Green Churches Network is Closing
May 1, 2024

During the General Meeting on April 23, the members of the Green Churches Network voted to dissolve the charitable organization.

From the founding of the organization in 2015 and even since the project was initiated in 2006, the Green Churches Network has struggled to meet a number of challenges. Today, the lack of reliable funding sources places the organization in a difficult situation, unable to generate sufficient mobilization to renew itself and continue to promote Creation Care as an integral part of church life. Closure seems to present the only option. “If a grain of wheat falls to the ground and does not die, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit”. (John 12, 24).

What will remain :

• The greenchurches.ca website and its resources,
• Videos on our YouTube channel,
• Online courses on Christian ecology

What will cease :

• Consulting services for green committees,
• Exterior nameplates to designate a recognized ‘Green Church’,
• Dynamic interactions of a network,
• Creation of new ecological pastoral tools and programs,
• Production of ecological pastoral videos,
• Collaboration with partners,
• Registered charity status.

In Canada, the national offices of the various Protestant churches (Anglican, United, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Mennonite) offer their own programs to help dioceses and parishes go green.

We encourage the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) to exercise the mission of Creation Care leadership by offering dioceses and parishes a “Laudato Si Program”. It could draw inspiration from the Guardians of Creation project of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales or from the many resources on Écologie intégrale of the Conférence des évêques de France. There’s also the Laudato Si Advocates Program offered by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

We also hope that Catholic dioceses in Canada will carry on by offering assistance to parishes that wish to take better care of the environment following the 2015 publication of the encyclical Laudato Si by Pope Francis.

SPECIAL THANKS
We would like to thank the donors who have believed in the organization’s mission. A special thanks
to the religious communities who provided the majority of revenues.

Thank you to the employees, volunteers and administrators who have given their time
for the organization over the years. Thank you to the partners with whom we have collaborated.

And we would like to congratulate all those who have mobilized their green teams
to carry out concrete projects. They have reduced their community’s ecological footprint
environmental education and cultivated a Christian ecospirituality.

A total of 96 green churches were registered with the network. They were located mainly in Quebec, but also in other Canadian provinces.