SESSION 1:

Environmental Issues and the Christian Response (speaker)
Presented by: Professor Bill Andrews - Friday, October 19, 2007
Bill Andrews, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science at the University of Toronto, will offer an illustrated talk that begins with a summary of the major environmental/peace/justice issues that currently confront the global community. The needed response and an action plan for that response follow. Then a Christian environmental ethic is developed that will help us respond in a manner that is consistent with the basic tenets of our Christian faith.

SESSION 2:

Manufactured Landscapes (movie)
Presented by: Sharon Paxton, Friday - November 16, 2007
All are welcome to attend an evening filled with thought-provoking images and discussion as we view the movie, "Manufactured Landscapes". Canadian Edward Burtynsky is internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of nature transformed by industry. This 90-minute documentary follows Burtynsky to China, as he captures the effects of the country's massive industrial revolution. A natural progression from "An Inconvenient Truth", this film goes beyond climate change and looks at the vast project of modern civilization and its impacts on the world we live in. This is a stunning film that you won't want to miss.

SESSION 3:

Jesus and Empire (book study)
Presented by: Bill and Sylvia Allen - Friday, January 25, 2008.
Biblical scholar Richard Horsley believes that Rome has much to teach us about the workings of empire today. This book challenges us to examine the relationship between religion and politics, and to view and understand Jesus from the perspective of a wider picture of socio-political-religious unrest in a Palestine under Roman occupation. In our post-9/11 world, Horsley reminds us that the Gospels have never been so relevant for Christians living under the "peace" of empire.

SESSION 4:

Ecology at the Heart of Faith (book study)
Presented by: Rev. Sandra Farrow - Friday, February 15, 2008
Beginning with the words, "one of the gifts we have received from the twentieth century's a picture of Earth as our shared home," Denis Edwards (author) helps the general reader, the preacher, the spiritual director, the student and the theologian tear down the walls that too often separate mysticism, theology, prophecy, poetry and science. In a world born of the "big bang", Edwards shows that humanity and the world are together being made into the image of God. The heart of faith is an ecological communion which holds together and grows in love towards the fullness of Life imaged in the Resurrection of Jesus.

SESSION 5:

The 100-mile Diet (pot luck dinner and guest speaker)
Presented by: Outreach - Saturday, April 26, 2008
"There are people in this world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread." - Mahatma Gandhi. To coincide with Earth Day on April 22 and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank project, we will read about authors Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon and how they reduced their food miles from the North American average of 1,500 miles to an ambitious and often frustrating 100 miles. This engaging and entertaining diary of their year long experiment also touches on issues ranging from global economics to biodiversity.

SESSION 6:

The Empire Report (report, 39th General Council)
Presented by: Jim Greenlaw - Friday, Oct. 3, 2008
"In the 21st century world of empire, Caesar commands, God calls. Whom will we serve?" With this question begins "Living Faithfully in the Midst of Empire," a report produced by the Justice, Global and Ecumenical Relations Unit for the 39th General Council. The Empire Report documents how economic globalization is becoming more complex and insidious and is exponentially increasing the pain and misery experienced by the vast majority of God's people. In this final session we will reflect on the question of power and empire from a biblical perspective. Ref. www.united-church.ca/economic/globalization