Re-connecting people with an untamed God in our wild homes.
There is a movement happening. From isolation to connection. From detachment to immersion. From dualism to integration. Spiritual leaders from a wide range of denominations are beginning to question the wisdom and consequences of regarding "church" as a building where you gather away from the rest of the world for a couple hours on Sundays.
We are a growing network of pastors and spiritual leaders, who have made bold moves to launch new expressions of church outside to re-acquaint, re-cover, and re-member our congregations as loving participants of a larger community. In this age of mass extinctions, we feel burdened by the love of Christ to invite people into direct relationship with some of the most vulnerable victims of our destructive culture: our land, our waters, the creatures with whom we share our homes.
And, there, people remember that they belong to a larger beloved community. Along the way, we have remembered that our Christian tradition of spiritual transformation has always been rooted in the actual local wilderness.
Join the Wild Church Network if you lead or want to lead your congregation out of buildings and into deeper relationship with God through nature in your community,
North American Wild Churches
NEW LIFE LUTHERAN CHURCH
Dripping Springs, Texas
REV. CARMEN RETZLAFF, Lutheran pastor. We decided we needed to be in mission with the land, not just on it. We worship under three beautiful ancient live oaks on a hill. A livestock water trough is now our altar. Almost every day there are volunteers out tending the land, cutting invasive cedar, mowing the worship area, trimming the labyrinth, building walking trails that follow the scriptural stations of the cross, and battening down tent walls.
Burning bush forest church
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
REV. WENDY JANZEN, Mennonite pastor. We invite people to connect more deeply with God our Creator, nature, and each other. We see God's character revealed in wild places as we pay attention to our natural surroundings and worship together with all creation. Our monthly gatherings include centering prayer, thematic readings, and extended time for individuals to connect with nature and remember that we are walking on holy ground.
CHURCH OF THE WILD
Shenandoah Valley, Virginia
VALERIE SERRELS, MA, lay leader. An emerging expression of community among the human and non-human inhabitants of the Shenandoah River and North River watersheds, a church without walls on the edges of wilderness and civilization. Our teachers are the Black Oak and the Eastern Cottonwood, the Cardinals and Finches, the ancient lichen and the black stone, and one another. Recognizing the sacred in all creation, we listen to the call of the Great Conversation as a pathway to transformation.
center for spirituality & nature
Washington, DC
REV DR BETH NORCROSS, Methodist Minister. Through spiritual practice and ecological study, the Center encourages participants to come home to the sacred ecological ground in which they live – and to come to know and delight in those that share this home. The Center re-imagines community in the context of this sacred space, where humans see themselves as loving participants within the rich web of creation.
CHurch of the woods
Canterbury, New Hampshire
REV. STEPHEN BLACKMER, Episcopal priest. Church of the Woods is a place where the earth itself, rather than a building, is the bearer of sacredness; a place where people gather for contemplative practice in communion with each other and nature; a place where the church exists to serve a mission rather than the other way around; a place where people gather to learn, explore, and act to transform themselves and renew the earth.
Church of Lost Walls
Denver, Colorado
REV. MATT SYRDAL, Presbyterian pastor. We are not normal church happening outside, our dream is to participate in and partner with creation through learning, worship, meditation and prayer. We seek to cultivate nature connection and personal wholeness to inspire and guide one another into a culturally creative vision of life within our expanding circles of community, culture, the wild earth, and the great mystery we call God.
Church of the Wild
Ojai, California
VICTORIA LOORZ, MDiv, Independent pastor. Church of the Wild is a gathering for those who are allured by the call into the Great Conversation between all things as a pathway to personal wholeness and societal transformation. We meet outside, on the edges of Ojai’s wilderness, because nature reflects not only glimpses of God, but mirrors an inner reality as well. This call to the edges is a call to wildness, to our True Selves, that lies beyond our domesticated, neat, safe, and secure lives.
Salal + cedar
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
REV LAUREL DYKSTRA, Anglican priest. Rooted in place, tradition and history, Salal + Cedar strives to be accessible to all bodies. We meet regularly for worship outdoors, education, and action. We are part of a growing movement across Turtle Island of communities of Christians re-connecting to the creation-values and land covenants at the core of our tradition; we practice contemplative ecology and spiritually-rooted action.