Take care of your mother
Looking at God’s earth as a positive example of mothering.
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Looking at God’s earth as a positive example of mothering.
Discovering God is a new resource offering practical ideas for informal services and events where the focus is on creating community and a sense of belonging, demonstrating that the church is available to all.
Underpinning the materials is an intention to gather together and with God, sharing experiences and stories, and learning together. Find out more.
Here’s a way to introduce the theme in the context of our everyday lives.
Invite everyone to hold a seed.
God, like ‘mother earth’, you nurture us. You see our potential to bloom.
Invite everyone to plant their seed.
Like the soil, your love for us is wholesome, deep and secure.
Invite everyone to water their seed.
Thank you for the opportunities that we have to be refreshed and to grow.
Amen.
Come together to revisit the theme of mothering and to pray.
You will need: buckets or pots, natural clay, compost, wildflower seeds, egg boxes or similar.
Plant your seed bomb somewhere in your local community and encourage others to do the same to play a part in God’s creation, as well as appreciating the results.
Invite everyone to hold up their seed bombs.
Loving God,
may these seeds spread so that flowers are produced,
and the flowers give food to the bees.
Then the bees can make honey
and pollinate the plants and trees that sustain us.
This cycle of love and care comes from you, the creator.
Help us to be loving as we care for your world.
Amen.
You could keep the theme and exploration of mothering going, by sending out follow-up activities:
(1) Find a spot to sit – a quiet space outside – and notice in the natural world:
as a way of getting to know ‘all creation’ from the Bible passage.
(2) Using a permanent marker, draw planet earth on an inflatable beach ball, and play beach volleyball. Does anyone manage any good ‘saves’ of the planet?
(3) Get involved in Earth Day on 22 April – an international annual event that was inaugurated back in 1970. Celebrated in over 193 countries, it is coordinated by the Earth Day Network to showcase its concern for the environment.
Find out more at www.earthday.org.
Linking the introductory activities to the theme and Bible passage.
Paul was sharing the Christian message through letter writing to new Christian communities in Rome. This tiny passage in Paul’s letter brings together two ideas: one is Paul seeing the coming together of all elements of creation – the natural world and humanity; the other is about the waiting that has been happening, and the suffering of both God’s creation and the human race. He sees ‘now’ as the time when Jesus has come to make a difference to this state of being. The whole of creation is called to work alongside Jesus to bring about this change.
Read the passage in chunks, using different voices, if possible, for each line.
We
We know
We know that the whole
Whole creation
We know that the whole creation
Creation has been groaning
The whole creation has been groaning
We know that the whole creation has been groaning
Groaning in labour
Groaning in labour pains
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains
Until now
We know that the whole creation has been groaning
in labour pains until now.
… the whole creation? Sometimes we only like to think about the nice bits. This passage unites and equalises all parts of creation.
…groaning in labour pains? Labour pains are used as an image to make us think about the earth as mother, and the pain that can be involved in creating.
…until now? This is the arrival of Jesus, but also a call to humanity to work alongside him in this challenge to bring about change in God’s creation.
This is a clear image from the Bible which reminds us that the earth is like a mother. God has made the whole of creation and uses it to show us more about God. Growth and bringing new things to life is painful and hard work and God understands that. The whole of creation is part of bringing about change which God wants in the world. This brings an equality between humans, animals and plants – all working together.
Look at the care mother earth is showing to the world.
Click on the image to view a larger version.
Choose from these activities to help people explore the theme. We don’t include timings or age-differentiation as this is designed for all ages engaging together. Use the spiritual styles indicated by the coloured letters to help you plan and cater for the different ways in which people connect with God.
Spiritual styles (as defined by Dave Csinos) key: Word, Emotion, Symbol, Action.
Find out more in Worship and learning support.
Line a large cardboard box with newspaper articles about climate disasters. Talk about: Where do we see creation groaning at the moment? As we care for creation in her distress, what new things can we help to ‘birth’ (grow and develop) as a community and personally? Young children could go inside and feel that sense of being in the darkness before emerging into the world. Pray together about being involved in change throughout God’s creation.
Hapa zome is the Japanese practice of smashing flowers and leaves into fabric. Arrange leaves and flowers onto one half of a square of white fabric. Fold over the unused half, and then bash with a rubber mallet to make prints on the fabric. If our mother earth can cause these beautiful things to grow, what does that tell us about the God who made them? Who do we know who helps and encourages beautiful things to grow in our lives? The pictures could be given to them as a way of saying thank you.
Provide magnifying glasses and go outside, or provide a tray of soil and rocks, and real or plastic minibeasts. Are there some parts of creation that we like better than others? Where do these creatures like to live? How does mother earth look after them? What does that tell us about how God mothers them, and about how God will mother us? How does it feel to be described as equal parts of creation?
Make placards with card and long sticks, with messages about looking after our planet. ‘Take care of your mother’ is often seen at climate change demonstrations. It reminds us that we are responsible for looking after our earth, and how God has given us our earth to look after us. Add thoughts and responses to the Bible passage to the placards in words and pictures.
Use cleaned recycling and masking tape/scissors to turn things into something from the natural world, e.g. a flower. Talk about the ways we can take steps to look after the world, and the ways in which we are looked after and given all we need to grow beautiful. The new creations could be given to someone who looks after us.