Green Teams: Connecting with Youth and Community
We welcomed climate and faith organizer William H. Morris to the Climate Cafe Multifaith for a conversation about Green Teams. People of faith who have concerns around environment and climate have begun taking steps to green their worship communities, including forming Green Teams. These green teams are doing important things, including educating and organizing congregations. Folks who lead green teams also often seek to connect with the wider community, as they develop plans of action toward life-giving sustainability.
When green team leaders seek to connect with the wider community, often—and especially for older, established churches—this means looking for ways to connect with youth and the BIPOC community. This can be especially challenging because, in the US, our communities are often segregated. Additionally, many younger people have left religious institutions. More and more, those who care about the creation and the planet recognize that to heal the earth, we have to heal each other and ourselves. And that means building teams with diversity of age and identity.
“[Young people] learned all these values and these morals [in their faith communities]. But when they tried to live them out, when it came to things like climate change, they saw that there wasn't space for them and they had to take it elsewhere.”
—William H. Morris
Photo by Olivia Colacicco, cropped, modified.
Morris began organizing as a young person in his home congregation and in his own community. His hometown is the site of the 700 acre Torrance refinery. The facility is the center of ongoing protests for its use of modified hydroflouric acid, the cause of an explosion in 2015 so large it caused a small earthquake. There has also been significant flaring at the facility so dangerous at times that residents had to seek shelter.
Morris recounts having to shelter as a child at school, “so many times when I was young and in school, I can remember having to shelter in place…having to run inside, and seal the doors with tape.” The refinery continued to cast a looming shadow as he grew up. Says Morris, “When I was in high school, I was lucky enough to take this environmental science AP class. …I learned all about the climate crisis. I learned all about fossil fuels and what they're doing to our earth. And the refinery was a block away from the high school, so you could see the refinery out from the back of the classroom.”
“I got educated in that [high school AP] class, I looked up how many refineries were in Southern California and what's going on. I realized within maybe seven or eight miles of my house, there were six refineries.”
—William H. Morris
Industrial works in Los Angeles, CA. Photo by Ali Mucci
Morris attended both school and church amid these refineries. Morris explains, “I also grew up Christian. I grew up in a very conservative White Evangelical Church and that was all I knew, until I got older.” The more he learned about climate change and its impacts, the more frustrated he got with the silence of the church. “It can be hard, I think, as a young person,” Morris explains, in “not being listened to many times in church or not being taken seriously.”
He has since left the conservative church that won’t talk about climate change; he now attends one that will. That he still attends church makes him unusual, as many of the youth who left churches have not returned to any church at all. Despite everything, says Morris, “I’m happy where I've ended up, where I get to do faith-based climate justice.” He adds, “I also get to reach out to young people who used to go to church and don't attend anymore,” and try to rebuild lost trust and relationship.
In this video, William Morris gives a little background about himself, and speaks about reaching out to youth and people of color when building green teams as community.
Of many youth like himself who left, says Morris, part of what sent them away was that while the church taught them a good foundation of values—such as to love neighbor and care for the hungry—when young people started speaking up about injustices, there was no room for that. Says Morris, “They learned all these values and these morals. But then when they tried to live them out, when it came to things like climate change, they saw that there wasn't space for them and had to take it elsewhere.”
These experiences are part of what makes him an effective and inspired organizer. He has not only seen the problem, he has lived it first hand. It motivated him to learn, make change, and dig in to bring change to the church. In the church where he worships now—one that he chose based on its willingness to talk about social issues—he founded a green team. He works locally, still, in his childhood community.
He has worked as an organizer for a number of years now, including with Young Evangelicals for Climate Action. Currently, he works as an organizer for GreenFaith, connecting with others and speaking on the People vs Fossil Fuels effort.
In the above video, William Morris talks about climate organizing in faith contexts, including with GreenFaith, People vs Fossil Fuels, and the local worship community.
Morris acknowledges the challenges faith communities face when they want to work intergenerationally to address climate change, but the young people have already left. Worse, many churches struggle with the reality that older White congregations lack relationships in the Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. Without relationship, learning is harder and connecting is harder. Even when that congregation is engaging in good efforts, these are still challenges that are hard to overcome.
Morris gets it, and suggests that relationship really requires showing up, and showing up again, in spaces outside the worship walls. When it comes to youth, Morris asks, “where are they organizing? What [event] are they putting on?” Find out, says Morris and don’t just show up, but think about “how” to show up. “I think the most success I've had doing youth faith organizing is just getting to know them.” Morris spends a lot of time “outside of the church space. Just kind of hanging out.” Getting to know people follows, because when you show up, “you’re there for them as an entire person.”
Morris suggests learning about public gatherings and marches and starting there. “If there is a local climate march that is happening, show up. Just be there and kind of talk to people and be open and see what's going on. See what people's needs and wants and hopes are there.” Being physically present is an indicator that you care.
“I think a lot of young people are upset at what they view as Christianity in this country... There are young people who want nothing to do with Christianity or religion. …And so I think our actions have to speak differently.”
—William H. Morris
Photo by Ronan Fututa.
Don’t assume that God isn’t doing anything in the lives of the young people who have left. Many youth find deep spiritual connection and encouragement in social movements. Says Morris, “I've been to so many climate marches where I just kind of naturally get to talk with people and find out yeah, they're young people who used to go to church.” In such cases, Morris explains, just “being able to organize and connect them together is something super powerful.”
Only after relationships are build might folks outside the church consider coming inside. They need to know the church will be a safe and respectful space for them, with shared values. Where you live and the communities you are connected with will make a difference as to what these shared values might look like. But whatever those values are, it will be important for folks on the green team to communicate that people who care about creation, people of color, and LGBTQIA people will find welcome there.
After all, when we march, we march together. Morris explains it this way, “If we were to organize and come together, we have power to change things on a systemic level and make a big difference.”
In the above video, William Morris talks about what gives him hope.
For more articles, also news and information, see the Faiths4Future blog page.
William Morris (he/him) is a 26-year-old climate activist located in Torrance, CA. He holds his degree in environmental science with an emphasis on ecological restoration and a minor in watershed management from Humboldt State University. William is a Faith Organizer with GreenFaith working on the People vs. Fossil Fuels campaign. He also works with Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA) serving first as a field organizer and is now Co-chair of the steering committee. He volunteers with The Climate Reality Project, is the founder and chair of the Los Angeles chapter’s Faith-based Communities Committee, founder and chair of the creation care committee at Faith United Methodist Church, is part of the leadership team with Faiths4Future, and a member of the board at Circle Faith Future. William also has worked with faith organizations abroad spending time in Kenya, Chad and Indonesia. He spends his time engaging with faith communities, schools, universities, and organizations around the topics of faith-based climate justice and education. His work has been featured in Rolling Stone Magazine, ABC News and the BBC.
Rev. Richenda Fairhurst is here for the friendship and conversations about climate, community, and connection. She organizes the Climate Cafe Multifaith as a co-leader of Faiths4Future. Find her in real life in Southern Oregon, working as Steward of Climate with the nonprofit Circle Faith Future.