St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, hosts an Earth Day celebration annually. This year is the first time the Diocese of Louisiana will host a diocesan-wide event. Photo: Courtesy of Molly Blackwell
[Episcopal News Service] The Diocese of Louisiana’s Environmental Evangelism Commission will host its inaugural diocesan-wide Earth Day celebration April 25 at the Solomon Episcopal Conference Center in Loranger, “to celebrate the wonder of God’s creation.”
The celebration will begin with an outdoor worship service, followed by a full day of activities for all ages relating to creation care and community building, such as flower planting, a master gardening presentation, guided nature walks, scavenger hunts incorporating the five senses and a butterfly presentation. Throughout the day, participants will also have opportunities for individual meditation and prayer.
Molly Blackwell, co-chair of the Environmental Evangelism Commission and a board member of the Center for Deep Green Faith at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, told Episcopal News Service that the goal of hosting the daylong event is to help Episcopalians become more aware of “God in nature” in a modern world.
“People are on their screens all the time or not going outside enough. So, how can we get back to being caretakers of the Earth as we’re called to in Genesis? That’s what we need to get back to,” Blackwell said. “Nature is a pathway to God. …We must learn to live a Sabbath within creation.”
Several of the event’s activities will be tailored to educating children and their parents because, as Blackwell stressed, “children are the future of the Earth.”
“We will try to help parents understand that, yes, your child can get dirty. Let them get out there in the dirt. That’s how their spirituality grows,” said Blackwell, who is a teacher.
About 20 million Americans observed the first Earth Day in 1970, helping to launch the modern environmental movement. It led to the creation of policies that addressed many environmental concerns of the time.
Today, an estimated 1 billion people worldwide observe Earth Day annually on or around April 22, making it the world’s largest civic observance.
Blackwell has been involved with the Environmental Evangelism Commission for the last four years. The commission’s leadership includes clergy and lay leaders who engage in different aspects of environmentalism, such as advocacy and education. Over the last couple of years, they have been encouraging congregations to establish their own creation care teams. The goal is for those teams to promote environmental stewardship by helping parishes apply creation care to every ministry.
“There’s not a ministry that creation care doesn’t touch. Take the altar guild, for instance. If you use real plants instead of just cut flowers, you can actually take them outside and plant them. Or churches can create community gardens and switch to using reusable silverware [and dishes] instead of Styrofoam and plastic,” Blackwell said. “We’re trying to help everyone make that connection between creation care and ministry because not enough people see it yet.”
Blackwell’s parish, St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge, celebrates Earth Day annually with special prayer services and outdoor activities.
The Environmental Evangelism Commission has also been collaborating with the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans over the last couple of years. In 2025, they started a new tradition of holding a joint Stations of the Cross and rosary gathering in a forest during Lent.
The diocesan Earth Day celebration is a precursor to a larger, weekend-long inaugural event that will take place in October at the Solomon Center. The event will coincide with the end of the Season of Creation, which is a worldwide ecumenical Christian observance that begins with the Day of Prayer for Creation on Sept. 1 and ends with the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and ecology, Oct. 4.
As the Environmental Evangelism Commission expands its presence in the Diocese of Louisiana, Blackwell said she’s feeling excited and optimistic about helping people become interested in taking care of the Earth and enjoying “everything it has to offer.”
“If you go outside and you spend time in nature, you will eventually feel God’s presence in that space,” Blackwell said. “It’s a very special connection that can’t be replicated indoors.”
Episcopalians can learn more about The Episcopal Church’s support for the environment and public health here. Additional resources are available through the Environmental Evangelism Commission’s web page.
-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.