Kaila Hochhalter (left), a stu- dent at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, blesses student Meggon Thorn- burgh’s dog, Inara, during the seminary’s Blessing of the Animals liturgy.
could be possible every Sunday? So Ormseth called his friend David Rhoads, direc- tor and co-founder of Luther- ans Restoring Creation—a grassroots movement within the ELCA to foster care for
Lutherans rcrestoringea tion
By Aaron Cooper O
ne Sunday morning in 2010, retired pastor Dennis H. Ormseth visited Pilgrim Lutheran Church in St. Paul, Minn. To his surprise, Pilgrim conducted a service to bless animals on a day other than the typical Sunday on or near Oct. 4, St. Francis Day.
Ormseth enjoyed the sermon Pilgrim’s pastor, Carol J.
Tomer, gave to the animals. It got him thinking: Wouldn’t it be great if that kind of acknowledgment of care for creation
34 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
God’s creation in all expressions of the church’s life. Ormseth pitched an idea to Rhoads: publish weekly com- mentaries on the Sunday common lectionary texts through the lens of caring for creation. Rhoads, a retired ELCA pastor, loved the idea and believed, like Ormseth, that no one else in Lutheran environmental circles was doing something similar. Last December, Ormseth began writing weekly commentaries on the regularly scheduled Sunday texts, committing to doing so through November 2011. They are published on the LRC website (
www.lutheransrestoringcreation.org). “I respect Dennis and a lot of his insights, so I try to weave the commentaries into both sermons and prayers,” said Erik Strand, a pastor of Edina [Minn.] Community Lutheran Church. “Dennis comes at the texts from a dif- ferent angle than a lot of other resources. ... It’s a good way to see both the richness of texts and the wholeness of creation.”
Grounded in theology
The LRC movement arose in 2009 out of a grant from Lutheran Community Foundation, which helps people give to their favorite charities and causes. The movement draws upon Rhoads’ longtime work with the Lutheran Earthkeep- ing Network of the Synods (LRC’s predecessor) and Web of Creation, an ecumenical website he conceived that is devoted to earthkeeping resources for congregations (www.
webofcreation.org).
Rhoads taught at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago for two decades, leading a campus Green Team that has made significant strides in greening the seminary. Those efforts include incorporating care for creation into all worship services, offering free yearly lectures on earth-
Cooper is a freelance writer and member of Edison Park Lutheran Church in Chicago.
JANET BODEN/LSTC
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