Creation Corner Column, January 2019: Greening Our Parishes
With calls to all energy-consuming sectors to reduce their consumption so as to reduce their carbon-footprint, our churches are attempting to respond as faithful environmental stewards to that call. Such creation care concerns can be followed with considering the following.
· Examine key biblical passages and denominational social statements.
· Review the ecological thought from those who historically witnessed as saints and seers.
· Read the treatises on the eco-theology subject by contemporary authors from your faith tradition.
· Look at your parish property practices, as with an energy and purchasing audit.
· Consider the environmental perspectives outside of the church, as from secular groups.
· Propose the start of a parish environmental "creation care" ministry.
· Promote a dialogue within parish ministries for education, worship, music, outreach, etc.
· Determine a priority "application" list for changes, as such may involve so-called "low-hanging fruit" quickly and easily accomplished in the areas of recycling, avoidance of toxic chemicals and plastic containers, water consumption reduction, car-pooling, paper types, insulation, thermostat settings, garbage/refuse reduction, re-lamping with more energy-efficient lights (CFLs, LEDs), among other ideas.
· Use the church calendar year and secular observances to raise up creation care concerns such as the January anniversary of the birth of Albert Schweitzer, the spring Soil and Water Stewardship Sunday Week materials, Arbor Day, Earth Day Sunday, the Environmental Sabbath, St. Francis Day, Harvest Home, CROP Walk, Thanksgiving, seasonal changes with each solstice and equinox, etc.
· Provide "take-home" messages to parishoners about lifestyle changes possible within their households.
· Urge the understanding of how financial stewardship (saving money on parish utility bills) intersects with environmental stewardship.
· Use outdoor camp experiences to teach learning from nature.
· Help people who acknowledge their concern for God's creation to be more seriously concerned by providing them with "next steps" they could take.
· Raise up topics for study group consideration: technology, ocean pollution, consumerism and resource depletion, Christian responsibility and endangered species, fertile soil, forests, abundant and clean water, human health and air pollution, energy conservation and efficiency, toxic chemicals, global climate disruption, etc.
· Provide a list of web resources; bibliographies of relevant books, periodicals and articles; social media sites; liturgical resources; ecumenical and inter-faith resolutions; appropriate films, television documentaries, music compact discs; dvd's; podcasts; novels; poetry; biographies; travel and nature writings, etc.
· Ask important questions about product purchase boycotts, fossil fuel divestment, legal actions, signing petition protest, endorsing and/or participating in environmental demonstrations, the questions having to do with "Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven"; "For where your treasure is there your heart will also be", "talking the talk and walking the walk", etc.
Much within the above list of 'pointers" are derived from Greening The Orthodox Parish: A Handbook for Christian Ecological Practice by Frederick W. Krueger, intended for the lay reader and those in ministry.
Also noted above are some suggestions of mine (this columnist) not included in Krueger's near-500 page text published in 2012 by The Orthodox Fellowship of the Transfiguration, with an introduction by Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarchate and Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome.
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Mike Ochs blogs at http://lutheransrestoringcreationblog.blogspot.com .
He earned a B.A. from Gettysburg College (1965), and a Master's from Lock Haven University (1989), where he studied the international Green Party movement.
