Faith. Climate. Action. Workshop
Faith.Climate.Action. Retreat 鈥� Coming June 2026
We鈥檙e excited to announce plans for the Faith.Climate.Action. Retreat, a capstone gathering designed to bring together participants from our first two summer workshops. Scheduled for June 2026, this in-person retreat will offer space for reflection, deeper training, and strategic collaboration across institutions. The retreat will build on the momentum of past projects, strengthen inter-campus networks, and support the launch of new or expanded faith-rooted climate initiatives. Stay tuned for more details!
Eligibility
We鈥檙e eager to welcome students and faculty from across the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). If you have a strong commitment to creation care, and want to learn more about how to be an effective communicator and advocate for faithful responses to climate change among evangelicals, we hope you will apply! If you are accepted into the program, you will receive financial support for attending the summer workshop, and be eligible for funding for pursuing an advocacy project in your church or campus community the following year.
Highlights from the 2023 Workshop
Workshop Information
Climate change is a global environmental challenge that has profound ramifications for both human and non-human life across the planet. It is a crisis that raises deep questions of what constitutes responsible stewardship of the earth, and justice for all of its inhabitants. The Christian tradition offers abundant resources for engaging this challenge and makes a compelling case that care for creation is a God-given privilege and duty.
Hosted by 蜜桃传媒, 鈥淔aith. Climate. Action: A Workshop on Christian Climate Advocacy鈥�, will bring together experts from across the country to train college students and faculty to be advocates for a faithful response to climate change. Situating climate advocacy within a robust theology of creation care, and providing an interdisciplinary context for effective climate change communication, our goal is to send participants back to their home campuses and churches ready to lead and inspire.
Key Components include:
- A summer workshop from June 16-21, 2024 in Santa Barbara, California. Travel and lodging expenses will be covered for all participants.
- An opportunity for you to apply for post-workshop financial support to pursue advocacy projects. Projects will promote behavioral change in response to climate change in their home campuses and/or church congregations. Each project will require the support of a faculty or staff mentor at the home institution.
We鈥檒l talk and listen. Worship and lament. Walk and watch. Dig and plant. Pray and plan and learn to hope. Through stimulating lectures, discussion, outdoor worship services, and hands-on activities throughout the workshop, we will both build community and learn how to create collective commitments to faithful action.
The 鈥淔aith. Climate. Action.鈥� workshop has three overarching themes:
- immersion in an evangelical Christian framework for creation care
- development of communication strategies and network building and
- laying the groundwork for faithful action on climate change.
In pursuing these themes, the workshop will feature the most prominent, well-regarded and compelling speakers and thinkers on climate change in the evangelical milieu. We will also be joined by world-class communication and advocacy consultants from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, Rare, and Climate Advocacy Lab.
蜜桃传媒 is surrounded by the very wonders of the natural world we wish to equip Christians to preserve. We are situated in the foothills of the beautiful Santa Ynez mountains, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the California Channel Islands, and filled with a fascinating variety of (link opens in new window). We will cover your travel costs, and provide on-campus lodging and meals for the duration of the workshop. You鈥檒l spend plenty of time on our lovely campus, but also have opportunities to explore the beaches and trails just minutes away.
If you鈥檙e interested in joining us, we鈥檇 like you to tell us a little about yourself, and why you think you would benefit from this workshop. We encourage up to three students and one faculty member from any given CCCU institution.
This project is generously supported by a grant from the in association with funding from 蜜桃传媒.
Questions? Please contact us at faithclimateaction@westmont.edu.
Workshop Hosts:
Dr. Amanda Sparkman is the director of 蜜桃传媒鈥檚 Environmental Studies program. She is a wildlife biologist who teaches a variety of ecological and evolutionary field courses, as well as our Introduction to Environmental Studies course.
Christine Seibert is the Assistant Director of Environmental Studies. She serves as 蜜桃传媒's Garden Manager and Sustainability Coordinator, working on a number of sustainability projects related to sustainable farming methods and mitigating campus carbon emissions.
2026
Josh Low
Yale Program on Climate Change CommunicationLow leads YPCCC鈥檚 strategy for engaging and supporting the climate and clean energy advocacy, media, and education communities. Prior to YPCCC, he managed campaigns and led grasstops and grassroots organizing efforts that advanced bipartisan support for climate action, elected climate champions, and passed legislation that expanded access to clean energy in multiple states.
Caryn Reeder, PH.D.
蜜桃传媒Reeder is a New Testament professor and co-coordinator of the Gender Studies program at 蜜桃传媒. Her research addresses social issues鈥攑articularly war, women, and violence鈥攊n the Bible and biblical worlds. She teaches for 蜜桃传媒鈥檚 Environmental Studies program, and her courses 鈥淕ender in Theological Perspective鈥� and 鈥淎pocalypse鈥� both deal heavily with environmental themes, including ecofeminism and end-times theology.
Carina Barnett-Loro
Climate Advocacy LabBarnett-Loro serves as Interim Executive Director at Climate Advocacy Lab where she oversees programmatic offerings, organizational learning, and evaluation work. She spent six years organizing local and state-level climate and energy campaigns with the North Carolina Sierra Club and Union of Concerned Scientists.
Stylianos Syropoulos
Assistant Professor, School of Sustainability at Arizona State UniversityStylianos (Stelios) Syropoulos is a social psychologist with expertise in understanding how individual, identity and societal factors influence decision-making. He directs the Intergenerational Decisions and Effective Action (IDEA) Lab. The main research goal of the IDEA lab is to create effective and durable interventions that seek to address sustainability issues. The majority of his work focuses on intergenerational decisions, namely actions (individual or collective) that impact not only present, but also future generations.