People of Faith Will Give Mother Earth and Brother Sun Big Hugs in September

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Disasters and Climate Change

A United Methodist Insight Feature | Aug. 28, 2025

Come September, many of the world’s 2.2 billion Christians will join other people of faith in a month of faith-based events to show their love for God’s creation and their determination to save the Earth from extinction.

Season of Creation, a worldwide ecumenical campaign, marks 2025 with the theme “Peace with Creation.” Based on Isaiah 32:1-18, the theme speaks of God’s justice and righteousness initiating a peaceful, fruitful world.

This year Season of Creation has a bonus in the United States: Sun Day on Sept. 21, a celebration of solar power and renewable energy sponsored by Third Act, an activist organization composed mostly of elder volunteers.

Both interfaith observances focus on a common goal: finding solutions to the human-caused environmental dangers that threaten the future of all life on Earth.

“As the urgent need to solve the environmental crisis continues to grow, Christian churches have been called to strengthen their united response,” says the Season of Creation website.

Season of Creation begins Sept. 1, the first day of the Orthodox Church year. Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I started the observance in 1989 by proclaiming Sept. 1 as a day of prayer for creation.

The World Council of Churches followed the patriarch’s lead and became instrumental in developing the day into a month-long ecumenical observance running from Sept. 1 to Oct. 4, the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi. Today Francis is revered by Christians of many denominations as the spiritual patron of ecology, especially for his “Canticle of the Sun,” also known as “Canticle of the Creatures.”

The saint’s namesake, the late Pope Francis, made Season of Creation an official Roman Catholic observance in 2015. The late pope became a modern-day creation-care advocate with Laudato Sí, his groundbreaking encyclical on the environment and inequality.

Today, Season of Creation activities and resources are coordinated by “an ecumenical steering committee and a coalition of partners from around the world,” according to the World Council of Churches. Season of Creation’s website offers visual, liturgical and advocacy resources in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. A core resource is the Season of Creation Celebration Guide, available to download.

United Methodist Creation Justice Movement offers an additional Season of Creation resource, “The Serviceberry,” based on the book of the same name by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The guide gives week-by-week liturgies with sermon prompts, music notes and worship resources geared for congregations and for children and youths.

Separate from Season of Creation, Sun Day focuses on solar, wind and other renewable energy sources as the means to transition from fossil fuels and save the Earth from extinction caused by the global climate crisis.

“We have accumulated resources for faith communities to use in observing Sun Day, and two of our members developed an online liturgy to provide spiritual grounding for individuals and congregations,” said the Rev. Jane Ellen Nickell, a retired United Methodist clergywoman who volunteers with Third Act’s faith working group.

“We have also created email templates that people can send their congregational or denominational leaders to encourage participation in Sun Day,” Nickell said.

The Sun Day Website provides general information including links to local events that will feature activities such as parades of electric vehicles and homeowners hosting “open houses” to demonstrate how they use solar and wind power.

According to its website, Sun Day’s multifaith spiritual resources include:

  • Sun Day Liturgy — This 30-minute service includes poetry, music, a guided meditation, and a brief reflection and draws from Celtic, Sufi, and other traditions.
  • Elements of Sun Day Liturgy — Readings and music from our recorded Sun Day Liturgy.
  • Sun and Light in Spiritual Traditions — Metaphors, images, and poems about sun and light.
  • GreenFaith’s Sun Day webpage — Read how this interfaith climate leader hopes to promote “Soular Power” as part of their Faiths 4 Climate Justice campaign.
  • Our Time to Rise — Religious resources for Sun Day, compiled by GreenFaith.
  • Sun Day Invitations — Use these sample email messages to invite your congregation to take part, or your regional or national faith leaders to encourage congregations to participate. 
  • A Grassroots Call to Action — Rev. Dr. Jim Antal’s “Going Deep” essay encouraging people of faith to get involved for Sun Day.
  • Sunbeam Congregations — Resources to help congregations celebrate Sun Day and become a TAF “Sunbeam Congregation.”

“We know from the very beginning of the Good Book that one of the first things the good Lord saw fit to do was hang a large ball of burning gas 93 million miles up in the sky,” said Third Act’s founder, renowned environmentalist Bill McKibben, in an interview with United Methodist Insight. “And he's given us the wit to learn how to make full use of it, which I love. I mean, energy from heaven, not from hell. That's my mantra.”

Leaders of the world’s Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches – Pope Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby – stressed Season of Creation’s mission in a joint 2021 statement during the worldwide coronavirus pandemic:

“Future generations will never forgive us if we miss the opportunity to protect our common home. We have inherited a garden; we must not leave a desert for our children.”

Cynthia B. Astle is Editor of United Methodist Insight, an online journal she founded in 2011 as a media channel to amplify news and views by and for marginalized and under-served United Methodists.

This article is part of United Methodist Insight’s participation in Covering Climate Now, a worldwide collaboration of more than 600 news outlets dedicated to enhanced coverage of the global climate crisis and its solutions.