denominational minister for Peace & Justice. “As people of faith, we must recognize that caring for the Earth is an essential part of our mission to care for one another,” she said.
Stutzman Amstutz will introduce the Creation Care Fund during the Thursday morning worship service at MennoCon23.
Donations to the Creation Care Fund will provide MC USA conference and congregational leaders with educational materials about the climate crisis and its intersection with our values. The denominational office will also assist local leaders by strategizing ways they can help to create lasting change and facilitating collaboration with other Anabaptists across the United States and Canada who are also working on climate justice, according to Stutzman Amstutz.
The MC USA Executive Board recently announced that it is strengthening its ongoing commitment to creation care and climate justice by expanding its Peace and Justice ministries to include Mennonite Creation Care Network. Funded in part by Everence, Mennonite Creation Care Network is a ministry that links people, resources and the Anabaptist faith tradition in ways that promote peace with creation. The transition will begin on August 1, 2023. Read more about it here.
“This new fund provides a way for us to continue this good work and to live out our commitment to care for God’s creation in just ways,” said Stutzman Amstutz.
Donations for the special offering may be made online at any time by selecting “Creation Care Fund” on MC USA’s giving page at mennoniteusa.org/give/.
The fund is an outgrowth of MC USA’s continued commitment to creation care. In 2013, the MC USA Delegate Assembly passed the Creation Care Resolution, committing “to growing in their dedication to care for God’s creation as an essential part of the good news of Jesus Christ.”
For more information on climate justice, visit MC USA’s “Learn, Pray, Join: Climate Justice” webpage here. This “Learn, Pray Join” initiative was developed in partnership with Mennonite Creation Care Network and the Center for Sustainable Climate Solutions (now Anabaptist Climate Collaborative).
Mennonite Church USA is the largest Mennonite denomination in the United States with 16 conferences, approximately 517 congregations and almost 52,000 members. An Anabaptist Christian denomination, MC USA is part of Mennonite World Conference, a global faith family that includes churches in 59 countries. It has offices in Elkhart, Indiana and Newton, Kansas. mennoniteUSA.org
By MC USA staff.