- What difference will it really make if our churches plant native shrubs and trees on the borders of our parking lots?
- What difference will it really make if we turn part of our lawn into a pollinator garden?
- What difference will it really make if we think about our church property as an integral part of God’s amazing plan for creation?
- What difference will it really make if our church provides a tangible and visible ecological witness to our neighborhoods of the transformative change our challenged world is looking for?
Join us to find out! We are thrilled to be partnering with best-selling author Doug Tallamy for a webinar presentation on Nature’s Best Hope. This presentation is a part of the NC Conference Creation Care webinar series in September. Nature’s Best Hope will be Tuesday, September 20, at 7:00, via Zoom. Follow this link to register. The webinar is free, but you must register in advance.
The core concept is an idea Tallamy calls the Homegrown National Park, one that is created by us, as individuals, with no need for new laws to be passed. The connected corridors of various church and private properties have the potential “to restore some semblance of ecosystem function to more the twenty million acres of what is now ecological wasteland.” He notes that we have witnessed time and again how quickly nature can restore itself and asks us to imagine how much more quickly she would do so if only we helped her. As people of faith, tasked with being stewards of God’s creation, we can make the choices to do so.
Tallamy provides tangible evidence of results, even in the most unlikely of places: monarchs and native bees on the High Line in New York City, 103 species of birds in a tiny yard half a block from Chicago’s Kennedy Expressway, a grandfather and a toddler who are now loving and deriving the benefits of nature from time spent in their new, native plant, richly diverse backyards.
Imagine future books and talks lifting up examples of what God’s churches are doing here in North Carolina for the flourishing of all creation!
- Rev. Stephanie Campbell, Life Around the Table and Dinner Bell Farm, Snow Camp, NC (dinnerbellfarmnc@gmail.com)
Doug Tallamy is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has authored 106 research publications and has taught insect related courses for 41 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His books include Bringing Nature Home, The Living Landscape, co-authored with Rick Darke, Nature’s Best Hope, a New York Times Best Seller, The Nature of Oaks, winner of the American Horticultural Society’s 2022 book award. In 2021 he cofounded Homegrown National Park with Michelle Alfandari. His awards include recognition from The Garden Writer’s Association, Audubon, The National Wildlife Federation, Allegheny College, The Garden Club of America and The American Horticultural Association.