For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, climate and ecological breakdown are no longer distant threats.
They are here.
Right now.
Unfolding as you read these words.
The church cannot afford to look away. The world is shifting beneath our feet. 1.5°C is dead in the water, and we are on track for a world 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures. The dominoes are already falling—floods, fires, crop failures, mass migration, conflict, and societal collapse. It begins with the poorest nations—the least responsible, yet least prepared—but will soon break upon even those behind the walls of climate apartheid.
This is not the world we were prepared for. But it is the world we are called to be faithful in.
To be cruciform is to be shaped into the likeness of Jesus—formed in self-giving, sacrificial love. Too often, however, we have been shaped by the ways of the world: comfort, consumerism, power, and business as usual.
That shaping will not hold in the years to come.
The church must learn another way—a way of resilience and refuge. A way of truth and tenderness. A way of bearing witness to Christ, not in abstract words, but in lives that refuse to bow to the idols of this age. Lives of cruciform adaptation.
• Cruciform Truth: In a time of disinformation and distraction, the church must speak the truth. The truth of a world on fire. The truth of God’s justice and mercy. The truth that there is no faithful future in denial. We must tell the truth, however painful, to ourselves, our neighbours, and our political leaders.
• Cruciform Resistance: The church must resist the systems and structures that devour creation and discard the poor. The economy of extraction. The gods of growth. The myth that we can consume our way to safety. We must learn to live simply, stand in solidarity, and refuse to be bought.
• Cruciform Peacemaking: As the world fractures, the church must embody costly peace—cross-shaped peace, not cheap appeasement. Peacemaking that stands against oppression yet refuses vengeance.
• Cruciform Welcome: The displaced will come—those battered by crisis, those who can no longer survive where they once called home. Will the church be a place of sanctuary, or will we bolt the doors? In the years to come, hospitality will not be an optional virtue. It will be our witness.
• Cruciform Hope: The future is uncertain, the road ahead will be hard. But despair is not our calling. Hope is not found in wishful thinking but in the reality of resurrection—the stubborn belief that life can rise from ashes, that the kingdom is breaking in even now. We reject “hopium” and move in the ways of cruciform hope-filled realism.
• Cruciform Culture: The church must cultivate a way of life that stands apart from the ways of destruction. A culture of generosity, justice, and joy. A rhythm of resistance. A people whose daily lives point to another kingdom.
• Cruciform Evangelism: The gospel must be more than words. More than an escape plan. More than an abstract transaction. It must be embodied—tangible, rooted in the dust of a groaning creation. The good news of Jesus, not just for the soul but for all of life.
• Cruciform Discipleship: The road ahead will demand disciples, not consumers. Faithful followers, not passive spectators. We must be formed for endurance, not ease. For courage, not comfort. For long obedience, not stability, in a world that is unraveling.
The world we knew is slipping away.
But in the cracks of collapse, let us plant the seeds of the compassionate, cruciform kingdom.
—Rev’d Jon Swales, Lent 2025
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