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Dear Friend,
Blessings of the Easter season to you and your beloved community! In this time of focusing on resurrection and renewal, we are encouraged by our liturgical calendar and the world around us to took outward at the changes in our environment, and to look inward at changes within our own bodies, minds and spirits. Spring is a time of awakening to the miracle of renewing life all throughout creation, to experience with adoration the green buds, the emergence of our insect friends, and the cleansing rains that quench our dry lands.
The Resurrection points to a moment in our Christian story where Jesus’ earthly body has been restored to life through the love and power of God’s intention. We understand that resurrection is not just a one-time event, nor is it just for Jesus. Resurrection is a promise that within our own bodies, and our own lives we will experience resurrections of self, of health, of connection with community, and of hopeful visions for the future. We also know that resurrection is a promise for all of creation; for all that God created, God named it “good”. For all that God has created and is creating, there is a love and intention for life that runs deep.
This Earth Week, I invite you to sink into a practice of enlivening resurrection in your midst, and in the wider world. We know the stories of depleting sea ice bringing Antarctic Fur Seals and Emperor Penguins to the brink of endangerment and extinction. We know the stories of drought and failing crops in the breadbaskets of continents and cultures across the planet. We know the stories of plastic in our oceans, air that rains chemicals into our soil, and an ever-growing shroud of space junk that clothes our stratosphere. This can be hard to take.
We also know a story of a stone rolled away, and awe-filled disciples ready to go out into the world again and make a difference. We also know a story of the fabric of all that is holy being torn down the middle, and a prophetic voice emerging from beyond to embolden all those who would work and live for God’s Shalom. We know a story of a church that continues to nourish that prophetic voice and to live as though resurrection is possible and that it happens all the time. This Earth Week, let us enliven resurrection in creation, let us advocate, act, pray and gather to protect our Great Mother and to envision abundant life for seven generations to come. This Earth Week, let us centre and listen to Indigenous voices, elders and scholars; let us live into reconciliation and right relations by amplifying their voices and knowledge respectfully and allowing it to transform us and our ways of being, relating and living on this earth. Let us honour the experiences of Indigenous matriarchs as they connect liberation from harming the earth with addressing the harm of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls and 2Spirit relatives. Let us find the intersections where we can agree, collaborate and lift up these truths and the actions they provoke.
In the newsletter below, you will find connections to “For the Love of Creation”, an ecumenical EcoJustice initiative that calls all people into solidarity and action for creation. Host an event, share a story, use some of the liturgical resources to raise awareness and encourage action in your own community.
In solidarity,
Kendra Mitchell-Foster
Regional Minister: Justice, Pacific Mountain Regional Council
KMitchellFoster@united-church.ca
1-800-934-0434 (within BC) or +1-604-431-0434
Lheidli T’enneh Territory
Prince George, BC
PacificMountain.ca/Justice-Network
Earth Week 2026
We invite all faith communities to be part of the movement and join with faith communities across the country in:
Earth Week 2026 – Together for the Love of Creation
During the week of April 19-26, engage in a climate justice activity…praying, learning, acting.
Coming together for the love of creation is a way to connect, grow, listen, inspire hope and affect change. Your activity could be visibly joining a community-wide event or creating something new. This is a chance to reach out to other faith communities and neighbours in your climate justice initiatives. Together we can take hopeful action.
Change takes all of us. Each action brings hope and builds community.
Let’s make hope visible across the country.
Together for the Love of Creation has assembled a wonderful pool of resources that you can use to create and hold an event or action near you. Find their resource page here, and a map of community-based Earth Week events here You can also add your own event!
The United Church of Canada’s Together for the Love of Creation action for 2026 is a Call for Climate Leadership. Use the guide and the accompanying downloadable letters to invite your community to express their love for Creation, and invite your Member of Parliament to take leadership for climate. Build this in-person group activity into your Earth Week events – maybe a prayer circle, bike clinic, Faithful Footprints retrofit tour, or a fair trade organic coffee hour. A country-wide action that we all can participate in, and an undeniable demonstration of solidarity for caring for our planet. Download the letter template, share it within your circles and Community of Faith, and be part of the movement.
A brand-new Earth Sunday worship service is available for April 19th, you can download the outline here.
Reel Justice:
Protecting Ourselves from Climate Change
Ladner United Church
4960 48th Ave
Ladner, BC
April 29, 2026 @ 6:30 pm
Mark your calendars now for our next Reel Justice session! We’ll be showing “System Update: Rebooting Our Future” (2025), beginning at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 29, in the Knoblauch Room at Ladner United Church.
Described as “a rallying cry for a better future,” the film shows how radical shifts in political, economic and social systems can protect us from climate change. Free admission and popcorn; everyone welcome. Discussion to follow the film.
Find out more about the film at:
https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/system-update-rebooting-our-future/
Solidarity with Palestine
Is it time to become an Apartheid Free Community?
Monday, April 20 – 4:00 pm (Pacific)
This webinar hosted by UNJPPI will explore the questions: “Is what exists today in Israel and Palestine apartheid?”, “What can we learn from the struggle against apartheid in South Africa?, “How can my faith community become an Apartheid-Free Community?’ and What would that mean?
In June 2025, the Pacific Mountain Regional Council voted to sign the Apartheid-Free Communities pledge, and in September 2025, our name was added to the list of signatories. This webinar will provide an opportunity for deeper learning and ideas for living into this pledge. Could your Community of Faith be the next signatory to the pledge?
Voices from the Holy Land Film Salon
Canada: Sanction Israel’s E1 annexation Project Now!
In the Shadows of Genocide:Palestine, Settler Colonialism, and an Ecumenical Call to Action
Canadian Mennonite University
Winnipeg, Manitoba (Treaty One Territory)
While this conference is rooted in Palestinian Christian theology and the Kairos Palestine document, it welcomes people of all faiths and backgrounds who support justice in Palestine. Interfaith conversation and solidarity across communities are vital to our shared commitment to dignity, truth, and liberation for all Palestinians.
Guaranteed Livable Income
Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI) has long been a commitment of the United Church of Canada. We are at a time now, where there are opportunities via bills in the houses of government, via petitions and actions at the provincial and municipal levels, and via cross-Canada networking, where we can strengthen our demands that the Governments of Canada and of British Columbia implement a Guaranteed Livable Income as a means to justice, dignity and care for all who live in our communities.
The PMR GLI Working Group would like to invite you to participate in our Pentecost GLI letter-writing campaign. Throughout this season, we would encourage you to share our GLI campaign page and resources with others in your community and in your Community of Faith, perhaps incorporating them into worship gatherings or prayer circles, offer a table where after the service people might engage with the letter-writing resources and take action.
Our Guaranteed Livable Income Pentecost Book Study this year will be focused on “Radical Trust” by Evelyn Forget & Hannah Owczar. This book features stories from the lives of people who would be positively affected by a GLI in Canada, and Forget & Owczar expertly weave in the economics, social science, health and human dignity elements to make an eloquent and urgent case for GLI. It is a great read, and we expect to have people joining from across the country.Registering early will help us to connect you with resources and reading groups for the study.
Affirming Ministries
PIE to Pride season is full of ways to engage your community and dive into Queer Theology. Join us for four monthly film screenings, each film featuring real life stories of people who have navigated queerness in the context of church, community and family. A discussion will follow each film that will touch on elements of Queer Theology and Liberating Theology to support the expansion of our own experiences and to support the authentic exploration and articulation of our own faith.
Register for one or all of our four cinema nights: