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The Rev. Dr. Janet Parker is the recipient of the National Council of Churches' 2007 Environmental Sermon Award. She is the pastor for parish life at Rock Spring Congregational United Church of Christ in Arlington, VA.

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United Church of Christ

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Rock Spring Congregational United Church of Christ

The Rev. Dr. Janet Parker is the recipient of the National Council of Churches' 2007 Environmental Sermon Award. She is the pastor for parish life at Rock Spring Congregational United Church of Christ in Arlington, VA.

Janet came to Rock Spring in September 2005. She was ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), but transferred her ministerial standing to the Potomac Association of the United Church of Christ after coming to Rock Spring. She received her M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1989 to serve a Taiwanese/Chinese UCC congregation in Staten Island, NY. Subsequently, she pastored two Presbyterian churches part-time while pursuing a Ph.D. in Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York, which she completed in 2001. Following the September 11th attacks, Janet served the Presbytery of New York City as Coordinator for Disaster Relief.

She taught Religion and Society for two years at Chicago Theological Seminary and was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University's Center for the Study of Religion prior to coming to Rock Spring. She served on an advisory team to the World Council of Churches Decade to Overcome Violence Initiative from 2002-2006. Janet has received three sermon awards from different organizations since coming to Rock Spring, for the sermons "From Apocalypse to Genesis", "The Ties that Bind," and "Noah's Promise."

Latest Content by The Rev. Dr. Janet Parker

From Apocalypse to Genesis

Ezekiel 36:22, 24-36; John 3:1-10; Revelation 22:1-5

August 26, 2007

The Rev. Dr. Janet Parker (UCC)

The sermon you are about to hear was first preached at my church during a worship service in honor of Earth Day, a service that focused around the theme of God's gift of water, and it included a ritual for the renewal of our baptismal vows. This service held a lot of meaning for my church because it was the first time we had celebrated Earth Day as a congregation. Thankfully, more and more churches are beginning to observe Earth Day, and more and more ministers are taking up the challenge of preaching on issues relating to eco-justice and our Christian call to care for God's creation. The day before our Earth Day service, our whole community had turned out for our first-ever Earth Day festival, a symphony of creative and inspiring activities that demonstrated our love for the Earth and many ways that we can care for creation and work to minimize our harmful impacts on the planet. The mood was celebratory and fun, as it should be. But Earth Day is also implicitly a recognition that something has gone wrong in our relationship with the natural world, something that needs fixing-something that we might describe in religious terms as a call to repentance, and even conversion.

Read full transcript...