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“The gospel is for all creation.” It’s a theological proclamation that is sometimes offered flippantly, words to check an ideological box marked “creation care,” disappearing only moments after they pass the speaker’s lips. When Dr. Andrew Wymer says them aloud, however, he is cleareyed that this conviction demands dramatic transformation for both how preachers address ecological concerns from the pulpit and the way many congregations view the relationship between God, humanity, and the natural world. Garrett Seminary’s Associate Professor of Preaching and Worship doesn’t claim to be an expert in ecotheologies, but insights from the field and his work in local environmental justice advocacy are prompting him to ask significant questions—ones that reframe how homiletics engages nature and neighbor—and invite students to do the same.

In many churches, the relationship between preaching and ecology still only extends to an Earth Day sermon, or perhaps questions of land sovereignty on Indigenous People’s Day. In those moments, the climate crisis looms large; an existential threat that, in the speakers’ telling, indicts our failure to serve as good stewards of the Earth. “To limit our thinking about creation to this present duress, to confine it neatly within ‘environmentalism,’ doesn’t fully reflect the record of ancient scriptures.” Dr. Wymer notes. “It doesn’tengage what it means to consider non-human actors in the biblical narratives and Christian tradition. But the other thing that is often missing from Earth Day or the Season of Creation is a critical awareness of power, the understanding that there are broader, systemic forces at play creating environmental and climate injustice.”

Indeed, the past two decades have witnessed much conflict in environmental non-profits about how climate messaging has often reflected and prioritized white, privileged concerns and downplayed environmental racism and other systemic harms. A parallel reckoning in churches is long overdue. “Single-issue environmentalism can be very dangerous and harmful to systemically marginalized communities,” Dr. Wymer says. “The job of the preacher, then, is to expand awareness—find out what is happening in your area and draw the connections between environmental injustice, racial injustice, poverty. This is not something you have to make up. You have to be attentive to where creation is not being cared for appropriately and how that is differently experienced by members of the community.”

But connecting environmental harm to other pressing justice concerns isn’t the only challenge that faces ecological preaching. There’s also an underlying anthropocentrism that is difficult to change. “If the gospel is for all creation, we can’t only center humans. What is the good news for the animals, plants, soil, and water in your neighborhood?” Dr. Wymer asks. “What does it mean to think of all creation praising God—that we worship in a broad and interconnected ecology of praise? What would it mean to learn how to preach from the birds—what creative possibilities could that lend to us in thinking about the structure of sermons, or how we engage a liturgical moment?” These questions reflect a strong influence from indigenous theologians and other voices who have advocated non-human personhood, unsettling long-held Western assumptions about a hierarchy within creation. “The systems changes we want to see in our world,” Dr. Wymer points out, “also require a systems change in our preaching.”

It’s fertile terrain he plans to explore with Garrett students. “In the coming year, I’m offering a course called ‘Praying with the Earth,’ and we will spend the entire course outside,” he notes. “I want to find ways and patterns and approaches to prayer that draw us into relationship with a wide variety of ecological contexts.” It’s not clear from the outset where that journey will lead, but Dr. Wymer wants that experience of collective discovery to be part of what he and students learn together, creating space for the Spirit to move in unexpected ways.

This inquisitive disposition is something he suggests more preachers follow. “It’s crucial to demonstrate to your congregation that you don’t always have to be the expert. You can model learning and expanding your own awareness,” he observes. It’s an approach that will likewise serve congregations as they seek to better understand ecological justice concerns in their communities. “A colleague and I did a research project in Flint, Michigan years ago. The lesson I took away from there at the direct urging of people who experienced the Flint Water Crisis was, ‘Go back to your home, because this is happening there, too. Find out where.” Dr. Wymer reports. “The relationships we build in our community and the justice work that we do together can be more important than any sermon we’ll preach.”

This calling is at the heart of Garrett’s Center for Ecological Regeneration, which is currently building a Midwest Bioregional Hub to nurture relationships between churches who are asking these crucial questions, and who will offer a . These offerings and more seek to partner with ministers and congregations to discern how to transform “creation care” from a siloed concern into an integrated part of their justice work—one that demands new theological frames. “Get embedded in your place,” Dr. Wymer counsels. “We can be in deep partnership with one another, and with creation.”