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April Holidays and the Earth

These resources will help you bring earth care into upcoming religious holidays and observe Earth Day in your faith community.
Image by Jane Ellen Nickell

Spring holidays offer possibilities for bringing earth care together with religious observance. Here are some resources to help you consider sustainability as you prepare for Passover or Easter, or to celebrate Earth Day in your faith community.

Passover (April 12-20)

As Jews observe Passover, there are many resources to connect to the earth and practice sustainability. Former TAF member, the late Rabbi Ellen Bernstein, wrote a haggadah entitled The Promise of the Land that centers the Passover story in the natural world. Focusing on the very soil out of which Judaism grew, this haggadah explores the Seder’s earthly grounding and ecological meaning.

The Jewish environmental group Adamah provides online resources for considering sustainability throughout the eight days of Passover. You will find activities, rituals, recipes, and tips, including several haggadah supplements.

With Dayenu, Adamah also created a Climate Action Shabbat Guide to help families and congregations take meaningful climate action and align Shabbat practices with sustainability and Jewish values throughout the year.

Easter (April 20)

Christians can also keep earth care and sustainability in mind as they celebrate Easter. Derrick Weston reflects on the implications of Jesus’ death and resurrection for all creation in this blog post, and the National Catholic Reporter offers tips for celebrating a creation-conscious Easter. The Creation Justice Ministries website has a hub of resources, where you can search by theme or liturgical season and find sermon ideas, scripture reflections, songs, and prayers.

To continue your sustainable focus through the year, Creation Justice Ministries offers 52 Ways to Care for Creation 2025, with actions for every week of the year, including Holy Week, Easter, and Earth Day. Their 2025 resource, The Power of God: From Extractive Theology to Transformative Faith, can help your congregation think about God’s power and how we interact in the world. Download it for free from their website.

Earth Day (April 22)

The theme for this year’s Earth Day celebration is “Our Power, Our Planet.” As Third Act is doing with its plans for Sun Day (September 20-21), Earth Day is focusing on the need to transition to renewable sources of energy, which have become the most cost-effective sources of power. The transition will create jobs, eliminate the need to import fossil fuels, and avoid the health hazards and greenhouse gas emissions that come from burning fossil fuels.

The Earth Day website provides toolkits, fact sheets, sample petitions and press releases, and guidelines with samples prayers and sermons for faith communities. A map of Earth Day events around the world can be filtered by “faith,” so you can locate an action near you or post one that you are organizing. For Earth Day events sponsored by other Third Act Working Groups, visit thirdact.org/working-groups/events.

Also focusing on renewable energy, Creation Justice Ministries will host an Earth Day prayer service based on their 2025 resource, The Power of God: From Extractive Theology to Transformative Faith. Held online on April 22 at 10:00 AM PT / 1:00 PM ET, the service will lead participants into a time of prayer and reflection, centered around seven original pieces of music produced for the resource. Register here.

Sustainable Woodstock is hosting an Earth Day conversation with advocate and activist Rev. Mariama White-Hammond on Wednesday, April 23 at 3:00 PM PT / 6:00 PM ET on Zoom. Pastor and Founder of the New Roots AME Church in Dorchester, MA, Rev. White-Hammond is former Chief of Energy, Environment and Open Space for the City of Boston. Read more about her and register for this virtual presentation with Q&A online.

In addition the United Church of Christ will hold its Annual UCC Earth Day Summit  on Saturday, April 26, on Zoom, from 11:00-2:00 PM PT / 2:00-5:00 PM ET. The Jim Antal Keynote Lecture (named for TAF member Rev. Dr. Jim Antal)  will be delivered by Katharine Hayhoe, one of the world’s leading climate scientists and an evangelical Christian. Dr. Hayhoe will be joined by a panel of frontline grassroots leaders. Learn more and register here.

Faith communities can also search these websites, which include Earth Day resources, including those from past years:

 

Disclaimer: Working Groups are volunteer-run groups organized by affinity or by geographic location. Working Groups engage in campaign activities, communicate with their Working Group volunteers, and maintain the content on their Working Group webpages.