The Beginning:
 In August 2008, a core team of 12 student leaders and recent graduates held a productive retreat outside of St. Paul, MN. The purpose of the meeting was to plan and launch a student-led creation care network. And so Renewal was born. This team formed an interim Student Leadership Team (SLT) and successfully hired a network coordinator – Anna Jane Joyner - to further lay the foundations for Renewal.

In October 2008, Renewal and its website were launched at the network’s first event, the “Renewal Summit,” a student leaders' training summit hosted by Eastern University. Multiplying from 12 to 50 participants, Renewal’s first event was a groundbreaking success with participants from 23 campuses from around North America.  The purpose of this summit was to equip student leaders with needed skill-sets for creation care organizing, as well as to connect and inspire campus leaders- thereby building the capacity of the larger movement.

First Day of Prayer:
Following the summit, Renewal sponsored the first ever “National Day of Prayer for God’s Creation” on October 29th, 2008. For this event, Renewal’s student leaders called on Christians across the United States and Canada to collectively pray for the renewal of Creation. While the effort focused on engaging students, Renewal also reached out to and welcomed participation by churches and other ministries.

Launch of Student Leadership Team:
In January 2009, Renewal’s first Student Leadership Team (SLT) was inaugurated to replace the interim launch team.  The 2009 SLT consisted of 15 capable student leaders from 14 different campuses across North America.  In addition, Renewal brought on a second Coordinator, Ben Lowe, in order to help expand Renewal’s capacity in the new year. This passionate group of student leaders met with Renewal’s coordinators in January 2009 for an intense planning retreat.  Not only did the SLT bond as a cohesive and effective team, but they successfully developed Renewal’s 2009 Strategic Plan. The SLT divided up into task forces and worked together throughout the year to enact Renewal’s 2009 strategy.  

 

The Green Awakening Campus Tour:
In early 2009, Renewal’s SLT commissioned its’ coordinators to organize the “Green Awakening Campus Tour.” This tour’s mission was simple: mobilize our generation to care for creation. To do this, Renewal had three specific goals: 1. Find out what is happening on campuses and who is leading it, 2. Identify the opportunities ahead for the student creation care movement, 3. Spread the word about creation care in general and Renewal in particular. During the eight-week tour, Renewal held class visits, open talks, informal discussions, strategy meetings, and service projects at thirty-two campus stops across thirteen states and two Canadian provinces. Renewal also held a Midwest leadership training retreat at Goshen College, with the successfully reached goal of training, equipping and connecting 20 student leaders from the Midwest region.  The tour coincided with the release of Green Revolution: Coming Together to Care for Creation (Intervarsity Press 2009), written by Renewal’s Co-Coordinator, Ben Lowe.  Green Revolution calls the student/youth generation to join together in caring for the earth by sharing real-life stories of community organizing across the nation, many of which take place on Christian campuses. Renewal partnered with InterVarsity Press in promoting this strategic new resource.


White House Advocacy Project:
In conjunction with the tour, Renewal also launched a postcard petition to the White House. The postcard petitions advocated for the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships to make the good stewardship of all of God’s creation a national priority- and called on this important office to engage national religious leaders in addressing environmental crises such as climate change. During this hugely successful advocacy drive, Christian students sent over 1,200 postcards to this important national office. The postcard drive resulted in a meeting with this office and Renewal’s coordinators and student leaders, and a commitment to collaborate on future initiatives to engage the faith community.


First Day of Service:
On April 22nd 2009, Renewal’s student leaders sponsored Renewal’s first-ever National Day of Service for God’s Creation. Sixteen Christian campuses across North America participated in this exciting initiative, actively demonstrating the unity of the student creation care movement and commitment of Christian students to caring for God’s creation. The theme was “Serving Hands for a Fallen Creation,” and Christian students from around North America answered the call and planned service activities on their campuses. Participating schools included: Asbury College (KY), Bethel University (MN), Eastern University (PA), Wheaton College (IL), Spring Arbor University (MI), Redeemer University College (ON), Calvin College (MI), Hope College (MI), Westmont College (CA), Montreat College (NC), Dordt College (IA), Trinity International University (IL), Moody Bible Institute (IL), Gordon College (MA), John Brown University (AR), & Azusa Pacific University (CA). 


Launching our Senior Advisory Council:
A growing Senior Advisory Council (SAC) has also been established to provide nonbinding input into the network.  This group is made up of faculty members, emerging leaders, pastors, organizational representatives, and senior leaders in the creation care movement. Its inaugural membership includes: Matthew Anderson-Stembridge (Creation Care Fund), Jonathan Merritt (Creation Care Author/Speaker), Kira Langendoen (recent graduate and former SLT member), Alexei Laushkin (Evangelical Environmental Network), Kendra Juskus (Flourish), Dr. Luke Gascho (Goshen College), Prof. Dodd Galbreth (Lipscomb University), Christina Yagjian (Sierra Club), Dr. Ed Brown (Care of Creation), Melanie Griffin (Sierra Club), Dr. Dave Mahan (Au Sable Institute), and Grant Kjos (Restoring Eden).  


2nd Day of Prayer:
In the fall of 2009, Renewal hosted its 2nd Annual Day of Prayer for God’s Creation, which built on our last years’ success and engaged new campuses in the call to prayer, repentance, and celebration around issues of energy consumption and conservation.


Expanding Partnerships for Greater Effectiveness:
Right before Christmas, 2009, Renewal’s leadership announced an exciting new partnership with Restoring Eden and the Creation Care Study Program (CCSP) under the banner of Christians for Environmental Stewardship (CES). This important step helped formalize the already-close working relationship between the three organizations so that Renewal became “a third complementary and synergistic program” alongside CCSP and Restoring Eden.  Joining together as part of “Team CES” enhances Renewal’s capacities to pursue our mission to “inspire, connect, and equip” the student generation to care for God’s creation.  This also enables Renewal to collaborate on its campus work with CCSP and their plans to launch a Center for Environmental Leadership in the United States.  After successfully guiding Renewal into this new partnership, Anna Jane Joyner transitioned out as a coordinator for Renewal and came on staff with Restoring Eden to spearhead its new campaign against mountain top removal coal mining.  



Team 2010:
In January 2010 a new Student Leadership Team (SLT) was selected from  campuses including Milligan College, The Kings University College, Eastern University, Belhaven University, Moody Bible Institute, Waynesburg University, Wheaton College, and New York University.  Renewal also hired a new National Coordinator, Gretchen Peck, a Messiah and Creation Care Study Program (CCSP) graduate, to fill Anna Jane Joyner’s role alongside Ben Lowe.


The Green Awakenings Report:
On February 18, 2010, Renewal released its inaugural, and the first-ever, Christian campus creation care report entitled "Green Awakenings.”  Green Awakenings provides a snapshot into how students on over fifty Christian campuses across the United States and Canada are stepping up to practically and passionately care for creation.  It received wide press coverage on campuses that were featured in the report and is currently being used as a resource by many Christian campuses searching for ideas and examples for how to pursue greater stewardship.


The Next Chapter:
Moving forward into 2010, we at Renewal are excited about all the good work God continues to prepare for us to do.  We are working with the Evangelical Environmental Network to organize an exciting creation care walk from West Virginia through Appalachia, farmland, suburbs, and into Washington DC for a big prayer event at the Capitol.  We are also collaborating with A Rocha on their Creation Care Institute in Santa Barbara, CA, over the summer, which will be a valuable training opportunity for the next wave of creation care leaders.  Throughout all this, we continue to invest the bulk of our efforts in speaking and organizing on campuses, as well as leading workshops at relevant conferences such as Re:Form, Flourish, NAE’s Evangelical Leadership Forum, Jubilee, Urbana, and more.  Looking back, we are amazed at how far Renewal has come in our short history.  We remain committed as ever to the cause of loving God and loving our neighbor by caring for creation.  And we invite you to join us on this journey of stewardship and sustainability – following step by step after the Creator who proclaims in love, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5).