'Passing Our Planet On'

Wednesday July 18 2018

Eco-Congregation Scotland has released resources for the month-long celebration of ‘Creation Time’ in the autumn.

The resources for this year’s Creation Time, linking to Scotland’s Year of Young People, follow the theme of ‘Passing our Planet on: God’s Gift to us’. The material reflects on our planet passing on from one generation to the next, and the gifts given us by God to support and guide us in our care for creation.

Creation Time goes back to 1989, when September 1, the first day of the Orthodox Church year, was proclaimed as a day of prayer for the environment by the late Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I. Ten years later the European Christian Environmental Network widened this proposal, urging churches to adopt a Time for Creation stretching from September 1 to the feast of St Francis of Assisi on October 4. This was endorsed by the Third European Ecumenical Assembly in Sibiu in 2007.

The following year, the World Council of Churches Central Committee invited churches to observe "Time for Creation" through prayers and actions. In 2015, Pope Francis designated September 1 as a World Day of Prayer for Care of Creation for the worldwide Roman Catholic Church as well.

The Scottish material has been compiled by an ecumenical writing group, with contributors from the Church of Scotland, the Roman Catholic Church, the Salvation Army, the Scottish Episcopal Church, and the United Reformed Church.

The Rt Rev Susan Brown, Moderator of the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly, welcomed the resources and thanked the authors. She said: “We cannot afford to take the world around us and all it contains for granted. We need to celebrate it, care for it and nourish it as people of faith, giving thanks to God for it and looking for His signature in it.

"These resources will enable us to do just that in a variety of ways. Please use, share and enjoy them.”

Adrian Shaw, the Church of Scotland’s climate change officer, said: “It reflects on our planet passing on from one generation to the next, and the gifts given us by God to support and guide us in our care for creation.”

You can download the Eco-Congregation Scotland resources from its website.

Churches Together in Britain and Ireland also lists resources from other groups, including A Rocha and Tearfund.

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