Step it Up!!!!

The Step it Up! Rally on April 14 at Morehouse was a great success. A diverse group of Atlantans stepped it up on the Morehouse College campus, with a rally in front of the Martin Luther King Chapel that included an amazing performance by the Morehouse's national champion Graves Hall Step Team. Full report here.

The Graves Hall Step Team shows Congress how it's done.

Workshop participants tell Congress to Step it Up!

Here are some more pictures from Step It Up! events around our area. Have one you'd like to share? Send it to us at info@gipl.org!

Atlanta - Congregation Bet Haverim

Bill Witherspoon, from Congregation Bet Haverim writes: This was taken Friday evening before Erev Shabbat Services. We had about three times this many for services eventually, but these were the ones who arrived in time for the photo. As part of our second week of the Omer to Honor the Earth, Shelley Rose (third from right, just right of our Torah scrolls) gave the d'var (sermon) on acting with awareness that we all breathe the same air, and Tovah Melaver (second from right) led a breathing meditation.

Atlanta - Holy Comforter Episcopal Church

Rev. Woody Bartlett, chair of the GIPL steering committee led a program at Holy Comforter on April 13 and the group posed for this picture.

Atlanta - 2020 Vision Conference

Rev. Bartlett's workshop from the 2020 Vision Conference shows their support for Stepping it Up!

Atlanta - Community of Hospitality

The Community of Hospitality calls for Congressional Action.

Atlanta - All Saints Episcopal Church

The All Saints' Episcopal Earth Stewards show their support.

Carrollton - Clear Rivers Chorus

Carol Boyd sent in this picture from Clear Rivers Chorus which meets at St. Andrew UMC in Carrollton.

Atlanta - Glenn Memorial UMC and Emory University

Notwithstanding record-breaking cold and wind we had an excellent turnout for our event Sunday, April 14, at Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church on the Emory University campus in Atlanta, Georgia. See more pictures and report here.

Covington - Good Shepherd Episcopal Church

Mark Hodges, from Good Shepherd Episcopal Church writes: About 50 people from age 1 to 92 attended a rally and demonstration of alternate energy and conservation technologies in downtown Covington, Georgia. The event was organized by the newly formed Newton Climate Action Coalition. See full report here.

Up and coming environmentalist Harry Graham test drives the electric scooter at the Covington StepItUp rally with the help of his father, Tim Graham, a local Episcopal priest

North Carolina - UMC Caring for Creation Conference

Katy Hinman, our executive director, was at a UMC Caring for Creation Conference at Lake Junaluska, NC this weekend, so she got them in on the act as well. Participants from around the southeast declare "Christians Care about the Climate!"

It's not too late to Step It Up!!

You can still organize your own Step It Up! photo opportunity in your faith community.

Just download and print the letters and logo for a Step it Up! Banner (black letters, colored letters, outlines to color yourself), and have your children’s or adult education class gather outside your congregation’s building for a short meditation on caring for God’s creation (see suggestions below and on our worship resources page), then to pose for a picture with the banner. Send us your photo electronically and we will make sure they are posted on the Step it Up! website along with all the other nationwide events.

Meditations on God's Creation

A Litany for the Earth

O God of the high heavens,
O God of the deep earth,
O God of the flowing waters,
You have offered your love to us
            through the manifold blessings of your creation.
We pledge our love to you.

You have showered us with life in abundant forms,
Praise to you for all the gifts that surround us.

For North Star at twilight, yellow moon at harvest,
For fiery cloud at sunset and cool stars at night,
Praise to you for all the gifts that surround us.

For woodpeckers, mockingbirds, hummingbirds and owls,
For the red of the cardinal and the blue of the jay,
Praise to you for all the gifts that surround us.

For chipmunks and ‘possums and fluffy-tailed squirrels,
For deer in the forest and gators in the swamplands,
Praise to you for all the gifts that surround us.

For butterbeans, peanuts and pecans in pies,
For figs and magnolias, and quick creeping kudzu,
Praise to you for all the gifts that surround us.

For mothers and fathers, kinfolk and kids,
For cloggers and quilters and people of the street,
Praise to you for all the gifts that surround us.

O God, strengthen us in our desire to preserve your creation,
Breathe into our bodies the passion of your love.

Open our eyes to the graces that surround us,
Fill our hearts with an abundance of joy.

For you, O God, are most worthy to be praised,
You are our life and the life of the Creation.

Therefore, for all your mercies and promises we give you great thanks,
To you be praise and glory, O Holy God, world without end. Amen.

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Great Spirit,
give us hearts to understand;
never to take from creation’s beauty more than we can give;
never to destroy wantonly for the furtherance of greed;
never to deny to give our hands for the building of earth’s beauty;
never to take from her what we cannot use.

Give us hearts to understand that to destroy earth’s music is to create confusion;
that to wreck her appearance is to blind us to beauty;
that to callously pollute her fragrance is to make a house of stench;
that as we care for her she will care for us. Amen. 
- U.N. Environmental Sabbath Program

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I have come to terms with the future
From this day onward I will walk
easy on the earth. Plant trees. Kill
no living things. Live in harmony with
all creatures. I will restore the earth
where I am. Use no more of its resources
than I need. And listen, listen to what
it is telling me.
- M. J. Slim Hooey

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Psalm 65
Praise is due to you,
O God, in Zion;
and to you shall vows be performed,
O you who answer prayer!
To you all flesh shall come.
When deeds of iniquity overwhelm us,
you forgive our transgressions.
Happy are those whom you choose and bring near
to live in your courts.
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
your holy temple.

By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance,
O God of our salvation;
you are the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas.
By your strength you established the mountains;
you are girded with might.
You silence the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples.
Those who live at earth’s farthest bounds are awed by your signs;
you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy.

You visit the earth and water it,
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide the people with grain,
for so you have prepared it.
You water its furrows abundantly,
settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
and blessing its growth.
You crown the year with your bounty;
your wagon tracks overflow with richness.
The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy.