Earth Crisis Support Groups
A project encouraged by The Living Earth Movement.
Outline
Currently, John Cobb is writing Confessions of a Disciple of Jesus. With Bonnie Tarwater, they are creating a gift for people of faith to study and support one another in small support groups around the world called Earth Crisis Support Groups.
This course/study group will be translated into many languages and hopes to be ready in early 2023.
These small groups are modelled after the early house churches, base communities, Twelve Step Programs and consciousness-raising support groups. “…..to anyone considering reading my “confessions”, John writes, “It is a warning that I have not given consideration to your feelings. Having these feelings is painful for me. If you understand me at all, reading will, at times, be painful to you.
Bonnie Tarwater has felt that there are people who need this and will benefit from it. She talked about basing a course on it. I was sceptical, and in time she decided that would not work. To this day, most people protect themselves from the whole truth of the climate crisis by mainly thinking about other things. This reduces the needed pressure on leaders.
We think more people will be able to keep a focus on the most critical questions facing us if they become members of support communities.
We think that members of a support community could also read my manuscript and respond tough-mindedly to it in a way that few isolated individuals can.
People with addictions have long found that they can help each other. We might think of the inability to attend to the reality of our situation as comparable. Even if this manuscript is ignored and forgotten, I would celebrate increased mutual support during the worsening context in which we live.
If you are interested, let Bonnie know.” Bonnie’s contact information and a draft of Confessions can be found on Church for Our Common Home website, www.churchforourcomonhome.com.
