Caring for Creation

Shared from A Rocha Aoteroa NZ Newsletter dated Feb 2026

Caring for Creation during the Season of Lent

The season of Lent begins this Ash Wednesday and concludes on Easter Sunday. For 40 days, as we journey toward Easter, we are invited to reflect on our relationship with God and with all of God’s Creation.

Many people take up a spiritual practice during Lent such as giving something up, joining a study group, or adopting a new rhythm of prayer. This year, we invite you to consider practices that not only enrich your own life, but also nurture the life of God’s creation.

What action might you embrace during this Lenten season? Here’s five simple ideas:

1. Go Low-Waste: Choose a week (or the whole season) to reduce rubbish - especially plastics.

2. Creation Walks: Take a weekly reflective walk in a local bush track, awa, or coastline, pick up rubbish as you go.

3. Eco-Friendly Eating: Try going meet free for a day/month or the whole season. Eat only from local sources for the season. Choose eco-friendly chocolate this Easter for you and your church.

4. Buy Nothing New: Practice simplicity by repairing, borrowing, or op-shopping instead of buying new.

5. Volunteer: Turn up and participate at a local conversation project – learn, help, grow.

A Prayer for Lent

E te Atua, In this season of Lent, open our ears and our eyes. Help us slow down enough to notice and hear your Spirit alive and moving -in birdsong, in wind through the trees, in the rhythms of the land and the ocean.

Guide us, so that what we hear and see of your Spirit in creation will shape how we live, how we care, and how we act.

May this season deepen our gratitude and attune our hearts and minds to your living presence, woven through all things.

Āmene.