Profile: Matthew and Nancy Sleeth
Matthew and Nancy Sleeth share the importance of caring for God's Creation.
"Christ has the answer to all problems, including environmental ones."
In just two years, Matthew Sleeth addressed church and civic groups almost 800 times. His message is always one of faith, always focused on caring for the earth and all that is upon it. Sleeth, now in his 50s, came to this commitment just a few years ago, while on vacation, on an island.
 “My wife and I were sitting outside in the nighttime, breeze blowing and this island had no cars, didn’t have light pollution, didn’t have the noise pollution. It was just absolutely beautiful. And Nancy asked me a question that was really to change my life, which was ‘what did I think was the biggest problem in the world?’ And I said that the world is dying. There aren’t chestnuts on Chestnut Street. There aren’t elms on Elm Street. There are no caribou in Caribou, Maine. There are no buffalo in Buffalo, New York. You can go on and on. And I don’t think that anybody can suppose that those changes can continue indefinitely like that and that things are going to turn out okay.”
At the time, Sleeth was an emergency room physician, and chief-of-staff at a hospital in Maine. The family had prestige, money, and security. Then he examined the human-made illnesses of creation.
“My diagnosis is that we have really approached this gift of creation and the earth as something just to supply our wants, and to be made profit off of to the extent that we’re not thinking about generations to come beyond us. And the diagnosis is, I think, pretty dire if we don’t change.”
“We feel like it’s our calling to help the church become not just an agent for change, but to become leaders of the environmental movement.”–Nancy Sleeth This concern was something the Sleeths felt deeply ... enough for them to reassess, and to change their entire lifestyle.
“I thought all these species are disappearing and if all these resources are being used up, how much does my family have to do with that? We realized we were dead average in what’s called your footprint. We decided we had to change, which meant moving to a house that was much smaller, and changing the way we got around and the way we ate, what we bought or didn’t buy. And I really then began to work on connecting that with the Bible, which I now had a whole new respect for.”
It went even farther than that; it meant moving in a whole new direction.
“I realized that I was really being called out of medicine, which was really difficult for me to accept because I loved it. And to go kind of on faith into a ministry that didn’t really exist.”
Matthew Sleeth grew up attending a Methodist Church, but says “it hadn’t taken” in him. His wife, Nancy, grew up in a Jewish home, but she wasn’t particularly religious either. They started attending a United Methodist Church. There, they found words of faith that validated their concerns and provided context to their new commitment.
 “We believe in being extravagantly generous with others and extravagantly generous with hospitality, but not wasting God’s resources. This world is on loan to us. It does not belong to us. None of it belongs to us, and we’re supposed to be good stewards of it. Genesis 2:15 says that we are to tend and protect the garden. That’s the first commandment that God gave to us. And it’s still in effect. So as God’s steward, God’s appointed steward, I believe that I’m supposed to use, not abuse, the earth that he has put on loan to us.”
Their faith and their commitment blossomed. Now they travel, they speak, and they write. Matthew’s 2006 book is entitled “Serve God, Save the Planet.”
“My wife has a book coming out with Tyndale Publishers called “Go Green, Save Green,” which I think primarily will be a tool for the moms and women of the home although anybody could use it. Very nuts-and-bolts, with those thousands of how do you do this, what do you clean clothes with that’s less toxic; these type of things. My daughter actually put a book out called It’s Easy Being Green. That’s out with Zondervan. And then I have a book coming up which I believe is gonna be called “God is Green.”
“God reveals himself through Creation and tasks us with caring for Creation.”–Matthew Sleeth Nancy Sleeth’s book is based on the myriad ways she has found to be kind to creation. Whenever it’s warm enough, she hangs her wash on the clothesline.
“Every time that you hang your laundry on the line instead of using a dryer, you save five pounds of coal from being taken down from the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee and Appalachia or Wyoming. And you save five pounds of greenhouse gasses from going up into the sky. It’s also a time of almost monastic simplicity and just a time to pray and be with God and listen to the birds.”
The Sleeths are sometimes called “tree huggers.”
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather be called now. The symbol of the Lord is the tree. It occurs on the first page. It says that trees were put here to be beautiful. It’s the first aesthetic that we’re given in the Bible. Trees go through the Bible and symbolize all these…if there’s a tree or a bush there something important is happening. And God’s on the scene.”
The Sleeths are members of The United Methodist Church, although they speak to all faith groups. Matthew thinks his church can make a big difference.
 “I would like to see The United Methodist Church have leadership both from grassroots up and from the top down. I believe that The United Methodist Church has this wonderful, wonderful theology that’s perfect for the problems that we have today, but that we really have to get a little bit more passionate about what it is that we do. We’ve got to think outside normal ministries, in a way, and we’ll grow as we serve.
To be effective, the church has to move beyond the sanctuary, out with the trees and the birds.
“It’s been wonderful to take groups of students out and clean up streams and that sort of thing, to actually physically do something. And so I would like to see The United Methodist Church become better stewards themselves, but just reach out with this tremendous heritage and tradition that they have to get outside the walls of the church and to make a difference.”
Nancy and Matthew Sleeth have found purpose in serving God by working to preserve God’s creation. They invite you to join them in that mission.
The following people contributed to this Profile:
Audio and print story by Mike Hickcox; videography by Carlos Jasso and Lisa Kelley, White Chocolate Video Productions. Additional video provided by Blessed Earth.
UMC.org Profiles are produced by Pam Price, 615-742-5405.
The Sleeth's Spiritual Gifts
Learn more about your spiritual gifts
The Sleeth's Recommended Resources
Serve God, Save the Planet by Matthew Sleeth
Go Green, Save Green by Nancy Sleeth
It's Easy Being Green by Emma Sleeth
Blessed Earth
High Resolution Video For Use In Worship Services
Windows Media
QuickTime
You may need to update your media player to view these videos properly: Windows Media Player | QuickTime Player
| 
