Unity: Caring For The Earth In The Great Lakes Bioregion
GLURC Earth Care Team goal:
Co-creating a world that works for all,
75% of all Unity ministries in the Great Lakes region are committed to
and or actively engaged in EarthCare sustainable living practices
by December 31, 2012.
Good day everyone. Let me introduce myself. My name is the Rev Ray Nelson and I am stepping in as the GLURC Earth Care representative for the region. I graduated from the Unity Institute and was licensed and ordained by Unity World Wide Ministries in June 2011. I am currently the Associate Minister at Unity of Golden Valley Minnesota. I am the director of all sacred services, pastoral care, and adult education. For the past three months I have been acting as senior minster while Rev Pat Williamson is on a much deserved sabbatical. While attending seminary I worked for the telephone prayer ministry of Silent Unity and was director of youth education for Unity of Independence. Prior to my attending Unity Institute I received a Masters of Divinity in pastoral care and counseling from the United Theological Seminary.
My interest in the Earth Care team began as an exploration of how our church and the church membership could live, learn, and teach sustainable practices in our everyday lives. Myself, our executive director Rev Sher McNeil, and our communications coordinator Jess Drenth began to form a team and vision what we trying to create and what we wanted this ministry to look like. We made an announcement from the platform and had almost 20 people sign on to join the ministry and develop a mission and program to support the vision. Our first steps are to meet and form sub teams to work on different programs to support our vision. We are planning, as a team, a summer solstice celebration as a kick-off event to include worship, celebration, a covenanting commitment, and educational events. Later plans are to develop an outreach educational program we can take to other churches to teach the value and importance of sustainable practice and partnering with other faith community in social action events and activities. We have a passionate and commit team and many of the possibilities are still forming and as we develop I will share ideas with the region.
I am new to the Earth Care team and am in a learning and growth stage both in my own awareness and consciousness and discovering what is mine/ours to do. I am here to support others in their journey and to be a conduit for information sharing and support. I envision going forward, as we live and learn together, we continue to share ideas, information, and successes and continue to build momentum and consciousness toward a new way of being in relationship with creation. In discussion with Kathy and Linda I discovered our community was already doing many things and to bring all we do to our conscious awareness is one of the first steps to take. I am here to be in service and let me know how I can be of assistance going forward.
Blessings
Rev Ray Nelson
Associate Minister Unity Christ Church of Golden Valley
763-521-4793 ext.29
revray@unitychristchurch.org
