For the youth of his congregation, a large proportion of climate anxiety stems from the fact that many of his students feel as though they are too young to exact any real change, said Joel Foster, youth and family life minister at the University Church of Christ on Pepperdine’s campus.
The group ranges in age from 10 to 18 and while Foster said they are not questioning the existence of climate anxiety, they are frustrated that the people in power are not doing enough to mitigate the problem. While climate anxiety is not the only anxiety his students face, having somewhere to bring it — such as to youth group — is helpful, Foster said,
“For my students to know that they have an adult in their life that’s not their parents that listens to them and that has got their back no matter what in the way that I believe God has our back no matter what I think is the thing that helps,” Foster said.
In June, Foster said the youth group is spending a week with Blue Theology — an organization that connects with churches to fight climate change, with a focus on ocean stewardship — in Pacific Grove, Calif., about 300 miles north of Malibu.
The group will be talking about endangered species and habitat restoration — relevant to Zuma Beach— and reflecting on plastic pollution, temperature and ocean acidity.
Rooted in the Earth
There is a variety in how different Church of Christ congregations interpret the Bible, Foster said.
“We value communal autonomy and so one Church of Christ can make a decision that’s different from another one, we don’t have a central structure,” Foster said. “So University Church can be eco-friendly, eco-conscious concerned fully with the environment and we don’t have to lose friendship with other denominations.”
The Churches of Christ originated in the early 19th century in the upper American South, and sought to unite Christians on a common platform with a focus on the Bible, according to Pepperdine’s Center For Faith and Learning. The founders also believed “every Christian should be free to read and understand the Bible” for themselves, according to the Center For Faith and Learning’s Church of Christ primer.
Additionally, Foster said the original formation of the Churches of Christ was part of an effort to return to the Bible and members emphasized values such as justice, human flourishing and lifting up those in most need within a community.
“If I value the flourishing of not just my person, neighbors, but also the animal life, the trees, the rocks, the sea, everything in between — that is an interconnected web of beings,” Foster said.
The relationship between people and the Earth are intertwined, Foster said, as people create and cultivate the Earth as it cultivates them in turn.
“The Bible starts and ends in a garden,” Foster said.
Instead of “escaping someday to some unknown Heaven place,” Foster said he believes people will become connected to the Earth, as their descendants continue caring for it.
“A healthy spirituality is one that is rooted in the Earth,” Foster said. “And Jesus models that as well.”
While members of UCC all may have have different beliefs, Foster said the staff is committed to being climate-conscious, aware of their footprint and are working with members of the congregation to create an eco-friendly Church.
“I don’t think the Christian story fixes it [anxiety], like snapping the fingers and it’s gone,” Foster said. “But I think what you see is that the story of God through the Christian scriptures shows that God says, I’m on your side, I’m going to suffer with you. So I’m going to feel what you feel.”
All staff members offer pastoral care, Foster said. There is a young adult minister, a youth minister, a children’s minister and a lead minister who focuses on adults, though they all occasionally swap roles.
“Are you now willing, in that anxiety, to collaborate to work with me so that we can work to a better, more holistic, more beautiful and harmonious next thing, and so the Christian story offers hope, in that God experiences our suffering and anxiety with us,” Foster said.
Climate anxiety is a “significant focus,” Foster said.
“For my youth group students, there is anxiety around it [climate change], but also, the problem seems so big that sometimes there’s apathy,” Foster said.
Blue Theology
Creation Justice Ministries is a national ecumenical organization that works with Christian denominations to “protect, restore and rightly share God’s creation,” Avery Davis Lamb, a Pepperdine alumnus (2016) and co-executive director of Creation Justice Ministries, said.
“Fear is a natural response to what’s going on in our world kind of a natural response to like actually looking with clear eyes to what’s happening, but the antidote to that is is taking action and building community,” Davis Lamb said.
The program Blue Theology is aimed at creating a connection with the ocean through service — there are four locations: Newport Beach, Calif., Pacific Grove, Calif., Texas City, Texas and Arapahoe, N.C.
While there is no age limit to participate, most groups trend toward ages 10 and up. Groups stay at partner congregations or outposts and spend the week sleeping in bunk beds and air-mattresses, going kayaking, on beach cleanups, and other service projects such as nature-based shorelines.
There is also time for theological reflection.
“Engaging with each other and with the leaders about what it means to be a faithful ocean advocate as a Christian, what are our obligations toward caring for the ocean,” Davis Lamb said. “And then engaging in some creative activities to express that.”
Christian hope, Davis Lamb said, acknowledges that things may be bad, but also holds faith and trust in God’s Redeeming Power and encourages humans to act as “agents of active hope.”
“Engaging in real practical actions of hope, of engaging in solutions, building community with each other, and with the Church that they’re at and just falling more deeply in love with God’s creation — we find that those are really positive outlets for people to deal with their climate anxiety,” Davis Lamb said.
The program has been around for 15 years, and is unique in its focus in both children and the ocean as a part of God’s creation.
“We wanted to provide unique opportunities for people who may not have experienced the ocean — especially for kids — for them to have formative experiences where they’re falling in love with the ocean, where they’re understanding how important the ocean is,” Davis Lamb said. “As a crucial part of God’s creation, as a crucial part of the global climate system.”
Anxiety Toward Action
In the past, Foster said UCC has worked with Heal the Bay on beach cleanups and has worked with Tree People in L.A., to plant trees in neighborhoods without.
“One response I’ve heard was, ‘Why do we do this, it’s just gonna be dirty tomorrow,” Foster said.
If his students can utilize their anxiety to propel them toward action, Foster said that will lead to systematic change.
Foster said he tries to remind his students that change does not happen overnight.
“You can’t plant a tree, and then you get shade and cleaner oxygen and a good healthy root system tomorrow,” Foster said. “Some of those trees will take 20, 30, 40, 50 years to be the people above them that are supposed to be taking care of them aren’t.”
And while immediate action is needed, Foster said many of his students cannot vote or pursue other traditional methods of change — but can take care of themselves to prepare the world for future generations.
“They’re kind of like planted trees right now,” Foster said. “And so I’m just trying to get them to see what are you doing to water yourself? What are you doing to plant yourself deeper?”
He and his youth group can do little and big things to hopefully inspire others, Foster said.
“At the end of the day, you can only control yourself,” Foster said. “And so can I be a little more conscious of the packaging of the food that I buy? Can I be a little more conscious of the meat I consume, or any meat at all, right?”
Foster has a lot of hope for the future, but also for today, he said.
“I can’t look at my youth group students and not be excited for what they will do,” Foster said. “And I also hate when people use language that like kids, students, whatever are the church of the world of tomorrow because they are also full, intricate, important, valued members right here, right now.”
Finding Peace in Prayer
Father Matt Murphy of Our Lady of Malibu Catholic Church said there are several principles of Catholic social teaching, which includes caring for God’s creation.
Sitting in the parish conference room, next to a student-made poster stating that the Earth is among the places students see God’s presence, Murphy said the community is called to “care and steward” what is around them.
“[We are called to] Do our best to make sure it lasts a long time,” Murphy said.
While it depends on how people view climate change — as a natural practice of the Earth or as something manufactured — Murphy said his role as a Catholic pastor is to bring people to faith and prayer, where they can find peace.
“I would call people back to prayer because in relationship with Christ that is where we are going to find peace,” Murphy said.
Foundation in prayer and trust in God is what can bring calm in “rough waters,” Murphy said.
“Regardless of how you view the climate change discussion, prayer is going to give us that peace,” Murphy said.
A 2009 study found that for participants receiving weekly prayer interventions, the effects of depression and anxiety were greatly reduced — and the effects of prayer lasted for a month after the last session. However, there was no noticed reduction in cortisol — the stress hormone — levels between the groups receiving prayer and those not.
Faith and science should have a relationship, Murphy said, and while God called for the world to be explored, He also calls for people to have trust in Him.
“Not that you’re not trusting in science, but that you’re trusting in a God who has been a provident God for humanity since humanity began,” Murphy said.
In times of anxiety or disorder, Murphy said he turns to prayer. Every morning, he spends an hour down the hall from his room, in conversation with God.
“We’ve had multiple crises in the history of this church since I’ve been here and I always find my peace in Him,” Murphy said.
Making the World Better
Shemesh Farms is a small herb farm in Malibu that is under the Shalom Institute and focuses on providing employment and community to adults with diverse abilities, said Nicky Pitman, director of Shemesh Farms. The employees are called farm fellows.
Shalom Institute and Shemesh farms are committed to sustainability and said they are “zero waste-ish,” because while the farm tries to produce as little waste as possible, there are somethings that cannot be avoided, Pitman said.
Shomrei Adamah, or the tenant in Judaism that people are the keepers and stewards of the Earth, is incorporated into all work at Shemesh farms, Pitman said.
“We found that working with the earth, and working in the soil, and working hydroponically that we are able to better connect with the natural world,” Pitman said.
The purpose of the farm is the farm fellows, Pitman said. The word Shemesh means sun, and the farm’s tagline is “because the sun shines on all of us,” meaning everyone is welcome.
“One of the beautiful things about working here at the farm is that everyone works at their own pace, their own rhythm, and that bodes well for the connections with the natural world and the rhythm of the seasons,” Pitman said.
A 2022 study found a link between climate change and extreme weather events in Los Angeles — including megafloods, a consequence of large bouts of rain.
Last winter, Pitman said, rain-affected workers’ ability to get to the farm — and while the rain made the herbs grow, it also affected the schedule Shemesh farms used.
Their original campus, up in the mountains, burned in the Woolsey Fire, though the people and animals living on the farm — including the bees — were rescued.
“Things have been growing back in their own time and their own way, but we have begun to plant, and what we have started with is rosemary and sage and lavender,” Pitman said.
She said she knows the farm manager, members of Shemesh farms and Shalom Institute and she herself suffer from climate anxiety -– as do many parents, and volunteers that work with the farm fellows, Pitman said.
Doing their best to “make the world better,” significantly helps mitigate climate anxiety, Pitman said.
“I’m not sure that all of our farm fellows have a feeling or an awareness of climate anxiety but because of the work we do we are all here to make the world a better place and do our part,” Pitman said.
Unrealized Potential
Tashi Black, assistant director at One Earth Sangha, said his group focuses on helping people get in touch with ecological crises, while also acknowledging other factors in people’s lives that create and exacerbate anxiety.
“There’s a lot of still largely unrealized potential in the teachings of the Buddha, in the various Dharma traditions that have come down over thousands of years since the Buddha lived, that can help ground us in what I feel like a really unprecedented time,” Black said.
In its teachings, One Earth Sangha emphasizes individual activism and a following of the Hero’s Journey to go through and come out the other side of anxiety, Black said. To start the journey, the group examines what anxieties they may feel, but are unable to talk about.
“We look at, what am I really feeling here?” Black said. “What might I have been suppressing? And what’s the impact like, what does it really mean that I’m living through these times? And how does that often go unacknowledged?”
The Buddha, Black said, emphasized spiritual community, reproaching a member of his congregation that implied community was only half of spiritual life.
“And the Buddha,” said Ananda, “Don’t say that, good companionship, good community, good friendship, is the whole of the spiritual life,” Black said. “That’s 100%.”
Working together for Healing
Kathleen Opon, abbess of the Gnostic Celtic Church Monastery, said while the GCC does not have a position on climate change, they are called through their commitments to serve the Earth and follow eco-spirituality.
Eco-spirituality “is an approach to faith that celebrates humanity’s connection to the natural world,” according to the University of San Diego, and can be found in any religious practice.
Members from the group range in age from their 20s to 60s, Opon said.
There are healing meditations once a month, where the monks tap into the group’s energy and send healing energy to the Earth, Opon said. There are also several books people are expected to read as they move through the GCC, detailing rituals and ways to connect more with the Earth.
The group uses a practice called sacred reading — similar to Lectio Divina, a method of prayer through reading Scripture — that is open to the public. While Christians would use the Bible, the GCC uses various nature-based or contemplative-based texts. Now, the group is utilizing trees from the Irish tree alphabet to do their meditation around each month.
“Every one of them [the monks] mentioned how the contemplative practices, meditation and just being together in a contemplative space, have lessened their anxiety very, very much,” Opon said.
In addition to the 10 monks in the GCC, outside people who attend the meditation have told Opon that it helped their anxiety — in general and in relation to the climate.
“I don’t know how it works, but there’s something about connecting to spirit and calming your mind, calming your body, breathing and we find a special kind of energy that’s generated when we’re together as a group meditating,” Opon said.
Prayer — especially group prayer — can help people feel a sense of connection to themselves, each other and a higher power, according to CNN. This sense of connection can combat loneliness, which in turn helps depression and anxiety.
Before a healing meditation, Opon said she puts a notice out on the group’s forum for healing petitions — people submit pets, names of rivers, other natural areas, and trees that are unwell — which the group will then focus on.
“It makes them [people] feel less alone and helps them to know that their little part, that their doing is multiplied by the rest of the people that are also doing it,” Opon said.
The group also discusses how to have conversations with people who do not believe in climate change, Opon said. There is also a forum for people to ask for advice, although the group is apolitical.
“I insisted on a little bit of leeway in this group, so that people could talk about exactly that kind of stuff because people were coming in really anxious, and they had no place to talk about it, because we’re a non-political group,” Opon said.
“Even if they [members] don’t feel like going out and protesting, or being activists, or whatever they can come and participate in energetic healings and prayer,” Opon said.
This sense of something bigger has helped Opon, she said.
“I don’t feel hopeless,” Opon said.
