Ecological Grief.pdf

Overview
A 6-week study for all ages, exploring ecological grief, creational hope, and the Bible's guidance on climate crisis and hope. The curriculum is designed for small groups, individuals, or families, with activities for different abilities and contexts.

Weekly Themes

1. Cultivating Love and Awe for Our Creational Home: Exploring the beauty and diversity of creation, and recalling God's love shown through it.
2. Jeremiah and Creation's Undoing: Learning from the Displaced: Examining the grief of land loss and our role in the story of displacement.
3. Noah and a Climate Crisis: God's Grief over Creational Destruction: Discovering the Creator's grief over destruction and exploring how to serve creation.
4. Zacchaeus: Reparations and Land Back: Imagining righting wrongs and addressing unjust systems.
5. Paul and a Groaning Creation: Learning to Grieve Faithfully: Exploring how our grief is a faithful response to creational breakdown.
6. John's Vision of the New Earth: Learning to Live with Possibility: Imagining renewal for the earth.

Using the Curriculum

Choose activities suitable for your context and group.
Include time for reflection, discussion, and prayer.
Use a journal for drawing, reflection, and questions.
Leaders should prepare by reading ahead and providing guidance.

Key Activities

Opening liturgy and prayer, laying down grief and hope before the Creator.
Reading and reflecting on Psalm 104, exploring creation's beauty and diversity.
Discussing and exploring themes, with activities for different ages and abilities.
Encouraging individual and group reflection, and providing space for questions and discussion.