|
|
Your Congregation | Colleagues | Colleague Sharing 2001
Colleague
Sharing 2001:
"What's Happening in Congregations"
Notes from 2001 Earth Ministry Colleague Consultations
St. Paul’s Episcopal
Church, Mt. Vernon.
The Colleague spoke of
various worship experiences highlighting creation awareness and care: a
post-Earth Day worship service at which Earth Ministry staff gave the sermon
and a choral piece that he arranged based on Donald Bunner’s musical
interpretation of Chief Seattle’s “This We Know.”
The Colleague was also very instrumental in helping to coordinate a
local water conference in cooperation with the Skagit Water Council
(consisting of 40 member organizations including Puget Sound Energy,
farmers, and tribes) and other congregations from the local community.
He invited Loretta Jancoski (former dean of the School of Theology
and Ministry at Seattle U.) to give a presentation in which she helped to
lay out an ethical framework for being able to discuss difficult water
issues from a variety of perspectives.
University Lutheran
Church, Seattle.
The Colleague is working
on helping the congregation to change its perception of the word
“stewardship” to go beyond money and extend to stewardship of creation.
She submitted an idea to her stewardship committee: in the
stewardship pledge sheets that they distribute to members, to include
personal and congregational pledges to care for creation.
The Colleague is also a
denominational representative to the state’s interfaith global climate
change group. She (and a few
others) drafted a resolution regarding the causes of climate change and how
to mitigate and forestall future damage.
Eleven pastors and nine church councils co-signed the resolution; it
then went to synod convention where it passed.
She is now in the process of recruiting a synod-wide task force on
climate change and they will be part of a training event in the spring
(other Colleagues are invited, please see Earth Notes for details).
Jeanne and others are
constantly trying to raise awareness and support for the Greening
Congregations program (sponsored by Earth Ministry).
One way of raising awareness is through a column (“Latter Day
Canaries”) in the church’s monthly newsletter.
Each person who contributes to the column addresses a creation-care
issue that is on his/her heart.
The church uses shade
grown/organic/fair trade coffee at their coffee hour and has “coffee
buying clubs” where individual members team up to buy large quantities of
coffee. They’ve used a video,
produced by Lutheran World Relief, to help explain the value of such coffee.
To order or borrow this video, go to http://www.lwr.org/involved/parishpro/coffee/video.html
for information.
Normandy Park, United
Church of Christ, Normandy Park.
The Colleague
Consultation/retreat was held at this church and we enjoyed the “nature
lane” in the back of the church. The
Colleague told us some of the history of this expansive (3 city lots owned
by the church) area full of native plants, birds, and other small creatures
(including children on many Sundays). She
takes the Sunday school children out into this area where she helps them to
pay closer attention to the natural world.
One of the ways that she helps them to do so is through sketching
things on the trail on a regular basis.
The Colleague is also adopting a part of the church’s back porch as
a place for planting native plants.
The Colleague and another
church member have put out boxes throughout the church in order to collect
recyclables. At this point, the
two take home the recyclables every week.
She would like to work with the church to pay a bit more money to
utilities so that the church can have direct recycling services.
Ten church members
participated in a study on a book called Organic Prayer, by Nancy
Roth. The book has six
chapters, and the group studied two chapters each night in a three-night
series. The Colleague said that
the book was quite helpful and included meditations and study questions.
Her pastor did another book study on Beyond Guilt, by George
Johnson – a book that looks at how churches can be active around a variety
of concerns, including environmental ones.
The Colleague also spoke
of simple ways in which church members can come to appreciate the natural
world. She showed us an example
of pressed-flower cards that women made at a recent women’s retreat.
(They were lovely!)
Fairwood United
Methodist Church, Renton.
The Colleague brought a
beautiful display of a wide variety of activities in which the church has
been involved in the last several months.
She showed us colorful signs from a recent “Crop Walk” (a
fundraising walk for people in developing countries, through Church World
Service) that helped walkers to better understand the conditions of farmers
and ecosystems throughout the world – for example, shade-grown coffee
farmers and migratory birds and their habitat.
The Colleague helped to
put on a fair trade, organic, shade-grown coffee tasting time during her
fellowship hour. She brought a
large display of coffees and teas that she had presented during this time.
She also handed out information sheets on the varieties of coffee and
where they can be purchased locally. (For
a broad list of sources, go to http://www.seattleaudubon.org/Coffee/html/stores.html.)
The Colleague also
brought information on a recent “Compact Fluorescent Light Show” that
she did after worship one Sunday. She
provided a light display of 50 different light bulbs, and information on
compact fluorescents and where to purchase them.
She also brought us each
a copy of a little book that the social concerns committee compiled called
“Resource Conservation Ideas.” The
booklet came out of a worship service in which each person was given a sheet
of paper on which to write down their own ideas for household conservation
around water use, electricity/natural gas use, and transportation (including
the questions: “Are you interested in carpooling from church to work?
Yes _____ Name _____________”).
People (including children and youth) were given enough time to write
down their ideas – many of which were thoughtful (e.g., keep car tires
inflated and engines tuned), and a few playful (e.g., don’t wash
clothes…don’t wear clothes). Then
the church secretary compiled all of the ideas into the booklet that was
then given to each of the church members as inspiration from their fellow
members. It’s a wonderful
testimony to members’ creativity and creation-care commitment.
Many other activities
include: a hike/bike to church day with awards for creative bikes and other
modes of getting there; ivy removal; tree planting (over 50) and salmon
restoration at Cavanaugh Ponds; plant salvaging; six hikes with a hiking
group; gleaning 4000 lbs. of apples for a food bank; church garden; sermons;
and much more!
Lake Burien
Presbyterian Church, Lake Burien.
The Colleague spoke of
the church’s memorial garden – a beautiful one with native plants.
She spoke of efforts to
do energy retrofits on certain parts of the church building – from
insulating the sanctuary to a variety of energy saving lighting projects (a
retired Boeing engineer has done a great deal with compact fluorescent bulbs
and other energy saving devices).
They have gotten rid of
disposable (plastic) plates and utensils for fellowship times.
Instead, the church uses washable plates, etc. and pays the youth
group a small amount of money to wash them.
This serves as income for the youth group as well as saving
“resources.”
The adult forum group
watched and discussed a video series called “Cherishing God’s
Creation.” The five-part
series (produced by the Presbyterian Church, USA) looks at the themes of
“Earth, Air, Water, Habitat, and People.”
(This video may be borrowed from Earth Ministry’s resource library,
[206] 325-4200, ask for Tovi Harris.) Another
group in the church also studied Earth Ministry’s curriculum/anthology, Simpler
Living, Compassionate Life, over a several week series.
St. Paul’s Episcopal
Church, Seattle.
[Two Colleagues came from
this church.] One Colleague is
on the stewardship committee in his church and believes that “stewardship
involves every aspect of our being in the body of Christ” – aspects that
include deep care for creation. He
is trying to help this understanding to grow in the committee and the
broader congregation, and has written for the church bulletin promoting
these ideas. He also recently
gave a sermon on St. Francis (around his “feast day” in October) helping
to further his ideas on stewardship.
The Colleague would like
to help the church to revise its mission statement to help incorporate
creation stewardship dimensions. He
would also like to help the church to become more energy efficient.
The other Colleague spoke
of her efforts with grounds care. She
as been drawing on some of the resources in Earth Ministry’s Handbook
for Creation Awareness and Care in Your Congregation to help the grounds
to be more environmentally friendly. She
has also written up a lovely booklet on the garden – it’s purpose as a
“sacred space,” history, and guidelines – to better help people to
understand and appreciate it.
Christie also spoke of
“The Green Space” that she and Frank have now reserved in the bulletin
and/or newsletter. It is a
“space set aside … to focus on our stewardship of the earth and care for
all creation.” It includes
“brief announcements, book reviews, articles of interest, poetry, or
special quotations.” A
“Green Space” bulletin board also exists in the narthex for such
materials as well. In the
newsletter, the Colleagues include their phone number for anyone who may be
interested in creation care.
Garden Street United
Methodist Church, Bellingham.
The Colleague is working
through the church’s social action team to bring greater awareness to
creation-care opportunities. In
particular, she is very interested in promoting the Greening Congregations
program as a way for people to come together as a church and broader
community on often polarizing issues. She
finds that just the conversations around creation care help to break down
some of this polarization. So
far, she has seen this start to happen as church members begin to explore
United Methodist Church (UMC) guidelines on creation-care that encompass
care for environment, economic well-being, and social concerns.
She has found it helpful to address the links between social and
environmental well-being as a way of bringing people together on difficult
issues. For example, a very
polluting pulp mill in Bellingham just closed – this left the community
with great pollution problems and severe job losses.
Earth Ministry staff came to speak after this closure, and those
present discussed the UMC guidelines on environmental and economic justice
and how they shed light on the current mill-closure situation – and how
diverse people might come together in that difficult time.
The
Colleague also spoke of a well-received, two-part Sunday school series
sponsored by the social action team on water.
The first class was led by the head of Huxley’s Watershed
Institute, and for the second class, the Colleague showed an excellent video
called “Water, Sacred and Profaned.”
(She borrowed the video from the local library, it can be purchased
for $25 from Foundation for Global Community, www.globalcommunity.org/cgvideo/index.)
Both classes saw lively discussion and desire for follow up.
Church
of the Holy Spirit, Vashon Is.
The
Colleague is part of a community group that is surveying all of the
streams of Vashon – members literally walked and surveyed all of the
streams in one year, to assess the heal of the streams for salmon and other
creatures. (They will do a
similar survey, in 2002, with bulkheads to see which are impeding salmon.)
She contacted all of the ten congregations on the island to look for
volunteers, and two congregations responded with volunteers.
The
Colleague has a desire to work ecumenically with other island congregations
on creation care and looks for ways to foster this work.
Currently several active congregations are building benches for
people in low-income housing projects to better enjoy the natural world.
She would like to identify and to work with a core group of people
working on this project to see if she can encourage their involvement in
other creation-care efforts.
The
church’s vestry has hired a landscaper (who is also a minister) to come up
with a plan for the grounds. For
example, the church will have meditation trails with footbridges over
sensitive areas. The landscaper
will also present a list of native/drought tolerant trees to people who want
to do memorial tree plantings – so that they can choose from some of the
most environmentally beneficial plants.
Unity
Church of Kent, Kent.
The
Colleague spoke of the leadership at his church, and specifically how the
co-pastors (husband and wife) have been greatly inspired by Matthew Fox.
For example, after hearing Fox give a presentation, they came back to
the church, took out all of the pews, and now the church meets “in the
round” where there is a greater sense of connection and equality among
members and with leaders.
The
Colleague described the sense that many Unity churches are fairly “inward
looking” (i.e., concerned about personal spirituality and change) and that
he is currently helping to foster a new “justice making” dimension in
the church. The pastors are
supportive, and the Colleague gives a “justice making” presentation at
the end of each week after the sermon.
Being a long-time environmental advocate, the Colleague often speaks
on issues such as global warming, forestry, and other creation-care
concerns.
The
Colleague has designed and offered several excellent classes.
One called “Sacred by Design” looks at a how a variety of
religions show reverence for the natural world.
(The Colleague’s presentation will eventually be on our web site.)
He also did a presentation on persistent bioaccumulative toxins (PBTs),
using a slide show put out by Physician for Social Responsibility (www.psr.org).
He soon will give a presentation on the Union of Concerned
Scientists’/National Partnership for Religion and the Environment’s
video “Keeping the Earth” (an excellent video, available through out
resource library, [206] 325-4200, ask for Tovi Harris.)
The church’s youth group is also active in “justice making” activities. For example, they recently did a 30-hour fast for world hunger and simultaneously engaged in a tree-planting project.