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Your Congregation | Greening Resources | Community Outreach
Community
Outreach
(Local, National, and Global)
Greening
Ideas
Getting Started
Links to Community
Outreach Dimensions
Greening Ideas
As congregations begin to engage in stewardship
activities, they may want to go beyond their own walls to affect their
communities – both their human neighbors and broader ecological areas. The
following pages consist of four
dimensions in which congregations can reach beyond themselves and into
these communities: Hands-on Conservation/Restoration; Advocacy for Creation;
Community Education and Safe Dialogue Forums; and Eco-justice Efforts.
We begin this “Community Outreach” portion with getting started
ideas that may apply to any of the four dimensions.
Under each dimension, you’ll first find resources for learning
about and reflecting on ecological issues related to the dimension.
Then you’ll find examples of resources available to congregations
for assessing their ecological impacts and taking steps toward greater
ecological well-being.
Getting Started
· Assess your congregation’s readiness for outreach beyond the congregation. In some cases, outreach may have an immediate, mutually enriching effect on your congregation and the broader community (e.g., subscribing to a Community Supported Agriculture program). In other circumstances (e.g., facilitating a multi-congregation forum), the effort may require more immediate energy flowing out of the congregation – an effort that may actually be very rewarding in the long-run.
· Discover some of your ecological/environmental priorities. If you have a group, discuss any common “burning passions” for broader creation-care efforts. You may also want to consider what your congregation and community see as their most pressing ecological concerns. Try to find areas where your passions meet the community’s needs.
· Set up a meeting with your congregational leaders and present your outreach priorities and ideas. Have a conversation about their willingness to incorporate these ideas into the life of the congregation – and ways to do so (e.g., through missions efforts, in letter writing campaigns during an offertory, through youth group programs, through congregationally-hosted events, etc.). If your leaders share and support your ideas, you may then want to share some of the resources listed below with them.
· If you and your leaders decide to pursue any changes, be sure to maintain good communication before, during, and after your specific projects.
Links to Community Outreach Dimensions
Click on any of the following to go directly to the
dimension on which you’d like to focus:
a
Hands-on
Conservation/Restoration
a
Community
Education and Safe Dialogue Forums