Helping people live greener and lighter
For Churches
Teaching on creation care does not have to be complicated. This resource provides the outline for a half-hour discussion on our calling to care for creation.
This sermon can act as a template for an introduction to the theological framework for creation care as incarnational mission.
This sermon is ready-to-use and outlines the basis for including creation care in the Christian life; it ties in themes of relationship, resurrection and redemption.
This sermon script by David Anderson of A Rocha provides a centring point for the theology of creation care. A useful read for anyone preparing a sermon on God’s view of stewardship.
For Kids & Schools
Turn a Sunday School lesson into an adventure with these activities for kids to connect with creation.
This resource is great for any camp director, leader or counsellor looking to do a few outdoor activities around their summer camp. These activities will inspire kids to think about their creator and care for people and places around them. We have attached the list of items to include in your bucket but please contact us if you would like to assemble a completed box.
Excellent resource for anyone planning a VBS (Vacation Bible School)! This contains lessons for a 5-day curriculum on creation care: activities, verses, crafts, and more. Our Environmental Educator would be happy to help you walk through this program, please contact us for more details. We have attached the program overview below.
Community Gardening Resources
Our neighbors A Rocha USA have a great new resource on Community Gardening! Ginny Vroblesky, founding Director of A Rocha USA has written a detailed manual on how to start a successful Community Garden covering all the points on engaging people, growing basics and promoting experiential education in the garden.
This resource was put together by Friends of A Rocha and gives a more detailed look at the “How to’s” of gardening. Includes Instructions on ‘Building your own raised garden bed’.
Also has ideas to engage kids, good gardening book suggestions and theological reflections.
Responding to the demand from Christian School Teachers in BC, we presented at the 2012 Convention on incorporating food gardens onto school grounds. These slides go over the reasoning for gardening, producing food locally and the fundamentals of gardening – site selection, size of raised beds.
This resource focuses on the Community Organizing part of community gardening. We find that this is the most exciting and difficult part of starting a community garden. For food gardening resources, visit our Community Garden Network Blog to see location-specific tips.
This sample document outlines a gardener’s expected participation in the Community Garden. It has 12 recommended rules to inform your Community Gardeners.
This Sample Form is to register a Gardener for their Community Garden Plot. It collects their general information and informs them of fees. They are given to choose a few garden maintenance tasks they are willing to help with.
Use this Sample Form to create a formal agreement with the property owner for your Community Garden to reside on.
This sample form shows you a formalized agreement with the Community Gardener. They must be aware of the risks and hazards of participation and agree to release all claims to the Garden and parties involved.
This document was originally made for the 2012 Pacific Northwest Christian Teachers’ Convention. It contains links to resources on: School Gardens, Kids Gardening, Lesson Ideas, Book Recommendations, Native Plants and Community Organizations.
Living Lighter
These ten principles are a good starting point for learning to live lighter. We encourage you to have good conversations around these principles; this document can help those conversations.
Good food is a celebration of God’s creation and human creativity. We encourage you to use this guide to be more intentional about eating.
This is a simple list of things to do to start saving energy. It’s a conversation starter to dig deeper into the real issues.
Climate Change
A Rocha Canada and Regent College present Katharine Hayhoe, one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2014. Katharine is a Christian and an atmospheric scientist who studies climate change. She may be best known for the way she is bridging the gap between science and faith.
Earthkeeping: A Climate for Change featured a talk by Katharine, followed by a response panel including Peter Robinson (CEO – David Suzuki Foundation), Preston Manning, and Jeffrey Greenman (President – Regent College).
Peter Harris (co-founder A Rocha International) introduces the evening.
Tyndale University College & Seminary and A Rocha Canada are excited to present A Climate for Change: Paris and Beyond with special guest speaker Dr. Katharine Hayhoe. She is known for integrating faith with science and her work has been featured on Showtime’s Emmy award-winning documentary series “Years of Living Dangerously.”
Katharine’s presentation explores a Christian response to the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. Lorna Dueck of Context hosted the evening and facilitated a lively panel discussion with:
- Dr. Terry LeBlanc: Director, North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies
- Rev. David Wells: General Superintendent, The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada
- Gordon King: Resource Specialist, Canadian Baptist Ministries
Books & Audio
Under the Bright Wings tells the story of Peter and Miranda Harris and how they founded A Rocha in the Algarve, Portugal, in 1983.
Beginning from a keen awareness of their Christian responsibility to the environment and their neighbours, Peter and Miranda develop a vision for a project that combines cross-cultural evangelism, community living and conservation. This book describes their experiences, the challenges that were overcome, and the people involved in making it happen. It also provides an exploration of the Christian commitment to conservation as an act of worship and of mission.
Planted is not a “how to” book, but a “how so” book in which the reader is invited to travel with Leah Kostamo on the wild ride of salmon saving, stranger welcoming, and God worshiping as she and her husband help establish the first Christian environmental center in Canada.
In Kingfisher’s Fire, Peter Harris, Founder and President of A Rocha, describes the story of the remarkable growth of A Rocha over the last ten years, from one field study centre in Portugal to a family of wonderfully varied community conservation projects in eighteen countries.
Written by the founder of A Rocha UK, Planetwise is not another book on green issues to make you feel guilty. In these pages you will find hope that God can take your small and insignificant efforts and multiply them in his great plan.
Meet “the Bookless bunch,” a very ordinary family who went green. When God challenged Dave Bookless over his attitude toward the environment, he did a total rethink. This led to major changes, not only in his family’s lifestyle but also in his career: Dave and his wife Anne were the founders of A Rocha UK and Dave is now a Director on the UK team.
God Doesn’t Do Waste is a story about the messiness that human beings wade through in every area of their lives, and about a God who can take all that seems most wasteful and useless and recycle it into something of infinite worth.
A Rocha USA founding Director Ginny Vroblesky teamed up with UK authors Nick Spencer and Robert White to adapt their book Christianity, Climate Change, and Sustainable Living for North American audiences. Anyone looking for a well-researched faith-based approach to the issue of climate change will appreciate this book.
Dr. Matthew Sleeth is a former emergency room director and chief of medical staff who now writes, preaches, and teaches full-time about faith and the environment. His inspiring and practical book Serve God, Save the Planet addresses such questions as How can I live a more equitable and meaningful life? How can I be less materialistic? How can I live a more charitable life? What would happen if I led a slower-paced existence?
For the Beauty of the Earth explores the relationship between Christianity and the natural world in the most thorough evangelical treatment available on a theology of creation care. It is perfect for pastors, university students, theologians, and anyone who desires a thoughtful and well-written treatment of God’s good news for creation.
Written by a leader of the Christian environmental movement, Calvin DeWitt, this book unpacks the biblical foundation for creation care. It’s a great place to start for anyone who wants to understand the essential place stewarding the earth has in their Christian life.
Written by French theologian Henri Blocher, In the Beginning focuses on the original meaning of the biblical narrative through a detailed study of the opening chapters of Genesis.
Having taken leave from his regular work of training family doctors in the UK, Dr Graham McAll is examining the health impact of global climate change and the response of Christian clinicians. As a member of the UK’s Climate and Health Council, he has written and spoken on this subject over the last few years. Formerly, Graham lived in Malaysia for seven years with his family when he worked as a lecturing surgeon in Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Is it inevitable that caring for people conflicts with the care of the non-human creation? Does Christ’s call to love our neighbours marginalize all concern for plants and animals, air and water? Paul observed in Romans that the groaning of people and the groaning of the earth often go hand-in-hand in our broken world. The prophet Hosea explicitly links humankind’s rejection of God to both social and ecological oppression and injustice. This conference, held at Regent College, explores three aspects of these interrelated issues of justice. It can be purchased online for $44.00.
This plenary by Reverend Dave Bookless (A Rocha UK) was recorded at the Lausanne Southeast Asia Regional Conference on Creation Care and the Gospel, in Manila (18 Mar 2014). He gives a solid biblical basis for caring for God’s world and clarifies some misinterpretations of the bible that may have led Christians to an incomplete understanding of the gospel and God’s good earth. We think it’s one of the best talks Dave has given!
Bonus – this audio comes with video, including slides of David’s presentation!
This talk was given by Prof Sir Ghillean Prance, Chair of A Rocha’s International Trustees, for the 2003 “Creation Groaning” Conference organized by A Rocha and Regent College, Vancouver, Canada. He speaks about the seriousness of the environmental crisis due, in part, to the lack of action by Christians through the ages. He provides a number of examples of creation groaning and evidence that the world is losing many of its species, from the extinction of Hawaii’s native plants and animals, to the increasing deforestation of the Brazilian rainforest.
The latest news on our projects
Poetry and Poly Tunnels: Surrey Students Visit Brooksdale
A Surrey high school may feel worlds away from the quiet green space found at A Rocha’s Brooksdale Centre, but beautiful things happened when the two worlds collided earlier this spring. The school in question [...]
More Than Dirt: Growing Good Soil!
The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. [...]
Volunteering with A Rocha Ontario
By Michael Furber What an exciting privilege it has been to join the team at A Rocha in Ontario as a volunteer. So far it has been quite a “ride.” As a recently retired elementary [...]