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Making Space for Eco-Grief—and Hope—in Your Church

Making Space for Eco-Grief—and Hope—in Your Church

Last updated on: July 14, 2026 at 2:03 pm by Leah D. Schade

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Making Space for Eco-Grief—and Hope—in Your Church 2026-07-14T14:03:22-04:00 Leah D. Schade

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Help your church make space for eco-grief and hope through practices of lament, testimony, and care in a climate-changed world.

Eco-grief is a reality for many congregations.

Eco-grief is a reality for many congregations. Clergy can make space for these emotions. Photo by cotton bro studios on Pexels

Preach about Climate Change Or Stay Silent?

The preacher sits at her desk to prepare for Sunday’s sermon. The Bible is open. So is her newsfeed filled with headlines about flooding in her community, wildfires in Canada, and a heat wave causing deaths across Europe. At first, she feels God’s call to speak from the pulpit about the climate crisis. She could draw on any number of biblical passages about God’s care for the Earth, including Genesis 1-2, Psalm 24, or Romans 8:19-25.

But she hesitates.

Will her sermon make any difference or change any hearts and minds? What if some accuse her of being “too political”? What will a sermon about climate change cost her in pastoral relationships, tithes, offerings, or even her position at the church?

On the other hand, what if she doesn’t talk about this existential crisis affecting her congregation, community, and the entire planet? What will her homiletical silence signal to members grieving species extinction or the loss of a beloved landscape? To young people who fear a future filled with climate catastrophes? And what will it say to community members recovering from a flood? They may wonder why the church says nothing about their plight.

What Our EcoPreacher Study Revealed

As researchers studying the EcoPreacher Cohort—a monthly online gathering of preachers from across the U.S. and around the world—we wrestle with these questions. We are exploring what it means to preach in a climate-changed world. In our surveys of the 315 clergy and 577 lay church leaders in their congregations, we found that the climate crisis is no longer a distant worry. It is a pressing predicament.

We learned that the problem is not a lack of climate concern in congregations. Instead, churches lack spiritual practices for naming, holding, and transforming climate grief.

Climate change evokes strong emotions, including eco-grief. This grief includes mourning species loss and damage to human communities. It can also emerge as a deep sense of loss for beloved natural places harmed by climate change and environmental devastation.

person in green forest sitting on log

Climate grief is a real and completely rational response to what is happening to our world. Photo by Daoud Abismail on Unsplash.

Strong Climate Emotions in Congregations

In our 2025 survey, congregational leaders reported significant distress about climate change. Nearly half said they felt anxiety or dread (47%) and anger or frustration (45%). More than a third reported alarm about the future of humanity in a climate-changed world (37%).

Despite these intense feelings, many faith communities have not yet developed biblical, theological, and spiritual frameworks for processing climate emotions. Several factors contribute to this gap. Yet some common myths do not match reality.

Myths Versus Reality

Here are some common myths about climate change and the church—and the realities our study revealed.

Myth #1 – My congregation doesn’t care about climate or environmental issues.

Reality: Your congregation cares more than you realize.

For example, we identified a “perception gap” between preachers and parishioners about climate concerns. Eighty percent of congregational leaders rated concern for future generations as a strong motivator for environmental action among their fellow churchgoers. But only 64 percent of preachers believed this was true of their parishioners.

The same gap appears around people’s love for particular places. Only a little more than a quarter of ministers believed that protecting local forests or beaches was a strong motivator for environmental action in their congregations. By contrast, three-quarters of congregational leaders reported that these local connections to nature strongly motivated their churches.

This “perception gap” matters. Our study found a strong connection between a congregation’s willingness to talk about eco-grief and its readiness to make climate change a priority. When climate emotions are shared and processed, churches are twice as likely to prioritize climate change as a key issue for action and attention.

Myth #2 – I’ll get pushback for being “political” if I talk about climate change.

Reality: There’s more support than you think.

Our research suggests that EcoPreachers consistently overestimated the pushback they might receive if they discussed their congregation’s environmental concerns.

Nearly four in ten preachers saw political resistance as a “major barrier” that could drive people away from their church. However, survey responses showed that actual hostility is rare. Only 8 percent of EcoPreachers reported “occasionally” receiving angry emails, threats to withhold financial giving, or complaints to their governing board after sermons on environmental themes.

By contrast, 95 percent reported that listeners respond “frequently” or “occasionally” with curiosity, openness, and enthusiasm when preachers integrate environmental themes into their preaching and teaching.

Here’s the thing. When churches treat environmental issues as political matters rather than spiritual ones, they limit their ability to offer pastoral care to people in ecological mourning or experiencing climate anxiety.

Myth #3 – My congregation is too overwhelmed to talk about climate change.

Reality: Your church is waiting for you to lead.

Granted, environmental concerns can feel like “just one more thing.” In fact, preachers most frequently cited the perception that “listeners are too overwhelmed” as the top barrier (40%) to congregational engagement with climate issues. Yet when preachers name climate change as a faith issue and provide biblical foundations for response, churches can find renewed energy for ministry and mission.

Faith leaders who make room for climate emotions can help their congregations move from concern to committed action. In this sense, engaging eco-grief is not only good pastoral care. It’s a pastoral necessity for seeking shared purpose and collective action.

Tools for Eco-Grief in Church

So, now we know that climate grief is not on the verge of entering our sanctuaries. It is already here. What do we do about it?

How can the church recognize eco-grief as worthy of prayer, lament, preaching, and communal care?

Climate preaching can help people name the love and loss they already carry, while also articulating hope grounded in resilience and deep care for Creation. Our work with EcoPreachers convinces us that preachers must speak about climate change and other environmental issues. When they do, their ministry is pastorally relevant and centered on a gospel of healing for all – human and Earth-kin alike.

And they need other tools as well to face the challenges of a climate-changed world.

Bible, nature, flowers

Being honest about climate emotions and eco-grief can help preachers guide their congregations through sermons about climate change. Photo by Francis Glenn Marciano on Pexels.

Help Your Church Navigate Eco-Grief: 3 Pathways

Here are three ways to create and strengthen the spiritual infrastructure that can hold eco-grief and channel it toward faithful action. These pathways center on Christian practices of lament, testimony, and pastoral care.

1 – Use Rituals of Lament for Eco-Grief

Many churches know how to pray for illness, death, and disaster. Far fewer know how to grieve a polluted watershed, a vanished species, or a beloved childhood landscape altered beyond recognition.

Yet Christian tradition offers rich resources for this work. Scripture, art, music, poetry, prayers, hymns, and rituals can give shape to complex emotions that might otherwise remain unnamed. The Psalms and the book of Lamentations, in particular, provide communal models of grief as a spiritual practice and point to theological frameworks for lament.

Outdoor worship, prayer walks, and liturgical seasons such as Advent and Lent can help congregations attend to the ecological and emotional wildernesses they already inhabit. We can also make room on All Saints Sunday to remember species that have been listed as extinct.

2 – Express Eco-Grief Through Personal Testimony

Don’t be afraid to share your feelings of loss as you mourn the destruction of a local ecosystem or endangered species. When you articulate these emotions, congregants may experience deep resonance. This can open doors for collective healing and action.

One way to deepen this invite this sharing is to host sermon feedback circles to discuss eco-sermons. Talk about what feelings come up for them when they experience pollution, weather catastrophes, or altered landscapes they no longer recognize. How do these experiences shape their faith and sense of vocation?

3 – Offer Pastoral Care for Eco-Grief

Trauma-informed practices of pastoral care can create a sacred space of listening, safety, and trust as people respond to the mental and spiritual effects of the climate crisis. These practices help faith leaders acknowledge both individual and collective grief. They can also help leaders recognize when to refer people to mental health professionals.

Whether the eco-grief is private sorrow or shared ecological loss, pastoral care is needed in our climate-changed world.

Opportunities for Ministry Amid Climate Grief

We have come to realize that climate grief is not a niche concern but a pastoral reality. When preachers acknowledge eco-grief, they do more than advocate for Creation. They fulfill their role as pastoral caregivers. They may also help revitalize their church’s community life. Denominational resources, seminary continuing education courses, and programs like the EcoPreacher Cohort can support ministers in this work.

In the EcoPreacher Cohort, participants meet in Kinship Circles as part of the program. These small, facilitated groups allow preachers to reflect together on their learning and local applications in similar ministry contexts. The Circles provide homiletical guidance, shared trust, and space to process complex emotions like eco-grief. They also offer peer and mentor feedback for navigating the complexities of preaching amid climate disasters and political divisions.

As one participant noted, “My time in the EcoPreacher Cohort has been a formative space of deep reflection on what it means to preach in a climate-changed world. It helped me see ecological ministry as an essential component of my theological framework.”

This preacher added that one of the most meaningful parts of the Cohort was “learning alongside others who are also trying to hold grief, hope, and responsibility in the same breath. It reshaped how I think about my preaching voice and my pastoral imagination, especially for communities living closest to environmental harm.”

Join the Next EcoPreacher Cohort!

When preachers have the language and courage to speak openly about climate change and eco-grief, they can help their congregations find meaning, dignity, and care. By bridging faith and emotion, churches can become communities of formation and resilience in a climate-changed world.

What if speaking for all of Creation is part of your vocation? EcoPreacher

The EcoPreacher Cohort can help you embrace this opportunity and offer compelling moral witness right now.

Registration information for the 2026-27 EcoPreacher Cohort is available here. Early bird registration ends Aug. 1. Registration closes Aug. 28. Scholarships are available.

Our world needs social and ecological healing. This is your chance to answer the call for prophetic spiritual guidance to help bring about that healing.

About the EcoPreacher Cohort and Study

The EcoPreacher Cohort is a project of Lexington Theological Seminary, in partnership with The BTS Center and Creation Justice Ministries, funded through Lilly Endowment Inc.’s Compelling Preaching Initiative.

The research team’s findings, drawn from surveys of 315 clergy and 577 lay church leaders, document a widespread and largely unaddressed emotional crisis in the pews. The online intake surveys in September 2025 were administered to 97 EcoPreachers and 186 congregational leaders. The surveys used a mixed-methods research design to evaluate participants’ congregational contexts.

EcoPreachers in the 2025 surveys had an average age of 50; 53 percent were female, 66 percent identified as white, and 20 percent identified as Black. They represented 22 U.S. states and 12 other countries. Most identified as Christian, predominantly mainline Protestant.

Congregational leaders surveyed were older on average, with a mean age of 63. They included a higher percentage of women (66 percent) and white participants (76 percent) than the EcoPreacher group.

The research team used descriptive statistics and regression modeling to identify predictors of whether a congregation made climate action a high priority. The team also used thematic coding of open-ended responses to identify prominent climate-related emotions and motivations for action.

Ministering through Climate Grief: An Earth Day Reflection

Who Is My Neighbor in Creation? Mapping Exercise for Clergy, Congregations

Thanks to Benjamin Yosua-Davis, Director of Applied Research at The BTS Center, for his assistance on this article. We also thank Rebecca Kneale Gould, Amanda Wilson Harper, Kim Rahebi, and Wayne L. Thompson for their assistance with the research for this project.

Rev. Dr. Leah D. Schade