For two years, we’ve been researching the unique role churches can play in a climate-changed world. Now we’re ready to share our findings with you.
In April 2026, The BTS Center published a landmark research report documenting what 12 congregations across Northern New England learned when they spent five months rigorously discerning their communities’ unique role in a climate-changed world.
Drawing on rigorous social science research, the report offers a bracing and hopeful account of what happened when beautifully ordinary faith communities stopped waiting for a playbook from outside experts and started paying attention to what was already alive in them.
Program Research Report
The Question
The evening featured opening remarks from Ben Yosua-Davis, Director of Applied Research at The BTS Center, followed by reflections from program participants, scholars, and climate practitioners who helped shape the research. Together they addressed the question at the heart of All That Is Within Us: not whether congregations should engage the climate crisis, but whether faith communities have something irreplaceable to offer that no solar company, policymakers, or tech startup can replicate.
The answer that emerged from the research, surprising even to its authors, was a resounding yes.
Why the Answer Matters
All That Is Within Us arrives at a moment when both the church and the climate movement are searching for new sources of motivation, meaning, and staying power.
This report is not a five-step greening guide. It is an invitation to reframe what success looks like in the face of existential threats — to move from solution-seeking toward vocation-claiming and from institutional anxiety toward grounded faithfulness.
Whether you lead a congregation or denominational governing body, or you simply find yourself asking what work is meaningfully yours in a climate-changed world: this report is for you.
The Research Event
In April 2026, The BTS Center hosted a head-and-heart celebration of this report’s publication. The event not only discussed the findings and implications of our research; it incorporated moving storytelling, grounded researchers’ wisdom, and beautiful music from Fendrick & Peck. Watch the event recording here, or click below to learn more about the event.
Claiming Your Call: About the Program
If you’re looking for information about this year’s cohort of Claiming Your Call for a Climate-Changed World, click here.
About the Principal Researcher
Ben Yosua-Davis serves on The BTS Center staff team as Director of Applied Research, where he shapes the organization’s posture of “rigorous and reverent curiosity,” focused on research that supports and shares the wisdom of on-the-ground practitioners working in a climate-changed world. He is a graduate of Drew Theological Seminary and Colby College.
Previously, he lived in Haverhill, MA, where he co-planted a new church called The Vine, one of the earliest mainline missional church expressions in the country, and hosted a podcast entitled, “Reports From the Spiritual Frontier,” which chronicled the day-to-day lives of leaders innovating new forms of spiritual community.
Ben is a Maine native and now lives on Chebeague Island, Maine with his wife, Melissa, his son Michael, and his daughters, Genevieve and Emeline; where he directs the community chorus and delivers tins of cookies to unsuspecting neighbors.