Faith. Climate. Action. Workshop

A Workshop on Christian Climate Advocacy

Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California

June 16-21, 2024

Westmont College invites evangelical students and faculty with a deep and enthusiastic commitment to creation care to join us in engaging a profound challenge: global climate change. How is the climate changing, locally and globally?  How is it affecting people, and the ecosystems in which they live? How should Christians respond?  And how can we spread the word, with faith, hope, and love?

With the help of nationally-recognized experts, theologians, and pastors, our workshop will equip you with knowledge, communication strategies, advocacy skills, and a rich community of mentors and peers so that you can return home ready to help your own campuses and congregations discern how to respond faithfully and effectively to the changing climate.

Download Printable Flyer

Eligibility

We’re eager to welcome students and faculty from across the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). If you have a strong commitment to creation care, and want to learn more about how to be an effective communicator and advocate for faithful responses to climate change among evangelicals, we hope you will apply! If you are accepted into the program, you will receive financial support for attending the summer workshop, and be eligible for funding for pursuing an advocacy project in your church or campus community the following year.

 

 

Highlights from the 2023 Workshop

Workshop Information

How Does Westmont’s Garden Grow?

Climate change is a global environmental challenge that has profound ramifications for both human and non-human life across the planet. It is a crisis that raises deep questions of what constitutes responsible stewardship of the earth, and justice for all of its inhabitants. The Christian tradition offers abundant resources for engaging this challenge and makes a compelling case that care for creation is a God-given privilege and duty.

Hosted by Westmont College, “Faith. Climate. Action: A Workshop on Christian Climate Advocacy”, will bring together experts from across the country to train college students and faculty to be advocates for a faithful response to climate change.  Situating climate advocacy within a robust theology of creation care, and providing an interdisciplinary context for effective climate change communication, our goal is to send participants back to their home campuses and churches ready to lead and inspire.

Westmont Gardens path

Key Components include:

  1. A summer workshop from June 16-21, 2024 in Santa Barbara, California. Travel and lodging expenses will be covered for all participants.
  2. An opportunity for you to apply for post-workshop financial support to pursue advocacy projects.  Projects will promote behavioral change in response to climate change in their home campuses and/or church congregations. Each project will require the support of a faculty or staff mentor at the home institution.
Holding handful of herbs from Westmont Garden.

We’ll talk and listen. Worship and lament. Walk and watch. Dig and plant. Pray and plan and learn to hope. Through stimulating lectures, discussion, outdoor worship services, and hands-on activities throughout the workshop, we will both build community and learn how to create collective commitments to faithful action.

The “Faith. Climate. Action.” workshop has three overarching themes:

  1. immersion in an evangelical Christian framework for creation care
  2. development of communication strategies and network building and
  3. laying the groundwork for faithful action on climate change.

In pursuing these themes, the workshop will feature the most prominent, well-regarded and compelling speakers and thinkers on climate change in the evangelical milieu. We will also be joined by world-class communication and advocacy consultants from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, Rare, and Climate Advocacy Lab.

Aerial view of campus mountains

Westmont College is surrounded by the very wonders of the natural world we wish to equip Christians to preserve.  We are situated in the foothills of the beautiful Santa Ynez mountains, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the California Channel Islands, and filled with a fascinating variety of flora and fauna (link opens in new window). We will cover your travel costs, and provide on-campus lodging and meals for the duration of the workshop. You’ll spend plenty of time on our lovely campus, but also have opportunities to explore the beaches and trails just minutes away.

Students walking through gardens.

If you’re interested in joining us, we’d like you to tell us a little about yourself, and why you think you would benefit from this workshop. We encourage up to three students and one faculty member from any given CCCU institution.

 

 

 

 

Arthur Vining Davis Foundation Logo

 

This project is generously supported by a grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations in association with funding from Westmont College.

Questions? Please contact us at faithclimateaction@westmont.edu.

Workshop Hosts:

Dr. Amanda Sparkman is the director of Westmont’s Environmental Studies program. She is a wildlife biologist who teaches a variety of ecological and evolutionary field courses, as well as our Introduction to Environmental Studies course.

Janell Balmaceda is the Workshop Coordinator. She serves as Westmont's Garden Manager and Sustainability Coordinator, working on a number of sustainability projects related to sustainable farming methods and mitigating campus carbon emissions.