JUST AS FAITH FORMATION IN THE OUTDOORS IS FRONT AND CENTRE, SO TOO IS ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY...
extreme experience of being outdoors for 11 days. Our teenagers and instructors can’t help but encounter God in the richness of the surrounding landscape. Just as faith formation in the outdoors is front and centre, so too is environmental sustainability as we look firstly to uptake the mandate given to humanity in Genesis, and secondly the directives given to us by the SUNZ Board.
There’s also a third element at play here: the young people we engage with are just as passionate about creation care as we are, and this has become an issue of faith for teenagers. We can often try to separate these concerns from the heart of Scripture, but I’m convinced they are all intertwined, and it’s interesting to see the youth of today uphold that mandate as well. As you can imagine, all our camps engage with creation care in different and yet significant ways. For example, on a 2021 snow camp at our iconic SU Adventure Lodge at Ruapehu, 10 www.sunz.org.nz
we celebrated how much waste we offset as we practiced recycling and composting. We only had one bag of rubbish for 30 people over six days! It was a fitting end to our week of exploring different expressions of God’s love and practical ways we can respond to it. As an organisation we are seeking to apply our Board mandate across the full breadth of what we do. In many ways this is a formalising of the already present conversation—and a prompt to be even more ambitious in this area—as much as it is a celebration of what we already do. This acts as a “stretching goal” that allows for constant growth and sits naturally alongside the other intentions we have in place for our ministries. This is an exciting time for us and we’re looking forward to sharing with you all the ways this continues to play out.
