The community is invited to join in McDonough County’s first Ecumenical Season of Creation service, held Saturday, Oct. 3 at 11 am in Chandler Park in Macomb (with nearby First Christian Church as a rain location). Bring a lawn chair!
Led by members of local Protestant and Catholic congregations, this service is one local way of participating in a global ecumenical movement to celebrate a Season of Creation between Sept. 1 and Oct. 4 each year. October 4 is the Feast Day of St. Francis, known for his celebration of the natural world (including stories about his preaching the gospel to the birds). Recently many Christian churches have also adopted the Eastern Orthodox Church’s celebration of September 1 as a Feast of Creation in Christ.
The service in Macomb will open at 10:45 with music by Chris Vallillo, and feature a testimony by Jeffery Lee, a McDonough County farmer majoring in agriculture at WIU, about how his faith connects to the care of creation. The service will be led by Rev. Don Long, Jr., pastor of Wesley United Methodist in Macomb, along with Jean Wolf and Sue Adams, members of area Catholic and Protestant churches, respectively. Po-Chuan Chiang will accompany on keyboard, and Bill Maakestad and Joel Wetzell will be assisting with sound.
Here are two global Christian leaders who address the meaning of a Season of Creation.
In the words of Rev. Botrus Mansour, World Evangelical Alliance General Secretary: “The Season of Creation offers a vital invitation to the global Church to rightly apprehend, and faithfully respond to, God’s lovingly and intricately fashioned gift of creation—upon which all creatures, including humanity, depend for life. As Evangelicals, we affirm that ‘the earth is the Lord’s,’ entrusted to our care, and that faithful discipleship includes receiving and enjoying the fruit of creation without diminishing its fruitfulness—relating to creation with wisdom, humility, and other Christian virtues. The Season of Creation, therefore, offers an opportunity to participate personally in the full reality of the Gospel and to become agents of God’s renewing work—embracing both personal salvation and the restoration of all creation under the lordship of Christ.”
