Lessons learned from this year’s Consider the Lilies Collective

By Zoe Matties, MB Program Manager

April 7, 2025

A few weeks ago, after church, a friend came up to me and said, “I’m so thankful that I came out to Consider the Lilies Collective. I was really thinking about not going because I’ve been feeling really cynical lately. I was feeling like there’s no use in doing anything about our environmental problems, and that it won’t make a difference if I do. I didn’t realize how caught up I was in the doom-filled news cycle. I felt like the speakers at the event were talking right to me. I left feeling a lot more hopeful!”

I was really excited to get this feedback, because this is exactly A Rocha’s goal in hosting events like Consider the Lilies Collective. We hope to connect people with other Christians who are interested in caring for creation, and equip them to do the work of earthkeeping in their own churches and communities. Our latest event happened in collaboration with All Saint’s Anglican Church and saint benedict’s table. We gathered 35 people from 14 different congregations in the city for a morning of learning together, which concluded with a time of prayer, worship, and gratitude. We had one workshop on how we talk about and think about climate change and biodiversity loss in a church context. In another workshop four different people shared about practical projects they had taken on in their communities or churches.

I asked some people who had attended, what was one thing you learned or that you would like to remember from this event? Here is what they said:

• “If we’re Jesus centered, we must remember he went towards “the messes” and will continue to lead us toward messes/messiness for us to bring blessing and new life in collaboration with him.”
• “I loved hearing stories of people taking initiative and doing projects as communities, and I want to keep my imagination open to how I might be able to be involved in something like that.”
• “Follow Jesus: move toward the vulnerable, confront injustice and build community.”
• “That projects just need one person to be a champion for it and get it started.”

I recently read an article titled “Research shows that a majority of Christian religious leaders accept the reality of climate change but have never mentioned it to their congregations”

Now this article was based in the U.S., but I think the numbers are probably pretty similar for Canada. The article stated that even though 90% of church leaders from across a range of denominations believe that climate change is driven by human activity nearly half have never mentioned it to their congregations, and only a quarter have mentioned it more than once or twice. The study also found that churchgoers who think their leaders don’t believe climate change is caused by humans are less likely to talk about it with other congregants and are less likely to attend an event aimed at raising awareness.

Why does this matter?

This matters because church leaders have a big opportunity to reshape the conversation about climate change and biodiversity loss in the church. The good news is that the study found that once people find out that there’s more consensus on the issue among church leaders than previously thought, people are MORE likely to take action and believe that this action is consistent with their church’s values.

Here are four reasons why we think this work with churches is not only important, but vital to the work of caring for creation:

Creation care aligns with Biblical teachings:

From Genesis to the book of Revelation, scripture points to a God who cares not only for human beings, but for all of creation. God put humans in the garden to “till it and keep it” says Genesis 2:15. This is where we get the term “Earthkeeping” from. For some more in-depth information on the Bible and creation care check out this series of videos.

Churches are moral leaders – they influence values and inspire action:

A recent survey of young church-going Christians found that the majority see the care for creation as a gospel issue and are eager to see the church take leadership. 75% of those surveyed said they want mentoring from their church to help them cultivate Christian hope as they face the world’s future.

Churches have physical spaces and people already gathered:

While individual action is important, because all the little things that we do to make change add up, it is also important that we engage in action together. The church can model what good collective action looks like by becoming advocates and community hubs for creation care.

The church is the single biggest landholder in the world. Imagine what can be done with all that land!:

The largest landowner in the world is not a real estate investor, nor a major oil magnate, it is the Church. What if every church decided to transform the land they had access to into spaces in which all creation flourishes? What if churches planted native plant gardens? What if churches transferred large quantities of that land back into the hands of Indigenous communities, whose presence on the land has been proven as a key to safeguarding biodiversity? There are so many creative possibilities for church-owned lands.

Photos by: Zoe Matties, Kristen McLean