This year Seminary of the 3rd Age is partnering with the Uniting Church’s Environmental Action Group (EAG) to bring you “Our Place in Creation” – a program of presentations to be held on the first Thursday of each Sem 3A series. Jason John will present the first of these sessions.

What began as an idea for a covid-era online study, has evolved into an exciting combination of video resources and face-to-face small group discussion.  The EAG and Jason are collaborating to produce this four module, ecumenical study for church members who are yet to engage deeply with what it means to be disciples at this time of ecological crisis.  Who are we as humans, and Christians?  What do we hear when we listen to Scripture, and science, and the Earth itself?  How do the voices of the First Australians, and women, challenge the often male dominated, western version of Christianity we inherited in Australia?

In a twist on our usual format, participants at Sem 3A on March 2nd will be invited to road test the draft of the first module, and to offer feedback to help improve the final version.  Come and help the EAG more effectively engage the engageable, in their mission to serve and protect God’s garden and our Earth family.

Across twenty years of ministry, Jason John has been an Ecominister, and an Earth Advocate in the Uniting Church, and the Climate spokesperson for Common Grace.  The names change, but his call remains to collaborate to help the church explore the implications of our faith in a Creator for our relationship with the rest of Creation, and in encouraging all people to live as better members of the Earth family. His studies are in zoology and theology, leading to a PhD and some books on the implications of evolution, ecology and environmentalism for the Christian story, especially in rescuing us from our human-centred theology.

Jason currently works for Landcare in Bellingen, NSW, pursuing a secular equivalent to his earlier ministry, whilst trying with some friends to persuade the wider church to support a ministry in, with and for the forests and their defenders.  On the side, he performs and occasionally organises and tutors poetry, having taken third place in the Australian Poetry Slam in 2019.

More details of Jason’s presentation will be available soon!  In the meantime, book your ticket by clicking here.