Salal and Cedar's website went live in May 2016 please click the link for direct access
A church plant/watershed discipleship community for Christians in and around Vancouver who:
• have a heart for creation
• feel most connected to God in ocean, forest, river and field
• are deeply concerned about global climate change
• want to bring their faith to work for ecological justice
• are environmental activists but keep their faith quiet
• believe racial justice, economic justice and environmental justice are connected
Rooted in the Anglican incarnational theology, we are part of a growing commitment to the Fifth Mark of Mission ‘to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.’
Ecumenically we identify with the Watershed Discipleship Movement: communities that are asking, ‘what does it mean to be a follower of the Jesus Way here, among the land, water, creatures and people of a particular place?’”
The Coordinator is the Reverend Laurel Dykstra. Laurel was inducted as ordained leader of this shared ministry by Bishop Skelton, September21, 2015.
BACKGROUNDER
Salal and Cedar Watershed Discipleship Ministry is part of a growing movement across Turtle Island (North America) of communities of Christians re-connecting to the creation-values and land covenants at the core of our tradition. Watershed Discipleship refers both to watersheds as natural geographic divisions and to the fact that we are at a watershed moment in terms of climate crisis. In Taos New Mexico the TiLT community is restoring hand-built adobe hacienda for co-housing. The Camden Center for Environmental Transformation, New Jersey teaches youth in the urban core gardening, orchard work, cooking, and food security. The font at St. Peter’s Episcopal church in Detroit has become a sign of their role as a distribution center for neighbours whose water has been cut off by the city managers’ harsh and punitive “emergency measures.” Theologians Sylvia Keesmaat and Brian Walsh teach sustainable agriculture at Russet House farm in Cameron, Ontario. On Holy Saturday, in southern Manitoba, a group of Mennonites held a liturgy of lament outside an Enbridge oil-pumping station. Common to each is the question, “What does it mean to be a Christian, to follow the discipleship Way, in our particular part of creation, with these particular species, geography, and histories of human intervention?”