UM Creation Justice Movement to Mark 5th Anniversary

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United Methodist Creation Justice Movement will celebrate its fifth anniversary June 18 during its monthly Movement Café. "Celebrating the Movement on Our Fifth Anniversary" will take place at 10am PT / 11am MT / 12pm CT / 1pm ET. Register here.

Speakers for the event will include creation justice leaders:

The Rev. Laura Baumgartner (she/her) is the pastor at Haller Lake United Methodist Church in Seattle, WA. She worked for many years in her first career as a high school chemistry and environmental science teacher in the public schools. Laura also serves on the board of Earth MInistry/ WA Interfaith Power and Light, the Steering Committee of the Aurora Reimagined Coalition, and is a founding member of the Emerald City Ringers. She is an advisory member of the Commission on Environmental Stewardship in the Pacific Northwest Conference. 

The Rev. Jonathan Brake was part of the inaugural Global Ministries EarthKeepers cohort in 2016, and started the Creation Care Ministry Team in the Western North Carolina

Conference. He has been part of the UM Creation Justice Movement leadership from its inception, with roles including coordinating and communications teams, as well as local church green team development, among others. For the past three years, Jonathan has served as the Environmental Sustainability Program Manager at UMC Global Ministries, overseeing the EarthKeepers program. On July 1, 2025, his new pastoral appointment will be with the Western North Carolina Conference as the Eco-Missions and Creation Care Coordinator, and also as the missions pastor at First UMC, Hickory, NC. 

Dr. Karen McElfish is an Global Ministries Earthkeeper. Her home conference is the Virginia Conference, where she serves as the United Women in Faith President and is a member of the Virginia Creation Justice team and co-chair of the Conference Legislative Network. She leads the Annual Conference Organizing team for the UM Creation Justice Movement.

Kim Richmond is a commissioned UM EarthKeeper who is passionate about

raising awareness in others so they will want to better care for God’s creation, and will have the tools to be able to do so! She is a lay member at Maple Springs UMC in Winston Salem, NC where she founded and continues to lead its Creation Care Ministry team, and she is presently the coordinator for the Creation Care Ministry team for the Western North Carolina Conference of the UMC. 

The Rev. Kristina Sinks is a graduate of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary with a focus on Ecological Regeneration and Worship Arts. She is a Provisional Deacon in the California-Nevada Annual Conference,

and serves as co-chair of the United Methodist Creation Justice Movement’s Worship Working Group, whose work has been published by Discipleship Ministries. Kristina sings and manages tours for the music collective The Many, which brings justice-oriented music to progressive Christians and spiritual communities around the world. She also serves at GreenFaith, a global, multi-faith climate justice organization. Kristina resides in the Chicago area on the traditional, unceded homelands of the Council of Three Fires—the Ojibwa, Ottawa and Potawatomi.

The Rev. Paul Slentz is a retired United Methodist pastor in the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference of The United Methodist Church with a longtime calling to the ministry of creation justice. In the last four years of his ministry with the Conference he served as Pastor for Creation Care & Environmental Justice and continues to serve on the Conference Creation Care Leadership Team. Paul is also on the Coordinating Committee for the national United Methodist Creation Justice Movement where he helps facilitate the Advocacy Working Group.

The Rev. Pat Watkins is an ordained elder and member of the Virginia Conference of the UMC. He was formerly a missionary working for the UMC General Board of Global Ministries as the first “Missionary for the Care of God’s Creation.” His mission position involved integrating care for God’s creation into the greater overall global ministry of the church. He understands the connections between poverty, disease, environment, and violence to be intimately related. Currently he is part of the leadership team for the United Methodist Creation Justice Movement. 

Cathy Velasquez Eberhart is a layperson in the Minnesota Annual Conference and a leader in the United Methodist Creation Justice Movement convening the Coordinating and Communications teams. She was commissioned as one of the first Global Ministries Earthkeepers in 2016 and she served for seven years on the board of Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light.

The Rev. Richenda Fairhurst works at the intersection of faith and climate change. She has served churches in Oregon and Washington, is a UM Earthkeeper, and volunteers with the United Methodist Creation Justice Movement. She is a member of the board of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon where she chairs the Creation Justice Committee and Oregon Interfaith Power and Light. She is a member of the Pacific Northwest Conference. 

Eric Walker is a member of Vashon UMC and the Commission on Environmental Stewardship in the Pacific Northwest Conference. He is an EarthKeeper, and one happy part of the PNW EarthKeeper training in the fall of 2025 will be a field trip to Vashon UMC.

Dawn Lewis, a long time Creation care advocate, founded the Green Team at her church and has worked to support other green teams.  She is an ordained Earthkeeper and part of the Western Carolina Annual Conference.

This article is adapted from the UM Creation Justice newsletter.