[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church’s Green Caucus is relaunching an environment-themed Compline series, with monthly online worship services beginning Oct. 6 in celebration of the Feast of St. Francis and the conclusion of the Season of Creation.
Compline is a nighttime liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer that completes the Daily Office cycle of prayer services. The Creation Care Compline will be offered at 9 p.m. Eastern Oct. 6 on Zoom. Register in advance here.
The service is for “anyone who is seeking a few moments of serenity, calm and peace, who wants to pray for the establishment of peace in their heart and on Earth,” said the Rev. Daniel Tamm, a deacon in the Diocese of Los Angeles who is leads the team organizing the Creation Care Compline.
The service will incorporate Scripture and prayers oriented toward themes of creation and the environment. Participants will give thanks for the gifts for God and ask forgiveness for the ways God’s people have fallen short in their call to preserve those natural gifts.
Tamm told Episcopal News Service he and other members of the Green Caucus had enjoyed attending such services in the past. The Creation Care Compline had been held on the third Monday of each month but went on a hiatus after the 81st General Convention in June 2024. General Convention chose not to form a new interim body focused on environmental issues during the current triennium. Previously, that work had been conducted by the Task Force on Care of Creation and Environmental Racism.
Separately, a group of deputies to General Convention formed the Green Deputies Caucus last year, and it later broadened to become the Green Caucus of The Episcopal Church, a group that now welcomes “any Episcopalian with a heart for creation care.” Its mission includes publicity, networking, lobbying, communications and participation in various creation care initiatives around the church.
The Creation Care Compline is closely aligned with that mission, and the Green Caucus is eager to resume the series. “A lot of people remembered that and said we should get it back going again,” Emily Hopkins, a deputy from the Diocese of California, told ENS. She is convener of the Green Caucus, which she described as both a community and an advocacy group.
“Compline is a really soothing kind of office, and I personally kind of need that right now with everything that’s going on [in the world],” Hopkins said. “I hope it will be a spiritual moment, as well as a time to share some hope with other people.”
The group plans to hold the service every first Monday of the month, though it expects to move the November date later in the month to coincide with the United Nations’ annual climate summit, the Conference of the Parties meeting, or COP. The Episcopal Church is planning to partner with the wider Anglican Communion on faith-based witness at COP30, to be held Nov. 10-21 in Belém, Brazil.