Greening the church, Forest Church and living faith in the time of climate crises
Author: Cate Williams
Cate Williams is Environmental Engagement Officer for the Diocese of Gloucester. |
About ten years ago I first stumbled across Forest Church, which at the time was a new kid on the block. Bruce Stanley, one of the first to experiment and write in this area was leading an outdoors quiet day, in the Diocese where I was at that time a vicar.
1. We spent the day engaging in various activities, noticing the huge varieties of shades of green; sharing in foraged tea and snacks; finding a spot to sit under a tree and ‘just be’ in that space; being in relationship with the non-human in God’s creation.
I was in the fortunate position that two others of the early Forest Churches, Ancient Arden and St Albans, were within easy reach of home. I participated and explored, and cutting a longer story short, in time found myself facilitating my own group when I moved to Gloucester, as well as researching and writing on Forest Church as part of my PhD.
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Forest Church is a term that is used for worship in the Christian tradition that has at its heart, connection with nature
.3. Gatherings vary hugely. Some are formal using set prayers and liturgy, others are informal and loosely structured. Some are in a fixed location, others go for a walk together. Some meet on a regular weekly, monthly or seasonal pattern, others gather occasionally in and around other indoor gatherings. There is just one ‘rule’, that this is not about bringing outdoors what could equally have been done indoors, rather connection with nature is at the heart.
My own style tends to open with some reference to the season, with a mixture of both nature’s and the church’s season. Some opening prayers follow, perhaps a reading, then instructions for an activity which connects with nature, which could be anything from silent individual exploration and prayer to looking carefully with a nature ID sheet of some kind. We regather, we share with one another what we have found or any insights nature has taught us, and end with words and prayers that remind us to tread gently on God’s earth.
Forest Church is a community that gathers with a nature focussed spirituality but of course, this can be done alone too. These prayers, written for Easter 2020 during lockdown 1 give a flavour of the practice.
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Spirituality that connects with creation matters, for many diverse reasons. It is a space for those who don’t find prayer comes easily in a church building, but who connect better outdoors. It is a discipline to connect us with life and hope in the face of climate crisis. Activists need to reconnect with hope, noticing, appreciating and giving thanks is a key discipline to do so.
It also awakens green ethics for those who are not yet activists. Working for the sake of others is always rooted in love, in one way or another. Noticing, appreciating and giving thanks grows our love and appreciation for the natural world. It is a short step from here to being willing to make lifestyle changes for the sake of what we love. It is also very fitting for Christians, who worship a God of love, for environmental action to be rooted in falling in love with God’s creation.
All these things should be ordinary and unexceptional within the life of faith. Sadly, churches in recent centuries have neglected the environmental imperative which in fact is at the heart of Christian faith. The more I explore this area, the more impossible I find it to frame faith without care for creation being in the mix.
We thought that faith was just about ourselves and God. While our own personal spirituality and connection with God is as significant as ever, it makes no sense given the way Jesus preached on God’s kingdom to think that personal relationship is where it stops. These days I see the invitation into relationship with God as one which also draws us into a deep network of relationship with all that God has made, both human relationship and wider creation. Spirituality deepens relationships in all areas of life, which then is outworked in our choices, our lifestyle, our communities, the natural world.
We live in a society that priorities the individual over community, a society of individualism. We have allowed faith to be drawn into a Christian version of individualism. In fact, the biblical vision, both Hebrew and Christian speaks of the thriving of society and nature, in a network of relationships, in God. We have lost and forgotten key aspects of this vision. The crises that currently face us have seen Christians returning back to root through our traditions, in order to rediscover the lost wisdom that we needed to engage positively with the challenges of our age.
Walter Brueggemann is one of those who has rediscovered the joy of interconnection, in the heart of the scriptures
.5. As an Old Testament theologian, he finds threefold relationship between God, the people and the land, running as a prominent strand throughout Hebrew scriptures. We can’t talk about the relationship between God without also talking about the relationship with the natural world. With western eyes, we tend to read biblical reference to the land as political boundaries. We have forgotten our dependence on the natural world for the ordinary stuff of life – for food, for wellbeing and thriving. We have forgotten too the land’s dependence on us, on our behaviour, our choices, our tending or degrading of the land. Brueggemann is clear that when he speaks of land he is talking of earth, and mud, and all that grows and thrives and is dependent upon it. He is speaking of the whole of the natural world, in a network of relational connection that includes God and humanity.
The strand continues into the New Testament, with Jesus’ own connection with nature coming out frequently in his teaching – seeds and sowing; vines and vineyards; sheep and shepherds; the seed that dies in order to bear fruit; being grafted into the vine. As we continue through the New Testament, Colossians 1.15-20 underlines for us that the work of the cross was for the reconciliation of all creation. Romans 8.22-25 speaks of creation groaning in pain, while waiting for humanity to step up and get the relationship right, but with hope still within view. Revelation 21 shows us a vision of the reconciliation of human society with wider creation – a city but one with a river running through, bordered by trees with healing offered by the natural world to human society.
For each of us, whether we prefer to pray outdoors or in the British weather opt for a weather-proofed building, the enlarged vision of relationship with God, with nature, with society is the invitation that is in front of us. All in their different ways engage hearts, minds and action in order to work with God for the thriving of all that has been made and all that. We are offered, in faith, a vision of something better and deeper that draws us in. We grow in love for creation, for one another, for God, and as we do so we find the strength and courage to do things differently from the society that is around us.
Forest Church, Christian Climate Action,
6. and Green Christian
7. offer perspectives that were once on the fringe of the awareness of church life. In the face of our climate and biodiversity crises these perspectives are becoming increasingly mainstream, with EcoChurch
8. being taken up by huge numbers of churches, and Messy Church now going Wild.
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It has taken us too long to get here, but returning to the vision of relationship with nature as well as God and people is increasingly in Christian awareness. In this vision we walk with God, in love and in hope, for the sake of a planet in crisis.
1. Bruce Stanley,
Forest Church (Llangurig: Mystic Christ Press 2013)
2. Cate Williams, ‘Brueggemann, the Land and the Forest’,
Practical Theology (2013) 11:5 462-476 and Cate Williams,
Forest Church (Cambridge: Grove 2019)
3.
http://www.mysticchrist.co.uk/forest_church/ accessed 1 April 2022
4.
https://www.gloucester.anglican.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Easter-2020-praying-with-nature.pdf accessed 1 April 2022
5. Walter Brueggemann,
The Land: place as gift, promise and challenge in biblical faith (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress 1978, 2002)
6.
https://christianclimateaction.org/ accessed 1 April 2022
7.
https://greenchristian.org.uk/ accessed 1 April 2022
8.
https://ecochurch.arocha.org.uk/ accessed 1 April 2022
9.
https://www.messychurch.org.uk/goeswild accessed 1 April 2022
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Photo Credit: Steven Kamenar on Unsplash |