by Elizabeth Wilkinson '08

This guide is designed to offer a chance for religious communities to engage with the important ideas and concerns posed in the Spring 2007 issue of Reflections, God's Green Earth.

Throughout the magazine you will have noticed one message again and again: What needs to change is not just our light bulbs, but our fundamental understandings. We don't simply need to reconsider our environmental actions. We need to reconsider our motivations. There is, therefore, no better way to respond to these concerns than to address them together with our faith communities - the places where we attend to our deepest concerns and dreams.

It is for this reason that I highly encourage you to use this guide, which aims to translate the ideas of these articles into practical activities your community can engage in. The guide's five sessions correspond to the five requirements for articulating a new vision that appear in Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim's lead article, "Daring to Dream." Sessions will draw upon articles in Reflections and Scripture in order to facilitate conversations about the particular concerns that members of your community have.

There is enough material in each session to last an hour to an hour and a half. Each session works in a variety of adult education opportunities - Sunday School, Small Groups, Bible Study, etc. Of course sessions can also be divided into two segments for shorter time frames. Additionally, if you personally feel compelled by ideas in God's Green Earth, I invite you to read the guide on your own and continue thinking and working.

You will find audio clips and photographs here for use in the sessions as well. For those who are interested in more resources, supplemental audio and visual are posted here, as well as further texts and information about organizations that you can partner with.

There is inspiration and hope to be found in discussing and working through these ideas that simply reading through a magazine cannot offer. These are dynamic ideas, life-changing ideas that will take flesh in your community if you give them room to breathe. They promise spiritual growth and transformation as they engage with Biblical truths in a dynamic contemporary way.

• Session One: New Language (pdf)