Aquamarine

Aquamarine

What color do you get when you mix green and blue?  Cool names: turquoise, sea green, azure, teal, ultramarine, beryl. 

But we chose Aquamarine!!

I coined the phrase “Blue Theology” 15 years ago when I kept reading about “Green Theology,” “greening our churches,” “the Green Bible” and I asked myself, “Is there such a thing as Blue (Ocean) Theology?  Is Blue Theology simply Green Theology that is wet?  Or does the ocean teach us about God in different ways than the land?  Does our faith call us to care not only for the dry and green parts of creation, but for the ¾ of our planet that is wet and blue?” 

But most faith communities still think green more than blue.  The denomination of the church where we do our Blue Theology ministry, the Disciples of Christ, has an excellent program, “Green Chalice,” that certifies churches that are engaged in creation care in all aspects of their ministry. (The symbol of the Disciples denomination is a red chalice.) 

A “Green Chalice” congregation commits to environmental stewardship in energy use, buildings, landscaping, coffee, local food, creation care worship with a “green” message, etc.  There are two tiers, Green Chalice Congregations (150 of those) and Certified Green Chalice Congregations (only 15, nationwide.)  First tier is about intention and changing three things.  Certified is much more rigorous.  Our church just completed the certification process (mostly through the hard and faithful work of Kimberly Brown, one of our Blue Theology preachers I featured recently in these posts) and got this nice certificate.

But our church is all about Blue Theology, not Green.  (Of course we do all that other good green stuff.)  So naturally we said, “We’re not just Green.  We do Blue Theology.  Can we be designated an “Aquamarine Chalice Congregation?”  The good national folks agreed:  we are the very first Aquamarine Chalice Congregation!

It’s a great word, aquamarine.   Literally it means “water of the sea” or sea water.  We are a sea water church.

Every Green and Aquamarine Congregations commits to this Covenant:  Check out the verbs: worship, study, repent, advocate, and rest.  A good set of promises.

Green Chalice Covenant:

As children of God and followers of Christ Jesus, we covenant to:

-Worship God with all creation and pray for the healing of the earth.

-Study the climate crisis and engage others in climate solutions.

-Repent and forgive for the harm we have inflicted on the earth that sustains life.

-Advocate for ecojustice public policies and witness by living sustainable lifestyles.

-Rest in God’s good creation and invite others to delight in nature.

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Bluetheology.com for more on our Blue Theology Ministry.  I post these ocean

devotionals every Wednesday here and on Facebook.   Come visit us in beautiful aquamarine Pacific Grove!