July 7, 2023
Kansas City Convention Center
9 a.m.-5 p.m. CT
$49 (includes lunch)
Register here.
Spanish translation services will be provided if requested.
Climate change has created a spiritual and human crisis.
On July 7, we will bring together experts in climate change, spiritual activism and social justice to explore ways that youth and young adults ages 14-25 can put their faith to work to address this crisis. It will be a day of worship, learning and collaboration. Youth sponsors are welcome to attend.
The one-day event will feature worship, a keynote speaker, a panel discussion and breakout sessions on a variety of topics, including: political advocacy, grassroots environmental initiatives, climate anxiety and the development of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery board game.
Webinar recording: “Youth & Young Adult Climate Summit: What to Expect?”
MennoMedia’s ~ing podcast, season 3, episode 13: “Sustaining,” with members of the planning team for the Youth & Young Adult Climate Summit.
Keynote Speaker
Talitha Amadea Aho
Talitha Amadea Aho, author of “In Deep Waters: Spiritual Care for Young People in a Climate Crisis,” will be our keynote speaker. Amadea Aho has worked with children and youth for many years as a Presbyterian minister in Oakland, California, and is a chaplain at a children’s hospital in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has witnessed first-hand the spiritual crisis that climate change has perpetuated in young people.
Panelists
Sarah Nahar
Sarah Nahar is a non-violent action trainer and interspiritual theologian. She is the former executive director of Community Peacemaker Teams and is currently a doctoral student at Syracuse University and SUNY-ESF in Syracuse, New York (traditional Onondaga land), studying ecological regeneration and spiritual activism.
Luke Beck Kreider
Luke Beck Kreider, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of Religion and Sustainability at Goshen (Indiana) College. His work focuses on how environmental issues intersect with social and political dynamics like violence, racial injustice, and economic injustice.
Lynn Hur
Lynn Hur is a recent graduate of University of California, Los Angeles, where she studied sociology and conducted community-based participatory research in sustainability. She also was active with the Los Angeles Regional Collaborative for Climate Action and Sustainability. She plans to speak about urban planning to foster sustainable, equitable, and creative public spaces with intergenerational BIPOC and immigrant communities.
Sibonokuhle Ncube
Sibonokuhle Ncube is a Global South Voice who looks through an eco-womanist and shalom lens for an urgent global and just intergenerational response by humans as biotic citizens. She believes that people of faith should build and maintain a responsive ecological consciousness within their liturgies, mission, and works of faith. This builds healthy integration of trauma, an honest lament, and regenerative hope. Sibonokuhle is the former director of the Compassionate Development Services of the Brethren in Christ Church in Zimbabwe, an Anabaptist denomination which is a member of the Mennonite World Conference (MWC). Sibonokuhle serves as the Africa liaison of the MWC’s Creation Care Task Force and is a member of the Brethren in Christ USA Peace and Justice Project. She will soon be graduating with an MDiv Theological and Peace Studies at the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS). She is currently the Regional Director for Africa and Europe at Mennonite Mission Network.
Facilitator
Abby Endashaw works as the Summer Service National Coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee. Though born and raised in Aurora, Colorado she recently relocated to Dallas, Texas, the ancestral lands of the Wichita, Tawakoni, Kickapoo, and Jumanos Indigenous Peoples. In her role with MCC she oversees a leadership program for BIPOC young adults which emphasizes the value of communal wisdom and justice in leadership development. Before joining MCC, she earned a BA in Psychology and MA in professional counseling and went on to become a Licensed Professional Counseling Associate in the state of Texas. She is driven by ravenous curiosity, idealism, and the satisfaction of seeing individuals and institutions learn to work in closer alignment to their values.
Afternoon Breakout Sessions
The afternoon features two breakout sessions. Participants will choose from seminars that enable them to hear more from the panelists or other leaders. Topics will include: reading the Bible through the lens of climate change, the Gen Z Energy Challenge, the wild church movement, BIPOC round table, helping youth deal with climate anxiety (for youth sponsors and young adults), the development of the Doctrine of Discovery board game, political advocacy for climate change, climate change in the Global South, intersections between environmental and social issues, spiritual activism, and the Sustainability Alumni Network. in addition to the speakers, breakout sessions will be led by planning team members and consultants: Galen Fitzkee, Harrison Horst, Janeen Bertsche Johnson, Doug Kaufman, Jennifer Schrock, and Sarah Werner.
Planning Team
The planning team includes: Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz, Mennonite Church USA (MC USA) minister for Peace and Justice; Jennifer Schrock, leader of Mennonite Creation Care Network; Doug Kaufman, director of Pastoral Ecology at Anabaptist Climate Collaborative; Sara Gurulé, constituent engagement representative at Mennonite Mission Network; Sarah Werner, MC USA Climate Justice intern; Galen Fitzkee, legislative associate with Mennonite Central Committee US; Eva Webb, masters student in environmental education at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen (Indiana) College, Lynn Hur, recent UCLA graduate, and Tai Linklater, student at Canadian Mennonite University.
This event was made possible by funding from the Schowalter Foundation, and is a collaboration of the Anabaptist Climate Collaborative, MC USA and Mennonite Creation Care Network.