Creation Care

The Fifth Mark of Mission

To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.

Creation Care Report to the Vestry Roughly fifteen years ago, Altar Guild tried to coordinate the decoration of our church for the Easter season with the grounds of our church with limited success.

Since then, several things have happened to fix that. First, we hired Father Todd, who has great vision for our worship, AND our Mission. One of the Five Marks of Mission is Creation Care. What we had been trying to do for years outside of our building was about to finally happen. With the guidance of Father Todd, our congregation helped get us irrigation for our gardens around our building. With irrigation, we could now fulfill one of the most requested things in our survey from the congregation – “making the outside of our church as beautiful as the inside.”

In 2019, we had the big “anchor beds” in front replanted. In 2020, we were fully prepared for the next step, and Covid-19 happened. We had to tighten our belts and hold on any non-essential projects. With the help of the Ludbrook family, the seeds that our Church School had planted before the shut-down were nurtured and planted all along the front sidewalk. Those marigolds last year were spectacular, and a sign that the care of our property was ongoing, Covid-19 or not.

In 2021, we finally got the realization of five years of planning. We just completed the Easter season, and each week of that season, we bought plants to make our worship space beautiful, and at the end of the week, they were planted outside in our gardens. The start of the season is mostly white, and then we started blending in additional colors, yellows and oranges, as we went along. By Mothers’ Day, all of the plants were pink. The following Sunday was a visit from Bishop Deon, who managed to come on the Sunday we had carefully planned for Pollinator Day.

You may not be aware that bees (pollinators) cannot see white. Even pink and red are out of their preferred visual range, so we waited for them to go purple. It is their favorite color, and, as it turns out, the color of a Bishop! We finally ended with red for Pentecost, and all of the plants are now outside for us to enjoy and help our environment at the same time!

We cannot have done any of it without the support from the congregation, and more specifically, the devoted gardeners who volunteered every week to plant (although we may have pushed some a little overboard). These same folks will also faithfully weed and maintain their beds through the entire season. They even helped clean up the leaves in them in the fall and “put them to bed” for the winter. They deserve all of our thanks. If you have interest in helping, we can always use more volunteers. Our Creation Care Mark of Mission continues, and it shows everywhere you look!