Refugia:
Communal Vocation in a Climate-Changed World
Hazelnut Farm
Landscapes Conference
September 30, 2025
Image credit: Michelle Kok
(well, mostly one)
Our plan
Crisis Convergence�
🡪 We are living at an “inflection point”
Practical task list for climate mitigation and adaptation—for everyone
Overwhelming!
Honor our moment:
James KA Smith,
How to Inhabit Time
“Recognizing our embeddedness in the vicissitudes of history’s contingent twists and turns is only half the work; the other half is knowing how to inherit—what to do with what we’ve been given. This is the work of discernment.”
Smith recommends an “historical Augustinianism, a graced temporality in which the Spirit is afoot and on the move and we, by grace, are invited to join and thereby both be transformed and be part of the unfolding transformation.”
Honor our moment
Are we in the midst of another reformation??
Religious people do not always behave well in a crisis…
🡪 a crisis of imagination
Image credit: Claire Reilly/CNET
This is a spiritual crisis: Spirit of domination
Spirit of domination
Whence Christianity??
Deeper spiritual transformation needed
Can people of faith… help?�
Three metaphors to sustain us on the way:�
And then a little help from…
What if we imagine ourselves as people of refugia?
Well, what are refugia????
����Mt. St. Helens, shortly after eruption in 1980����Kathleen Dean Moore, Great Tide Rising, 2016����
Credit: Phil Degginger/Alamy
What are refugia in nature?�
Image credit: Wikipedia Commons
�
Refugia are meaningful in nature because they
… in ways particular to context in place/time/species
Aren’t we meant to be people of refugia?
After all, God loves to work through the small, the hidden, the inconsequential, the remnant.
Refugia are nature’s strategy for resilience
This crisis moment demands mitigation and adaptation. We must become resilient healers…
So how can we find and nurture and even create refugia
��
Transformations…
�But… the church?
Seven Shifts
backdrop in the human drama to dynamic creation in which we play one of many roles.
salvation to the renewal of creation.
In short:�Bigger Story &�Bigger Community
Theological and practical work to do here on every level, but let’s focus on….
Our task: rethink, remodel relationship with MTHC: kinship
“In him all things hold together” (Col 1:17)
“Critical fabulation”
(Thanks to Tiya Miles via Heber Brown…)
On the prophetic edge, we need
And the courage to try things!
Let’s discern our gifts as faith communities: what can we offer?
�Refugia Sighting: �Water & Wilderness Church
Washington, DC
Let’s discern our gifts as faith communities: what can we offer?
🡪 How can we enfold non-members in this?
🡪 How can we nurture our “refugia practices” to spread?
�Refugia Sighting: �Black Food Security Network
Baltimore, MD
Image credit: Joanna Tillman
Let’s discern our gifts as faith communities: what can we offer?
Ritual!
🡪 How can we share the beauty of our ritual practices?
�Refugia Sighting: �Spring Forest Farm
Hillsborough, NC
Let’s discern our gifts as faith communities: what can we offer?
🡪 How can we build those networks of partnership?
Refugia sighting: Hakuhia Project
First Presbyterian of Honolulu
Refugia Reminders
Refugia work is about connecting to place
Princeton Theological Seminary
“Attunement to God and land gets you through tough times”:
--- Nate summarizing Tiya Miles on Harriet Tubman
�Refugia work is about healing relationships
Plaster Creek Stewards
Image credit: Calvin Chimes
Refugia work is about building community partnerships
Redeem Mi Land
�Refugia work is about systemic change: advocacy groups
Image credit: gipl.org
Renewed ecclesiology?
Refugia 🡪 apply systems thinking from nature to our role as churches and faith communities in order to be partners in healing and building a healthier overall social fabric
Nodes in a network?
“Soliphilia”
by Jo-Ann van Reeuwyk
Refugia reminders
But… is it enough??? For right now?
Advance regeneration
Image source: Wisconsin DNR
What about those oysters?
Oysters are strong…. They work together, attaching to each other to form reefs which provide habitat for other organisms and combine their strength to withstand waves and defend from predators. All the while, they’re filtering 50 gallons a day, continually cleaning the water and restoring the ecosystem from the bottom up.
Action leads to hope,�community,�… and joy!
“Hope is a discipline to which God calls us.”
–Willie James Jennings
“Here is the paradox of hope: that as we move beyond empty optimism and choose to live the lives we believe in, hope becomes transformed into something else entirely. It becomes stubborn, defiant courage. It becomes principled clarity.”
–Kathleen Dean Moore
Action leads to hope,�community,�… and joy!
“God is up to something. We’re onto something here, and we’ve only scratched the surface.”
-- Nate Stuckey
“The death-dealing forces are far too strong to do this work with anything less powerful than joy.”
– Also Nate Stuckey
Our Communal Vocation
“The climate crisis places an inescapable moral claim on our generation and, therefore, on every one of us. It urges our generation to embrace a fresh understanding of human freedom, fulfillment, vocation and salvation.”
– Rev. Jim Antal
Thank you!�
Website: debrarienstra.com
Refugia Newsletter: refugianewsletter.substack.com
Bluesky @debrakrienstra.bsky.social
Image credits: Debra Rienstra or as shown where available