Meet our new Green Patchwork congregations, added in early 2016. Congregational members have a liaison to MCCN and are committed to working at creation care in ways appropriate to their contexts.

Emmaus Road Mennonite Fellowship, Berne, Indiana, USA

Creation Care Liaison: Amy Huser

Emmaus Road is a member of MCUSA’s Central District Conference and is located in a rural community founded by Swiss Mennonites in 1852.  Amy describes the congregation as follows: “We are a small, vibrant, nurturing faith community, extending hospitality and welcome to all who choose to gather with us.  A few results of our journey in caring for the environment include switching to reusable mugs, using fair trade organic coffee, signing petitions to support the Clean Power Plan, joining MCCN, and educating ourselves in a variety of ways.  We are currently completing a four session study of the MCCN Every Creature Singing curriculum.”

Faith Mennonite Church

Creation Care Liaison: Wendy Brunner

Faith Mennonite Church is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota near the Mississippi River. We currently average 93 attenders for Sunday morning worship. We share our church building with two other congregations and several organizations that rent office space in our education wing. Many of our members are committed to gardening and buying locally, and we’ve hosted a neighborhood sustainability fair for the past four years. We recently started a lending library and an eco-justice committee and are seeking ways to increase our commitment to caring for creation.

Grace Communion, San Salvador, El Salvador

Creation Care Liaison: David Agreda

“We are a Christian fellowship, on mission with the Father, Son and Spirit, living and sharing the gospel in ways that birth all kinds of churches, for all kinds of people, in all kinds of places,” David says. The congregation is a small group of 20 people who worship on homes. Members are interested in creation care projects in their community. Deforestation, water contamination and air pollution are concerns in San Salvador.

Iglesia Cristiana Menonita de Ibagué, Tolima – Colombia

Creation Care Liaison: José Antonio Vaca Bello

The city of Ibagué has a warm climate of about 28° C/82° F and is suffering from water scarcity, partly because of global warming, deforestation, large-scale mining and the El Niño phenomenon. Therefore, the congregation is committed to water conservation and is active in initiatives for environmental care.  In June 2015, Iglesia Cristiana Menonita participated in the Septima Gran Marcha Carnaval, a march against mining in Tolima. Water pollution is one of the problems associated with the mining.  See photos here.

The congregation’s liaison learned about the work of Mennonite Creation Care Network at Mennonite World Conference last summer.

North Suburban Mennonite Church, Libertyville, Ill.

Creation Care Liaison: Kay Kempf

North Suburban Mennonite Church is a small Anabaptist congregation in the northern Chicago suburbs. Kay writes:

“We are a community of believers striving to follow Jesus in our everyday lives and to bring reconciliation to the world.  Creation care is one expression of our faith and of that desire.  Being a part of the Mennonite Creation Care Network and learning how other congregations live out the call to be good stewards of God’s creation will help challenge us, both in our personal and congregational lives.

“We don’t yet have a creation care statement, but perhaps this quote from someone in our community expresses more of who we are:

“‘I saw in this group of Mennonites a group of people of faith who were not so concerned with right believing but rather with right relationships—in that I mean right relationships with each other, with humanity as a whole, with the non-human community, with the land and the earth as a whole.'”

Shalom Mennonite Church, Indianapolis, Ind.

Creation Care Liaison: Marilynn Teel

Shalom Mennonite Church is located on the east side of Indianapolis in central Indiana.  Their eight-member Creation Care Team is a sub-group of the church’s Buildings & Grounds Committee. They are engaged in the following projects:

Exploring the possibility of putting solar panels on the church roof by meeting contractors and getting bids.
Leading a six-session Sunday school class on creation care, using the Every Creature Singing curriculum.
Working to curb the spread of invasive plants in their woods now that spring has arrived. They will also replant some flower beds in front of the church.