Celebration of St. Francis Sermon Contest!

On Saturday, October 4th, Earth Ministry held its 16th Annual Celebration of St. Francis. This year's celebration featured a Creation-Care Sermon Contest. We received neraly 50 sermons from members in 13 states. We chose six finalists to present their sermons at our event on the Feast of St. Francis:

• Annette Andrews-Lux, Freeland, WA
• Tom Walker, Clinton, WA
• Sherry Golden, Flagstaff, AZ
• Rev. Mary Brown, North Bend, WA
• Rev. Gerry Porter, Kingston, WA
• Sister Mimi Maloney, Olympia, WA

At the Celebration we also honored four new Greening Congregations:

• First Presbyterian Church, Port Townsend, WA
• Woodland Park Presbyterian, Seattle, WA
• Wesley UMC, Yakima, WA
• Grace Episcopal, Bainbridge Island, WA

In addition, we were uplifted by creation-themed choral music provided by the choirs of Trinity UMC and Plymouth UCC. It was indeed a celebratory service!

Those gathered chose Sherry Golden as the winner in the lay category and Sister Mimi Maloney was selected as the winner in the clergy/vowed religious category. Congratulations to Sherry, Sister Mimi, and all the finalists. We were blessed and moved by all of your homilies!

A video of each sermon is posted below in the order in which they were given along with the title of the sermon and name of the contestant. Enjoy!

Lay Category

"Renewing the Earth Community" by Annette Andrews-Lux



"Renew a Right Spirit" by Tom Walker



"Keeping the Sabbath to Keep the Earth" by Sherry Golden



Clergy/Vowed Religious Category

"Staying Awake" by Rev. Mary Brown



"Abundance: Answering God's Call" by Rev. Gerald Porter



"The Care of Creation as a Moral and Ethical Imperative" by Sister Mimi Maloney



Thank you very much to all who entered the contest and congratulations to the winners!