Yes, and: Expanding the Ways That American Protestant Congregations Respond to a Climate-Changed World

Abstract

The impacts of the climate crisis compel congregations to reimagine their mission and identity in various ways. Working with data taken from U.S. clergy participating in an online program for education and support on climate and environmental issues, as well as selected congregational leaders from their congregations, this article examines the ways that ministers and their congregations in primarily North American mainline Protestant contexts frame the climate crisis and how those understandings both create tension and open space for new conversations about their Christian and congregational vocation. It also describes how these ministers and congregations engage with environmental issues through means beyond technological solutions and consumption choices, such as collaborating with other community organizations, hosting rituals for grieving or meaning-making, and inviting transformative encounters with the more-than-human world. Finally, it will suggest possible strategies for leaders and their congregations to frame and creatively engage with the environment through various methods.

1. Introduction

In “The World is Not a Problem,” British philosopher Hine (2023) describes the dilemma of environmentalists using ostensibly straightforward language that frequently obscures the contested, even contradictory frameworks behind them.

Imagine you’re out for a walk, and you come to a point where the path divides. The two paths will take you in quite different directions—there’s a choice to be made—and at the fork, there stands a signpost. Only the words on each arm of the signpost are the same … When I say that I came to doubt the helpfulness of talking about climate change, it’s because the signs that read ‘taking climate change seriously’ now point in such different directions.

This “confusing signposts” experience typified what our research uncovered about the substantially different ways that lay congregational leaders and clergy frame their understanding of what engaging with a climate-changed world looks like for them and their congregation. Their use of terms such as “care for creation,” “environmental issues,” or “climate change” concealed markedly different frameworks that defined both how they spoke about these issues and how they responded to them.

The frameworks behind these terms frequently reveal a narrow set of presuppositions that define a congregation’s response primarily through technological solutions or consumption choices, such as recycling or installing solar panels. While these are both essential practices, our research points toward the transformative potential for congregations and leaders who can expand their range of responses beyond individual lifestyle choices or technology solutions. We have observed leaders in congregations sensitively and creatively envisioning broader ways for their congregations to engage with environmental issues in a climate-changed world. We suggest that the “yes, and” approach of affirming existing engagement with ecological issues while expanding and deepening a congregation’s biblical, theological, and spiritual encounters with the natural world model a deeper and more sustainable approach to ministry that engages ecological justice and communal well-being.

This paper will first examine the contrasting frameworks that belie certain assumptions regarding frequently used terms in the environmental movement and describe the tensions and opportunities that present themselves when these differences are brought to light. Next, it will chart the wide range of ways congregations, and their pastors engage with environmental issues in a climate-changed world and describe the interventions that enable leaders to broaden their imaginations and bring new possibilities to life within their contexts. (For the purposes of this study, we define congregation as a group of people who meet to worship in a church building, online, or outdoors.)

2. Literature Review

Congregations can shape attitudes and actions related to justice issues (A. W. Harper 2020), including climate change and ecological stewardship (Nche 2020). Caring for God’s creation is not just an ethical, socio-political, or practical issue but is deeply rooted in theological understandings of God, humanity, and creation (Yosua-Davis et al. 2025). There has been a “greening” movement in various Christian congregations, embracing environmental stewardship as a core aspect of their faith and integrating it into worship, education, and outreach programs (Brown et al. 2021). “Greening” has led to the development of eco-theologies that reimagine biblical texts to emphasize humanity’s environmental responsibilities (Adler 2006; Köhrsen et al. 2022). Kearns (1996) discusses the possibility of a deep and meaningful reimagining of where humanity fits within the interconnected web of life. Accentuating ecological conservation as a fundamental aspect of Christian identity can enhance moral responsibility and increase involvement in environmental activities (Brown et al. 2021).

Discerning the meaning of “caring for God’s Creation” is often eclipsed by congregations focusing on quick, practical actions such as waste reduction, energy conservation, and sustainable consumption practices (Kearns 2011). Frequently, congregations mobilize around low-stakes actions like recycling, replacing Styrofoam, composting, and changing light bulbs, while shying away from the more involved efforts of changing consumption habits and addressing climate change causes (Kearns 2011; Yosua-Davis et al. 2025). More involved “heavy lift” actions that congregations might engage in include installing solar panels and geothermal, joining clean-energy co-ops, cultivating community gardens, and advocating for political change with elected officials.

Religious groups have engaged in religiously motivated environmentalism and climate activism since it became a broad scientific concern in the 1970s, although their approaches and motivations vary significantly (Kearns 2007, 2011). Gazley et al. (2022) explain that 70 percent of charitable giving and 50 percent of volunteering are in response to disasters. Congregations often respond to symptoms (downstream effects) of ecological issues and climate change rather than underlying causes (upstream factors), highlighting a disconnect between awareness of environmental problems and a deeper understanding of the systemic drivers of climate change (Yosua-Davis et al. 2025). The downstream effects are the consequences of environmental degradation, such as pollution, deforestation, climate change, and loss of biodiversity. Responding to downstream impacts of climate change, such as disaster relief, without addressing the upstream causes of global warming will, at best, have only temporary effects. Upstream influences include political, economic, and social activities, which are far from having an immediate and direct environmental impact. These upstream factors frequently involve policy decisions, business practices, and societal norms that drive pollution and resource consumption.

A congregation’s capacity to engage in ecological initiatives is impacted by daily congregational life, and various factors can influence a congregation’s willingness to address environmental issues, including theological interpretations, socioeconomic constraints, or competing priorities (Brown et al. 2021). Preachers often encounter challenges such as limited resources, declining attendance, conflicting political ideologies, competing priorities, time constraints, and aging membership, which can hinder their best intentions (Kearns 2011; Yosua-Davis et al. 2025). Ministers are also cognizant of balancing environmental concerns with their congregations’ other pressing social and spiritual needs. Others face institutional barriers in addressing climate change, such as a lack of funds and human capital and limited structural leadership within collaborative networks (Nche 2020), indicating that, beyond theological considerations, practical limitations hinder effective action (Nche 2020).

Despite these challenges, clergy can shape congregational attitudes and behaviors toward environmental issues (Brown et al. 2021). Worshipers often trust their clergy to guide them on important matters, including environmental conservation, and those who attend congregations where ecological issues are discussed are more likely to recognize the reality and importance of climate change (Jones et al. 2014; Brown et al. 2021).

Many clergy view climate change as a moral and socio-political issue, emphasizing its effects on humanity and the imperative for action (Salter and Wilkinson 2023). The theological rethinking of how Christians relate to God and Creation involves more than merely adding environmental language (Kearns 1996). Preaching “green” sermons that “check the box” but are not part of a larger ecosystem of faith deeply rooted in a vocation of tending to our kinship with Creation can be shallow and not very effective (Abumoghli 2023). Denominational environmental offices (i.e., Green Chalice (Christian Church—Disciples of Christ)), Lutherans Restoring Creation (ELCA), and Evangelical Environmental Network), alongside interreligious environmental organizations (i.e., Interfaith Power and Light, Blessed Tomorrow, and Green Faith), tend to focus on celebrating houses of worship that make congregational changes and encourage individual consumption and lifestyle adjustments (downstream solutions). It is challenging, however, for clergy and congregations to undertake actions geared toward policy advocacy and political activism. Thus, “downstream” solutions do not address “upstream” decisions and policies for tackling environmental issues.

Cultivating a culture of environmental stewardship within congregations necessitates educating and empowering lay members (F. Harper 2011). Congregations can relate ecological issues to the specific contexts of their members and foster a sense of collective responsibility for caring for Creation (Golo and Yaro 2013). Some congregations have actively embraced environmental stewardship as a core aspect of their faith, integrating it into worship, education, and outreach programs. Worshipers who hear sermons about environmental conservation are more likely to view climate change as real and consider environmental conservation important (Jones et al. 2014; Brown et al. 2021). Therefore, fostering ecological ministry within congregations necessitates an integrated “yes, and” approach that combines theological grounding, education, practical action, spiritual practices, and community engagement to create a sustainable culture of care for Creation.

3. Materials and Methods

The context of this research is the [program name masked], a program of [organization names masked], which is currently funded by a five-year, USD 1.25 million grant from [organization name masked] as part of their [grant initiative masked]. The cohort creates a covenanted space for preachers to learn, reflect together, and support one another as they regularly preach in a climate-changed world. It consists of monthly online gatherings that include presentations from climate scientists, theologians, religious environmental activists, and homileticians, fostering community through small groups and opportunities for self-reflection and feedback on preaching strategies. The project also includes research funding to study how clergy and congregations are responding to the challenges of a climate-changed world and how the skills and resources provided by the program can be utilized throughout congregations.

Research for this cohort involved quantitative and qualitative methodologies to describe the lived context of the participants’ ministries and more deeply understand their meaning-making processes regarding Christian vocation and the Earth. This included entrance and exit questionnaires for participants and leaders in their congregations, focus groups with [program name masked] participants, and pre- and post-site visits with two congregations whose pastors were participating in the cohort. We decided to research both [program name masked] participants and lay congregational leaders to have a broader lens to understand a congregation’s context than simply the experience of their pastors. (For the purposes of this article, “participants” refer to all those who participated in the EcoPreacher cohort, “pastors” refer to all participants who were active clergy leaders in a congregation, and “congregational leaders” or “lay leaders” refer to lay members of congregations whose pastors participated in an EcoPreacher cohort.)

In all surveys, participants and congregational leaders were provided with the following definitions of terms:

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Climate change—shifts in global temperatures and weather patterns, particularly caused by human activity.

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Creation—a theological term used within a religious framework to denote that which is created by God; the term is capitalized in this survey.

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Ecology—the study of relationships between living organisms (plants, animals, bacteria, and humans).

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Environment—the totality of the surroundings that we live in, including climate; weather; ecosystems; biospheres; living species; and components such as rivers, mountains, air, etc.

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Environmental justice—the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.

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Nature—the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features of the earth.

This analysis is being conducted by a team of scholars with terminal degrees in their fields, including quantitative and qualitative social science methodology, congregations, ecology, and homiletics. This includes qualitative coding of open-response questions by two team members to increase inter-rater reliability, quantitative analysis of closed-response questions that looked both for broad patterns and tested for possible correlations between responses, and extensive field noting of both focus groups and site visits.

The 2022–2023 [program name masked] participants, 93 of whom completed the intake questionnaire, were from 30 states, ranging in age from 23 to 74. In total, 81% were mainline Protestant. Overall, 90% were White, 56% female, 40% male, and 1% non-binary/self-described. Politically, they were 73% Democrat and 79% politically progressive. Twenty-seven completed both pre- and post-questionnaires.

A total of 172 lay congregational leaders from congregations whose pastors participated in this cohort responded to the intake questionnaire. They were from 30 congregations in 16 states, ranging in age from 18 to 83 years. In total, 93% were mainline Protestant. Overall, 90% were White, 63% were female, 34% were male, and 2% were non-binary/self-described. Politically, 68% were Democrats, 28% were moderate, 51% were progressive, and 7% were conservative. Twenty completed both intake and exit questionnaires.

One hundred and twenty preachers completed the 2024–2025 [program name masked] intake questionnaire, which was conducted in September 2024. Eighty-eight percent of the respondents were from the U.S.; other countries represented were Cameroon, Canada, Nigeria, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe. The U.S. respondents came from thirty states. Regarding demographics, 70% identify as female, 26% as male, and 3% as nonbinary, transgender, or genderqueer. About 4 in 5 (78%) were White/Caucasian, 11% Black/African American, and 6% Hispanic or Latine/x/a/o. The rest (14%) included African National or African-Caribbean, American Indian/Native American/Indigenous, South Asian/Indian, Native Hawaiian or Alaskan, or other. Nearly all (97%) of the [program name masked] participants were Christian. Also reported were Buddhist, Interfaith, Quaker, and Unitarian Universalist traditions. Eighty-two percent (99) reported a mainline Protestant faith heritage, 9% Evangelical (11), and 9% something else (11). Politically, most respondents were Democrat/Independent Lean Democrat (74%) and Progressive/Liberal (79%). Only 2% were Republican and Conservative.

[program name masked] Congregational Leaders Intake Questionnaire respondents in 2024 numbered 219 from 45 congregations, with the majority in 24 states. Congregation leaders were White (91%), 7% Black, 2% African National, and 1% Hispanic or other. Regarding gender, 66% were female, 32% male, and 2% nonbinary. Politically, 72% identified as Democrat or Independent/Lean Democrat. Fifteen percent identified as Republican or Independent/Lean Republican; 13% identified as other. Just over half (53%) identified as progressive/liberal, 32% as moderate, 10% as conservative, and 5% as some other political identity.

4. Results

Results from our data collection of the 2022–2023 and 2024–2025 [program name masked] participants and congregational leaders revealed the varying ways ministers and their congregations interpret the climate crisis. We discerned diverse ways congregations and their ministers respond to environmental challenges—not only through technology or consumer choices but also through collaborating with other community organizations, performing rituals for grief and meaning-making, and fostering transformative connections with the more-than-human world.

The 2022–2023 study: Conducting a comparative analysis of the open-ended question, “What does caring for God’s Creation mean for you?” aided in exploring [program name masked] participants’ perspectives on caring for God’s Creation. After completing the [program name masked] study, the researchers contrasted pre-survey and exit-survey responses. The initial reaction of [program name masked] participants and congregational leaders provided a baseline for evaluating the impact of the [program name masked] experience.

Analysis of the pre-surveys for both [program name masked] participants and congregational leaders provided a framework of caring perspectives: congregational, practical, and spiritual caring. Congregational caring themes included congregational actions, receptivity to environmental care, and plans for integrating creation care into congregational life. Practical responses highlighted key action themes, such as sustainability, awareness, and acceptance of responsibility. Spiritual care included theological language, highlighting faith-based motivation, interconnectedness, and calling (Yosua-Davis et al. 2025).

The 2022–2023 [program name masked] pre-survey responses initially focused on practical caring, such as recycling, conservation efforts, and environmental stewardship. There was an expressed concern for future generations and basic theological language mentioned through the well-being of God’s creation. Congregational leader intake responses emphasized practical actions, like recycling, sustainability, and concern for future generations. Laity’s pre-survey responses mentioned that spiritual motivations for caring for Creation were absent. The pilot cohort provided valuable data about the perspectives of clergy and lay leaders as we conducted the 2024–2025 [program name masked].

4.1. Delineating Religious Environmental Engagement: How Clergy and Congregational Leaders Define “Care for Creation” in a Climate-Changed World

In intake questionnaires filled out by congregational leaders whose pastors were participating in the 2024–2025 [program name masked], we once again asked, “In your own words, what does ‘caring for God’s Creation’ mean for you, and what does it look like or involve for you and/or your congregation?” Congregational leaders (n = 214) framed their response to this question primarily in terms of individual virtuous actions (51%), at nearly twice the rate of any other response. These actions include buying less, recycling, composting, or reducing one’s carbon footprint. They also named place-based actions (28%), such as installing geothermal in their buildings or “taking care of the land,” and convening community partners (19%), especially by offering educational opportunities.

Notably, 16% of congregational respondents to this question could not offer a response with enough content to be given unique codes, with responses such as “leaving the place better than you found it” or “finding ways to take care of the environment,” or by simply repeating back the framework of the question. In all, 9% of congregational leaders mentioned justice-focused responses, such as political advocacy, and only 5% of congregational leaders named spiritual/religious practice. One participant stated, “I care for creation; I’m not sure if God is involved.”

Of those congregation leaders who also named why they were motivated to care for Creation (n = 72), 33% cited stewardship language that pointed to a hierarchical, if beneficent, relationship between humans and the rest of the world. While this theological understanding involved care, it did not always involve a critique of harmful political or economic systems. In the words of one congregational leader, “We are stewards and are to treat this earth as such. This in no way means that capitalism and progress should be resisted. Instead, we should look for ways where the economy and ecology intersect and develop those spheres.” Secondarily, they framed their motivation because of their commitment to their faith (24%), taking individual responsibility for their actions (19%), or caring for future generations (17%).

In contrast, [program name masked] participants (n = 114), many of whom were pastors in these congregations, articulated a far broader range of responses to this question. They framed their responses primarily in terms of spiritual/religious identity or practice (51%) This included a wide range of reactions: from actively working to shift people’s worldview or values to leading communal ritual through preaching, worship, prayer, or confession to engaging with the theological resources of their tradition, in particular, the Christian understanding of hope.

The second most prominent response involved individual virtuous actions (47%), including consuming fewer resources or picking up trash, followed by place-based actions (42%), such as starting church gardens. They next named convening and equipping their community (38%), especially by fostering collaboration among local organizations and seeking environmental justice (33%), especially for historically marginalized communities.

The primary source of motivation for these ministers was their relationship with Creation (76%), which they understood primarily through kinship (51%), a relationship with Creation that is reciprocal and non-hierarchical, or through stewardship (45%). As one participant shared,

Caring for God’s creation means seeing myself as an integral part of it. I am called to pay attention to, learn from, fall in love with, and live in a mutual relationship with all of it. Further, God has called humans to tend and care for more than humans. In this capacity, we are to draw from the perennial wisdom and science available to us to maintain our mutual relationship. My current role with the congregation I serve is to encourage others to fall in love with God’s creation, to introduce a new cosmology, and to encourage greater awareness of our role in caring for God’s creation.

4.2. Understanding and Expanding Competing Frameworks

Data from the 2022–2023 and 2024–2025 intake surveys revealed that many preachers experienced tension when preaching sermons addressing environmental issues. In both surveys, 45% reported that listeners were occasionally or frequently “suspicious and/or resistant” to sermons that addressed environmental issues. In total, 13–15% reported receiving “hostile” responses occasionally or often. These negative responses took the form of complaints to the congregation’s governing board or denominational office (10%, 2022; 3%, 2024); refusal to speak to the preacher (6–7%); angry words, letters, or emails (4%); some threatening to withhold their financial giving (2–3%); or threats to remove the preacher from their position (2.5%, 2022; 0%, 2024).

Focus groups conducted with [program name masked] participants provided a deeper reflection on these tensions, particularly regarding the contrasting ways of understanding environmental engagement. They named terms that could shut down conversation in their congregations. For example, one pastor observed that “to mention the climate crisis is a death knell.” The term “ecopreacher” itself concerned some in another pastor’s rural congregation, with one congregant expressing the fear that “ecopreacher” must mean “anti-farm.” “I’m not getting rid of my cows!” this congregant pronounced, despite knowing that the pastor herself was a farmer.

For parishioners in an urban context, the tension around frameworks had less to do with perceived threats to family farms and more with confusion around perceived meanings of the term “environmental issues.” For example, during a 2024 site visit conducted at [congregation name masked], located in an urban African American neighborhood within [location masked], a focus group with congregational leaders revealed a wide range of understandings about what constitutes an environmental issue. Some assumed that the term referred to concerns such as “saving the polar bears” or protecting faraway forests—matters that had little to do with their community. The effects of a local toxic waste site, a decades-old landfill, and a lack of access to healthcare and healthy, fresh food were constant concerns for them. When the researcher explained that these were also examples of environmental issues, the participants shifted their understanding. One noted the following:

When I took the survey, I didn’t know you were talking about what we’re talking about right now [such as local environmental issues and health issues]. But what we are talking about here? Yes, 100%! We are all about this. The way your survey was worded wasn’t clear. But this is the conversation that we have all the time in the church.

In other words, even the attempt to gauge people’s attitudes about environmental issues in the congregation is complicated by perceptions of the meanings of specific terms. Thus, a word such as “ecopreacher” elicits negative feedback from a parishioner in a rural congregation, while “environmental issues” rings hollow for parishioners in an urban congregation. In both contexts, both the preachers and the researchers are learning that intentional conversation and education about these terms are necessary to obtain clarity and make distinctions, suggesting the possibility that there is, in fact, more common ground than may be initially realized.

In other cases, navigating these frameworks has led to discovering common ground. For example, [program name masked] participants told stories about tears shed in shared grief about ecological devastation or how parishioners who thought they were isolated in their concerns for the environment could find each other once it was named by their preacher. One preacher shared how reframing care for Creation as something that involved humans (and not just different parts of nature) during a Graduation Sunday sermon reduced people’s defensiveness. The preacher noted, “I had people who said, ‘I always got mad when I heard about Creation care and the environment, but you put a different light on it.”

Preachers also expressed how continued involvement with the [program name masked] appears to expand the possibilities for environmental engagement that they and their congregation could engage with from a place of shared mission and value.

5. Discussion

It is important to note that despite the competing frameworks, there is often a common commitment to care for the Earth from both congregational leaders and their ministers. However, this common commitment is not always evident to the ministers. For instance, when asked about the degree to which certain factors make parishioners eager to act on climate and environment, [program name masked] participants significantly underestimated the environmental concerns of their parishioners. In the 2024–2025 [program name masked], for example, 64% of [program name masked] participants said that concern for future generations greatly influenced their listeners. However, among congregant respondents, 80% rated high concern for future generations. Similarly, only 27% of [program name masked] participants thought animals, plants, forests, beaches, or specific geographic places meant a great deal to their congregation, whereas 75% of congregational leaders were highly motivated to action by these concerns. The same held for “care for the future of the community I live in” (39% vs. 54%), teachings of their faith and sacred texts (25% vs. 49%), and intersections between climate/environment and other social justice issues (20% vs. 48%). These results suggest that congregation leaders care more about these issues than their ministers assume.

Thus, we were encouraged to see that [program name masked] participants employed a wide range of strategies for expanding their congregations’ understanding of engaging with the environment in a climate-changed world and in rooting it within the practice of their faith. The first was to raise awareness that different conceptual frameworks work in the congregation. Understanding, for instance, that environmental engagement could mean “anti-farm” created an opportunity for relationship building for the pastor mentioned above, who shared the following statement:

We had conversations like, “Why would you think I would want you to get rid of your cows?” “Well, because those people always blame beef production.” Someone else said, “Yeah, those people don’t realize how much I do to take care of my land.” I just stood there and listened because they were really sharing things that were painful for them and things that would stop them from hearing a message from me unless I couched it appropriately.

Similarly, during the [congregation name masked] site visit, the researcher invited the pastor and the congregational leaders in the focus group to consider how “environmental issues” include what is happening in their local community. When asked if they thought the congregation would support a message about environmental issues if framed in a way that people could understand and relate to in their context, they all agreed. They emphasized, however, that it must all “tie back to Scripture,” as a parishioner put it. “You’ve got to put it in their face and say, “This is what we’re talking about. And then they need to put the scriptural foundation with it. Then, yes, we will be 100% behind it. The engagement will come when we do that.” In other words, simply conversing about terms and their meanings can open up new possibilities for engagement.

Second, preachers shared the effectiveness of framing environmental issues within a place-based context and as a shared commitment to care for their common home. One participant articulated how this helped her start environmental conversations in her congregation, saying,

The idea of trying to preserve the land and care for Creation, most of the time, has to focus less on climate justice-type issues and more on personal preservation-type issues, [like] “We can’t lose so much land to sea rise, or you won’t have a place to live.” We can argue all day about what causes that or what policies need to be in place. But the reality is that that’s happening, and they can see it, and so we can just have that kind of conversation.

Third, the [program name masked] participants shared about the effectiveness of framing environmental engagement through the idioms of their religious tradition. They prioritized naming the importance of Creation within the biblical text, inviting people into a relationship with the more-than-human community surrounding them. As another participant articulated,

I’m like, “Look, come in and see what this is.” … What I want, because this is my vocation, is to make it so enriching, so compelling, to show the treasure of scripture for this, which I think could have such a wide impact, theologically, for people who aren’t eco-activist believers of whatever kind.

A fourth strategy was to engage in spiritual practice through prayer and ritual. For instance, one pastor created a ritual response to her sermon in which people could either drop a message in a box labeled “hope” or dissolve (in a vessel of water) pieces of paper with words about “fears.” This pastor noted how practical this approach was: “Absolutely everyone who was there came up. It was during sermon time, and we were kind of blown away at that because that doesn’t always happen in a prayerful way, and it was very powerful.”

Finally, the [program name masked] participants articulated that cultivating community support and learning in peer groups for preachers is essential for leaders who wish to lead imaginatively and intentionally. As one of the 2022–2023 participants shared, she particularly appreciated the peer learning this offered her in the [program name masked], noting that other participants were “way ahead of me on certain parts of it… they know the language; they know their watershed. They’re activists; they’re planting trees, they’re cleaning up the plastic, and all this kind of stuff. Which isn’t necessarily my story… but it helps me see what’s possible when it comes to activism.”

6. Questions for Future Research

Four additional [program name masked] cohorts will be involved in this program throughout the grant. Research will continue through site visits to monitor how these frameworks change over time, focus groups with participants, alumni, and congregational leaders, and additional intake and exit questionnaires. This study offers crucial information to fill the knowledge gap in the literature regarding clergy and congregational environmental engagement. For example, the data acquired from the 2022–2023 and 2023–2024 [program name masked] groups provided valuable insights and raised questions for further research, such as the following:

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How do geographic location and race/ethnicity impact how participants and congregational leaders respond to environmental issues?

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How do burnout, stress, and sustainability impact the capacity for clergy and congregations to engage with environmental issues?

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How do [program name masked] participants and congregational leaders understand the concept of hope, and how do they engage with it?

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How is vocational and spiritual formation around environmental issues happening within the [program name masked] and in their congregations? What differences do we observe in formation among preachers and congregational leaders, and what opportunities might this point to?

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How do emotions around climate change or the future of one’s congregation impact how one frames care of creation?

7. Conclusions

Our results indicate that the terminology of the environmental movement can frequently point in different, even contradictory, directions. Understanding what those signs are saying can lead congregations to discover a far wider range of pathways to guide their work than those they are currently pursuing. It attests to the possibilities and challenges for congregations that wish to expand their capacity to respond to a climate-changed world. Such work is frequently messy and sometimes risky. It requires creative perseverance within supportive communities that encourage, challenge, and catalyze preachers to engage from the imaginative richness of their traditions.

However, the creativity to transformationally respond to our current ecological crisis is already present among the practitioners who are thoughtfully and creatively responding to their contexts in various ways. In the words of the poet Berry (2012), “What we need is here.” Our congregations do not need to create new responses ex nihilo: they already have everything they need to engage this current moment with a “Yes, and…” spirit of imagination and possibilities.