Did you know the Board of Regents help shape Nevada’s higher education? They set policies, oversee leadership, and decide how funding supports programs, facilities, and student services.

The statement Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice establishes the ELCA’s teachings on ecology and the environment, grounded in a biblical vision of God’s intention for the healing and wholeness of creation. It speaks of human beings as part of God’s creation and of the human responsibility as servants of all God has made. It provides a framework of hope rooted in God’s faithfulness for understanding this human role in creation, the problem of sin, and the current environmental crisis.

Caring for Creation expresses a call to pursue justice for creation through active participation, solidarity, sufficiency and sustainability, and states the commitments of the ELCA for pursuing wholeness for creation — commitments expressed through individual and community action, worship, learning, moral deliberation and advocacy.

You can read or download the full social statement Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope and Justice in English or en español. This statement was adopted in 1993 by the ELCA Churchwide Assembly.

Follow these links to find resources for understanding this social statement:

• Engage with the study guide | Download
• Read an introduction | Download
• Read a brief summary | Download

The ELCA has adopted a social message about climate care entitled “Earth’s Climate Crisis.” You can access the official message here in English and here in Spanish. Printed copies of the social message in English can be ordered here and Spanish printed copies can be ordered here.

A four-session study guide is also available to download here.

Drawing from existing social teaching, social messages provide theological rationale and social analysis to foster discernment and engagement on a relatively narrow social issue. This project was authorized in light of the grim contemporary situation affecting our global home and the need for fresh action on the part of this church. It draws its framing themes from several social statements, particularly Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice.

The social message was called for from several sources and was adopted by the ELCA Church Council on April 20, 2023. A draft version social message first went through a public feedback process and was edited in light of public comment.

English

Espanol

Every day, Nevadans pay the price of bad policy — through eviction notices, higher bills, and communities left behind. But hope costs less than despair.

When you give to Lutheran Engagement and Advocacy in Nevada (LEAN), you invest in real solutions: policies that make housing affordable, energy clean, and communities strong.

Together, we can ensure our resources fuel justice, not crisis.

Donate today.

Lutheran Engagement and Advocacy in Nevada

357 Clay Street

Reno, NV 89501

Water is life. Yet in the driest state in the nation, too many Nevadans lack access to clean, safe, and affordable drinking water.

This burden falls disproportionately on:

• Tribal communities
• Immigrant and farmworker families
• Rural households relying on domestic wells
• Low-income neighborhoods served by small or aging water systems

In a state defined by drought and scarcity, water access is not only an environmental concern, it is a matter of public health, economic justice, and human dignity.

Nevada Realities

• Nevada receives less than 10 inches of precipitation annually, making it the driest state in the U.S.
• More than 20,000 Native people in Nevada have lacked complete indoor plumbing, a sign of ongoing infrastructure inequity.
• Groundwater over-pumping threatens long-term water security for communities, agriculture, and ecosystems.
• When water is unsafe, families must rely on expensive bottled water, forcing impossible choices between water, food, housing, and medicine.

Water insecurity in Nevada is both geographic and racial, reflecting historic underinvestment and ongoing economic inequality.

Why This Matters to Lutherans

Water is central to our faith.

In baptism, we are:

• welcomed into the body of Christ
• marked with God’s promise
• called into a life of love for our neighbor

If some of our neighbors cannot safely drink from their own tap, the church is called to respond.

As the ELCA teaches:

• Caring for Creation: Water is a sacred trust, not a commodity to be used without regard for future generations.
• Sufficient, Sustainable Livelihood for All: Access to basic resources like water is essential for human dignity.
• Human Rights: Clean water is necessary for health, life, and community.

Because we are people of baptism, water justice is a faith issue.

LEAN supports policies and public investments that:

1. Strengthen Water Infrastructure

• Fund upgrades for rural and small community water systems
• Prioritize underserved and historically excluded communities

2. Support Tribal Water Access and Sovereignty

• Honor and implement Tribal water rights
• Invest in safe and reliable water infrastructure for Tribal nations

3. Protect Rural Nevadans Using Domestic Wells

• Provide free or low-cost well testing
• Expand access to arsenic and nitrate treatment systems

4. Ensure Water is Affordable

• Create equitable rate structures
• Prevent water shutoffs for vulnerable households

5. Safeguard Nevada’s Water Future

• Promote responsible groundwater management
• Protect water for people, ecosystems, and future generations

A Matter of Faithful Witness

At the font, we proclaim that water is a sign of God’s grace for all people.

That promise calls us into public life so that every household in Nevada—urban, rural, and Tribal—has access to water that is:

Safe
Reliable
Affordable

Water is life.
Water is dignity.
Water is a sacred trust.