How Are You Communicating on Climate With Your Congregation? Let’s Talk Climate.
Every week, faith leaders across America stand before their respective assemblages to morally guide their diverse congregations on social issues. Creating a singular message that will appeal to the varied audiences may prove complex, particularly when addressing climate change, a matter that through politicization, has become divisive. You know from your scriptures, however, that the subject of climate change is anything but divisive. On the contrary, it is unequivocally one of the greatest, uniting moral issues.
How do you motivate climate action in your congregation?
To help you along with communicating on climate change, ecoAmerica released, Let’s Talk Climate: Messages to Motivate Americans. Along with Lake Research Partners, ASO Communications, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, ecoAmerica has developed market-tested messages designed to engage Americans on climate solutions in any community and even has a section devoted to climate communicating in faith communities!
Why Faith?
You've probably said before, "We have a moral responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation," and while that statement is true, ecoAmerica has developed new tactics on messaging to motivate climate action while remaining genuine to this statement.
We aren't asking you to make monumental changes in the way you address your congregation. We simply have discovered, through exhaustive research, subtle changes that if incorporated, will alter the way your congregation thinks about their role as stewards of His creation.
The report uncovered that positive motivation is far more effective than negative compulsories. For example, suggesting that we have a 'moral responsibility' rather than of a 'moral obligation' to act on climate change is vastly more impactful. While this subtle change might not appear to be much, it could just be the thing that turns your inactive congregation into climate champions – stewarding God's glorious creation.
Check out the faith portion of Let's Talk Climate!
Let's Talk Climate messaging report isn't restricted to faith communities. ecoAmerica has carefully crafted messaging campaigns for areas of business, government, higher education and health. These respective areas overlap in many ways but maintain unique characteristics that require specific messaging strategies. In adopting these strategies, one will be able to speak effectively on climate change and join one of the largest social justice movements in recent history.
Let's Talk Climate will show you how to…
Paint the future
Imagine if your church was powered by God's beautiful gift of the sun, or served food grown from the garden behind your facility, operated by the Sunday school children as they unlock the majesty of God's creation. The choice is ours to make. Instead of blame or gloom, this message creates a positive visual picture of what a clean-energy future could look like.
Take pride in the next big thing
America has always been a yes-we-can kind of place. Today, the next big thing is clean energy. This message employs pride in American innovation and the value of independence. Your church can lead in the path to clean-energy solutions that will create a cleaner, safer, and better world.
Act for the children
We all want to leave future generations a healthy place to raise their families and maintain a faith facility in which they may worship. This message projects the strong moral values of protecting our children and loved ones and relates climate action to the responsibility to care for future generations.
Highlight the inevitability
A clean energy economy and world aren’t a question of “if” but “when.” This message explains that our congregations have the opportunity to choose affordable, clean energy now, and the sooner we embrace it, the greater the benefits will be.
The report goes on to describe thematic messages designed to help leaders in various fields engage members of their “tribes.” To learn the specific language for the health, communities, business, faith, and higher education sectors, download the report today.
You've guided your congregation on every other moral issue; now it's time to guide them on the moral issue of climate change.