Earth Care Congregation
In June, the PCUSA and Presbyterian Mission issued the Climate Care Challenge.
“As people of faith, we believe that God created this world, called it good and told humans to care for it. We are blessed to have this sacred task.”
It challenges participants to make personal steps to help decrease their personal impact on the earth. Here are some of their ideas in bold, followed by ideas of how to carry out the task.
1)Walk/bicycle, take public transportation, carpool, drive more efficiently, and avoid air travel.
We live in a suburb with inefficient public transportation and carpooling is not always feasible. We can, however, drive more efficiently. Increase your speed slowly and anticipate the traffic and slow down before applying the brakes. See if your car has a moment-by-moment miles per
gallon readout. Try it for a day to learn how driving habits can affect your gas mileage.
2)Eat a (more) plant-based diet or grow your own food.
Changing your habits to include just one night a week of meat-free eating will reduce your impact on the earth. Livestock and meat production produces more greenhouse gas, requires a lot more water and uses more fossil fuels than growing vegetables and grains. Make a simple
meal with grilled locally grown vegetables tossed in pasta and sauce.
3)Plant a tree or help restore a wetland.
Also don't over-water your lawn. Keep the grass slightly longer in the heat of the summer to shade the roots. Create landscapes with drought resistant plants or create rock gardens with native plants or succulents.
4)Reduce your energy use: replace your light bulbs with LEDs, add insulation, air dry clothes or do an energy audit. Wash your clothes in cold water. Today's detergents no longer need warm water to fully clean.
5)Reduce waste: recycle, compost, and buy less.
Yes, recycle whatever you can, but also shop smart for your food and pledge to eat leftovers. Americans throw away about 150,000 tons of food each day, which is about a third of the daily calories that we consume. Surprisingly, fruits and vegetables were the most likely to be thrown
out (because of their short shelf life) followed by dairy and meat.
6)Purchase renewable energy or carbon offsets.
7)Talk about why you care about climate change to your friends and family. Share one or two of these ideas with your close friends or family.
Thank you from your Earth Care Committee.
“As people of faith, we believe that God created this world, called it good and told humans to care for it. We are blessed to have this sacred task.”
It challenges participants to make personal steps to help decrease their personal impact on the earth. Here are some of their ideas in bold, followed by ideas of how to carry out the task.
1)Walk/bicycle, take public transportation, carpool, drive more efficiently, and avoid air travel.
We live in a suburb with inefficient public transportation and carpooling is not always feasible. We can, however, drive more efficiently. Increase your speed slowly and anticipate the traffic and slow down before applying the brakes. See if your car has a moment-by-moment miles per
gallon readout. Try it for a day to learn how driving habits can affect your gas mileage.
2)Eat a (more) plant-based diet or grow your own food.
Changing your habits to include just one night a week of meat-free eating will reduce your impact on the earth. Livestock and meat production produces more greenhouse gas, requires a lot more water and uses more fossil fuels than growing vegetables and grains. Make a simple
meal with grilled locally grown vegetables tossed in pasta and sauce.
3)Plant a tree or help restore a wetland.
Also don't over-water your lawn. Keep the grass slightly longer in the heat of the summer to shade the roots. Create landscapes with drought resistant plants or create rock gardens with native plants or succulents.
4)Reduce your energy use: replace your light bulbs with LEDs, add insulation, air dry clothes or do an energy audit. Wash your clothes in cold water. Today's detergents no longer need warm water to fully clean.
5)Reduce waste: recycle, compost, and buy less.
Yes, recycle whatever you can, but also shop smart for your food and pledge to eat leftovers. Americans throw away about 150,000 tons of food each day, which is about a third of the daily calories that we consume. Surprisingly, fruits and vegetables were the most likely to be thrown
out (because of their short shelf life) followed by dairy and meat.
6)Purchase renewable energy or carbon offsets.
7)Talk about why you care about climate change to your friends and family. Share one or two of these ideas with your close friends or family.
Thank you from your Earth Care Committee.
In 2019, our New Hope Earth Care Garden produced 307.5 pounds of produce for the OASIS food pantry. We provided tomatoes (LOTS of them!), bell peppers and zucchini to people who might not otherwise have had fresh produce to share with their families. Between this year and last year, we have harvested 529 pounds of produce. What a gift of ministry you have provided for our neighbors in need! Bless everyone who has had a hand in making this a stellar last couple of years for veggie gardening.
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Some Images of our visit to Brush Creek Valley Farm
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We’ve planted the first of our plants in the garden on the lower level! If you’re interested in helping to care for them and other plants as they’re added, please contact the church office.
April 2018 Earth Day Pictures
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Click on the link to the left to download the Earth Care Congregation Activity Form.
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SESSION COMMITS TO EARTH CARE
At its meeting on November 14, 2016, New Hope’s Session approved its Earth Care Team’s application to become an Earth Care Congregation of the Presbyterian Church (USA). As a part of the strategic planning process last year, the Session adopted this initiative of increasing our stewardship of creation and formed an Earth Care Team, led by Elder Cindy Martin.
The Earth Care Team began meeting this past summer and over the past five months have worked with other committees and teams of the Session to complete an “earth care audit” of our congregation as a means to help make us aware of how “earth-friendly” we currently are, as well as challenge us to take measures in the future to increase our stewardship of creation.
The Earth Care audit measures accomplishments or progress in four key areas of congregational life: Worship, Education, Facilities, and Outreach. To receive certification as an Earth Care Congregation, we must show activity, emphasis, or progress within each of these areas of focus in our attention to caring for creation. This is measured in achieving a point-total of 25 in each area of focus, for a total of 100 points needed for certification. There are many opportunities to achieve these points. Points may be achieved in the worship area, for instance, by singing a particular number of creation-related hymns per year, as well as holding at least one service of worship per year outdoors. In the area of education, points are awarded for such things as using earth-care related curricula and hosting speakers or programs on care of the earth. As a relatively new building (comparatively speaking), we do well in the area of facilities. Our energy efficiency is rated high because we all our windows are double-paned, our thermostats are programmable and do conduct regular and routine maintenance of our HVAC systems. In the area of outreach, we scored high for our youth taking a mission trip with care for the environment as its focus. As you will recall, our youth worked with Project Green Shores this summer building oyster reefs to protect and maintain the shoreline along Florida’s gulf coast. Other outreach related items for which to earn points are in a congregation’s advocacy for caring for the environment. While we needed to score 25 points in each category for a total of 100, our audit revealed a score of 213 spread out across those four categories.
The work continues as our Earth Care Team has begun to plan for next year and ways we can continue to increase our care for the environment. Lastly, as a part of the application for certification, our Session approved the Earth Care Pledge, which reads:
Peace and justice is God’s plan for all creation. The earth and all creation are God’s. God calls us to be careful, humble stewards of this earth, and to protect and restore it for its own sake, and for the future use and enjoyment of the human family. As God offers all people the special gift of peace through Jesus Christ, and through Christ reconciles all to God, we are called to deal justly with one another and the earth.
1. Our worship and discipleship will celebrate God’s grace and glory in creation and declare that God calls us to cherish, protect and restore this earth.
2. In education, we will seek learning and teaching opportunities to know and understand the threats to God’s creation and the damage already inflicted. We will encourage and support each other in finding ways of keeping and healing the creation in response to God’s call to earth-keeping, justice and community.
3. Our facilities will be managed, maintained and upgraded in a manner that respects and cherishes all creation, human and non-human, while meeting equitably the needs of all people. In our buildings and on our grounds we will use energy efficiently, conserve resources, and share what we have in abundance so that God’s holy creation will be sustainable for all life and future generations.
4. Our outreach will encourage public policy and community involvement that protects and restores the vulnerable and degraded earth as well as oppressed and neglected people. We will be mindful that our personal and collective actions can positively or negatively affect our neighborhood, region, nation and world. We will seek to achieve environmental justice through coalitions and ecumenical partnerships.
Our Earth Care Application will be submitted in early 201 and we will continue to make our care of the environment a priority in the life of our congregation. The members of New Hope’s Earth Care Team are Cindy Martin (Chair), Nicole Faubert, Bob Dencker, Deb Garten, Mark Phillips. All are welcome to be a part of this initiative, so if environmental stewardship is of interest to you please contact Cindy Martin at ckmartinrd@charter.net.
The Earth Care Team began meeting this past summer and over the past five months have worked with other committees and teams of the Session to complete an “earth care audit” of our congregation as a means to help make us aware of how “earth-friendly” we currently are, as well as challenge us to take measures in the future to increase our stewardship of creation.
The Earth Care audit measures accomplishments or progress in four key areas of congregational life: Worship, Education, Facilities, and Outreach. To receive certification as an Earth Care Congregation, we must show activity, emphasis, or progress within each of these areas of focus in our attention to caring for creation. This is measured in achieving a point-total of 25 in each area of focus, for a total of 100 points needed for certification. There are many opportunities to achieve these points. Points may be achieved in the worship area, for instance, by singing a particular number of creation-related hymns per year, as well as holding at least one service of worship per year outdoors. In the area of education, points are awarded for such things as using earth-care related curricula and hosting speakers or programs on care of the earth. As a relatively new building (comparatively speaking), we do well in the area of facilities. Our energy efficiency is rated high because we all our windows are double-paned, our thermostats are programmable and do conduct regular and routine maintenance of our HVAC systems. In the area of outreach, we scored high for our youth taking a mission trip with care for the environment as its focus. As you will recall, our youth worked with Project Green Shores this summer building oyster reefs to protect and maintain the shoreline along Florida’s gulf coast. Other outreach related items for which to earn points are in a congregation’s advocacy for caring for the environment. While we needed to score 25 points in each category for a total of 100, our audit revealed a score of 213 spread out across those four categories.
The work continues as our Earth Care Team has begun to plan for next year and ways we can continue to increase our care for the environment. Lastly, as a part of the application for certification, our Session approved the Earth Care Pledge, which reads:
Peace and justice is God’s plan for all creation. The earth and all creation are God’s. God calls us to be careful, humble stewards of this earth, and to protect and restore it for its own sake, and for the future use and enjoyment of the human family. As God offers all people the special gift of peace through Jesus Christ, and through Christ reconciles all to God, we are called to deal justly with one another and the earth.
1. Our worship and discipleship will celebrate God’s grace and glory in creation and declare that God calls us to cherish, protect and restore this earth.
2. In education, we will seek learning and teaching opportunities to know and understand the threats to God’s creation and the damage already inflicted. We will encourage and support each other in finding ways of keeping and healing the creation in response to God’s call to earth-keeping, justice and community.
3. Our facilities will be managed, maintained and upgraded in a manner that respects and cherishes all creation, human and non-human, while meeting equitably the needs of all people. In our buildings and on our grounds we will use energy efficiently, conserve resources, and share what we have in abundance so that God’s holy creation will be sustainable for all life and future generations.
4. Our outreach will encourage public policy and community involvement that protects and restores the vulnerable and degraded earth as well as oppressed and neglected people. We will be mindful that our personal and collective actions can positively or negatively affect our neighborhood, region, nation and world. We will seek to achieve environmental justice through coalitions and ecumenical partnerships.
Our Earth Care Application will be submitted in early 201 and we will continue to make our care of the environment a priority in the life of our congregation. The members of New Hope’s Earth Care Team are Cindy Martin (Chair), Nicole Faubert, Bob Dencker, Deb Garten, Mark Phillips. All are welcome to be a part of this initiative, so if environmental stewardship is of interest to you please contact Cindy Martin at ckmartinrd@charter.net.
