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#006 What is a Kilowatt-Hour & How To Use Less of Them

Your electric bill is full of terms and numbers that all add up to one thing. Electricity is expensive and is probably a major part of your monthly budget. Here are some tips and information that will help you understand how to be better stewards of the energy you use.

What is a Kilowatt-Hour (kWh)?

Easy, Right? Kilo is a prefix that means “thousand” so a Kilowatt is one-thousand watts.

But, here’s where it gets a bit more complicated. To completely unravel the meaning of a Kilowatt-hour, we have to look at three concepts – power, energy, and work. Although we tend to toss these terms around when talking about how much power we use and how to save it, it is important to understand that power and energy and work are not different terms for the same thing.

  • Energy is the amount of work that can be done by a force — for our purposes, the force that we are considering is electric power. Energy is measured in units called “joules”. (Joules will never appear on your electric bill so don’t worry!)
  • A joule is equal to the work required to continuously produce one watt of power for one second.
  • Power is the rate that energy is used or generated. It is measured by dividing the amount of energy (measured in joules) by time. Power is expressed in watts

So, a watt is the rate that energy is used or generated and a kilowatt-hour (kWh). It is the base unit that electric companies use to measure the energy that your household or business uses. For every kilowatt-hour you see on your electric bill, you have moved the equivalent of 1000 watts through your electric meter for one hour (or 500 watts through your electric meter for two hours).

Since your electric bill reflects the amount of energy that you use over a period of time (most likely a month) reducing your total electric bill is a matter of reducing your consumption (consumption is a combination of how much and how fast you use energy).

This means that there are three ways that you you can conserve (use less) energy at home. You can:

  • use less energy over the same amount of time (e.g. if you have a lightbulb that is on for one hour, reduce the amount of energy used by using a less powerful lightbulb)
  • use the same amount of energy for less time (e.g. leave the lightbulb on for only half the time that it is usually on)
  • combine these strategies and use less energy for a shorter period of time (e.g. use a less powerful lightbulb and leave it on for half the time you usually do).

Here are some practical examples to help you get a better grasp on the math used to calculate your monthly electric bill. For our calculations, we’ll assume that 1 kWh costs 11 cents. This is what the Department of Energy calculated the average cost of a kWh was in 2007. (If you look on your electric bill, you can determine the amount that you are paying for 1 kWh).

Let’s start with a 150 watt light bulb that you leave on for one hour

  • Your total cost would be 150watts * 1 hour or 150 watt-hours.
  • Converting this to kWh by dividing 150/1000 you get .15 kWh.
  • Figuring out how much this lightbulb will cost you is done by:  .15kWh * .11 for each kWh = .0165 or about a penny and a half.

If you have ten 150 watt light bulbs to light your lobby, each of which are on for one hour, just multiply the result for one 150 watt bulb by 10. The result would be .165 or or 16 and one-half cents.

You might think that to reduce your expense you can reduce the amount of power you use which would allow you to leave your lights on longer. Here is why this doesn’t work:

Let’s say you switch to a 60-watt bulb but because it is getting darker sooner, you leave it on for 5 hours

  • Your total costs would be 60watts * 5 hours or 300 watt-hours
  • Convert this to kWh by dividing 300/1000 and you get .30 kWh
  • Figure out how much this lightbulb costs is by multiplying .30 * .11 = .033 or a little more than three cents. This is twice the expense of our previous example.

On the surface, .01 or .03 doesn’t add up to much. But if you consider all the power consumed by your washer, dryer, stove and air conditioner as well as the power consumed by your lights, and combine them with how long they are used, you can see how fast your electric bill increases. You can also see that the only way to reduce your electric bill is to reduce the amount of power that each item uses as well as how long it is used.

Here’s another example:

Let’s say that you decide to air-condition a small office at your church using a window air conditioner. When you buy the air conditioner, look on the label (or you look at the air conditioner itself) and find that it uses 5.9 amps at 120 volts. With this information, you can calculate how much power (watts) it uses by multiplying 5.9 * 120 = 708 watts

If you run the air conditioner for 7 hours per day:

  • Your total costs would be 708 watts * 7 hours or 4956 watt-hours per day
  • Convert this to kWh by dividing 4956/1000 and you get 4.956 kWh per day
  • Figure out how much the air conditioner will cost to run each day by multiplying 4.956 * .11 = .545 or about .55 cents per day.
  • If you are planning to use the air conditioner 20 days per month, then your total cost per month would be .55 * 20 or $11.00

Note that your total cost may be less. That’s because the amount of power that the air conditioner draws (5.9 amps) is the maximum power it uses when it is actually cooling the air — not just running the fan to move air around.

Some Strategies for Reducing Your Electrical Costs

As we said before, there are only three ways that you can effectively reduce your energy costs — make them more efficient by reducing the amount of total energy that each of your appliances and lights uses, reducing the amount of time that the items are used or combining both these tactics.

Here is a quick checklist that you might consider when putting together a strategy for your church (or home) to be better stewards of the energy we have:

  1. Many of today’s appliances draw power even when they are “off”. Look at all of these “phantom energy devices” and either unplug them when they are not in use or put them on power strips with strips. (Check your owner’s manual — especially for computers to see if the device can really be “turned off”).
  2. As your light bulbs burn out (don’t trash perfectly good light bulbs), replace them with compact fluorescent (CF) bulbs. These CF bulbs provide the same amount of light using less power. If you are concerned with appearance and want to replace a group of bulbs all at once (say in a constantly lit lobby area) develop a program that removes the regular (incandescent) bulbs and uses them to replace bulbs as needed in areas where they are used for only short periods of time. Areas like closets, basements and storage rooms are good candidates for a “roll-over” program like this.
  3. Start a program to replace standard light switches with light switches that sense if a room is occupied. These switches automatically turn off lights after a period of time if the room is not occupied and turn on the lights when someone walks into the room.
  4. If you have refrigerators or freezers that are “underutilized”, consider combining their contents into a single place and turning off the unused refrigerators or freezers until they are needed (say right before the next potluck dinner).
  5. A huge part of your energy bill is probably from heating and cooling. Work with your heating and cooling contractor to reduce that amount of energy you used to heat and cool the building. Raising the cooling temperature or reducing the heating temperature helps as does making sure that you heat and cool areas only when they are needed. Many areas of church buildings are only used for specific periods during the week. When they are not being used, automatically turning off or reducing heating or cooling can make a big difference in energy usage.
  6. Check to see if your building is “leaking energy”. You can get a major energy audit of your building which will identify “energy-leaky” areas such as roofs and basements but you can also check your doors and windows to make sure that they close tightly, that the weather stripping is in good order and that the doors and windows themselves and are in good condition.
  7. If you have different parts of your buildings that require different amounts of cooling and heating, make sure that these areas are closed off from one another. This makes your heating and cooling more efficient.
  8. Heat water only when you need it. If you have restrooms that aren’t used during the week or kitchens that are not consistently used, consider putting a timer or a switch on your water-heater.
  9. If you are doing any remodeling at all, add insulation and energy efficiency wherever and whenever you can. The cost of energy is only going to go up and whatever you do to reduce the amount of energy you use is going to free dollars to be used somewhere else in your church. Adding extra insulation, getting the most energy efficient appliances and devices you can purchase is always a good investment when it comes to saving energy.
  10. If you have a large building with required “always-on” items such as safety lights and exit signs, consider replacing these with lower-energy equivalents. For example, exit signs that use incandescent bulbs use more electricity than new ones that use LEDs (light emitting diodes). With the formulas above, it is easy to calculate the pay back is for a replacement project such as this.

Much of the research and calculations for this article was done by Lea Chinn who is serving as a summer intern with Care of Creation. Lea is an Environmental Science major who is home for the summer.

#005 – What To Do With Church Parking?

Face it… in the USA and many other parts of the world, we love our cars. We have grown into a car addicted society. There are many reasons for this not the least of which are the way that our neighborhoods are built. In many suburbs, where we shop, where we work and where we worship may be far away from where we live.

Very often, the amount of parking a building is required to have is dictated by local zoning ordinances. These ordinances (which sometimes specify 1 space for every 4 people that the building is designed to hold) make it not so unusual to see buildings where parking areas take up more space than the buildings they are designed to serve.

So, this makes parking a key consideration when designing or expanding a worship facility. Continue reading →

#004 – The Story of Styrofoam

This is a true story about how one person with a committed heart toward Creation Care changed a long standing habit of a lot of people. It’s also a story about how something small can get people thinking about caring for God’s creation

Mad City Church in Madison WI is a church that does not yet own a building. Since Mad City started meeting in 1996, they have rented space in a number of buildings. As they have grown, so has the space that they needed.

Part of Mad City’s Sunday morning fellowship is a coffee time. With a church the size of Mad City, their morning fellowship is more than just a “small coffee maker and a few cakes”. Just because it was easier or perhaps because of cost, Mad City has been using styrofoam (styrofoam is Dow Chemical’s trade name for its blown foam polystyrene product) coffee cups for a long time. That is until one person in the church decided that there was a better way.

Kathy was attending a study group where the subject of creation care was being discussed. These discussions led her to do some research on using styrofoam cups or paper cups and exactly what effect both styrofoam and paper cups had on the refuse stream and landfills that the church was generating.

Here are some interesting facts about polystyrene (styrofoam):

  • The main ingredient of polystyrene is styrene, a petroleum by-product. This means that polystrene cups, trays and food containers are not a sustainable product.
  • In the food service applications, polystyrene products are important because they are ideal for making “one-time-use” containers and utensils. One time use is important for sanitary reasons — especially in applications for hospitals and schools.
  • Polystyrene foam products are 95 percent air and only five percent polystyrene. When polystyrene foam is produced, a blowing agent primarily (Pentane and Carbon Dioxide) is used in the process.
  • Your instinct might be to use paper cups instead of polystyrene cups because of their biodegradable qualities. However, according to an article published in 2006 in Environmental Management Magazine, (available here) “Once used both cup types (paper and styrene) may be recycled. Landfill disposal of the two items under dry conditions will occupy similar landfill volumes after compaction and will confer similarly slow to nonexistent decomposition to either option.
  • There is a lot of conflicting and uncertain information about the amount of energy required to manufacture paper cups and styrene cups and the amount of energy required to wash re-usable mugs.
  • Tests have been done regarding the leakage of polystyrene from food and beverage containers into the food that they contain. Although the tests are inconclusive as they apply to cancer causing agents, the site “Earth Resource” (at http://www.earthresource.org/campaigns/capp/capp-styrofoam.html)  points out that “Styrene is classified as a possible human carcinogen by the EPA and by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).”
  • A 2006 article in the Penn online said that “Styrofoam does not dissolve and has the chance of remaining for more than 400 years before any changes in its physical makeup occur. It is estimated that Styrofoam waste takes up 25 percent to 30 percent of all landfill space.” Other sources pointed out that decomposition time is anywhere between 100 and 1000 years. This means that every bit of styrofoam that has ever been produced is still somewhere on the planet — in our landfills or in our oceans or rivers.

Based on these facts and other research, Kathy had a simple solution — don’t use either paper or styrofoam! Use something that had less impact on the refuse stream.

So, Kathy collected a large number of coffee mugs (some that she had and some that she got from various local thrift shops) and put them out with a sign next to the regular stack of Sunday styrofoam. The sign gave some health facts about styrofoam and also listed some of the impact that styrofoam has on the environment.

Short but sweet.

She also recruited a group of volunteers to collect the mugs at the end of the coffee time, take them home, wash them and return them next week. Her sign also mentioned that people could (and should) bring their own mugs as a personal way to help the environment.

The point of her campaign was to get people to take a moment and think about what they were doing instead of simply reaching for a styrofoam cup like they always did.

People’s first reaction to the sign and the cups was a bit strange. For some of them, this was the first time that they thought about the whole issue of church and the environment. For others, they got the concept of small creation care steps right away.

The great thing about this is that the whole effort was organized by a few people. It also delivered a powerful message about caring for the environment and how that fits with our belief in God as the creator.

What about the future? Kathy says that she has hopes that this might be the first in a series of events that gets Mad City Church thinking about creation care and changing some of the things that they do on a regular basis.

Just goes to show that a Green Team at church has a lot of opportunities to  be creative as they encourage others to care of creation.

Think that this would work in your church? How about giving it a try.

Sources:

The American Chemestry Council: http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_plastics/sec_pfpg.asp?CID=1433&DID=5225

The Penn: http://media.www.thepenn.org/media/storage/paper930/news/2006/02/27/Variety/The-NeverDecomposing.Story-2231420.shtml

#003 – Bike to Church Day

Our cars are both a blessing and a curse. Sure, they allow us to reach far and wide and reach all kinds of places in all kinds of weather. But, you have to admin that America is in love with their cars. We have forgotten the joys of walking or riding the short distances from our house to where we are going.

Consider this. For those who want to be better stewards of God’s creation by taking some steps toward reducing their dependency on cars (with the benefit of cutting pollution and becoming a bit more healthy), their commute to church is probably one of the best places to start.

Here are a few reasons why:

  1. Many people live close enough to where they worship that a walk or bicycle ride can be done at a leisurely pace with not too much physical exertion.
  2. Sunday is a great day to ride. Streets are less busy. This is great for the person who may not feel comfortable riding heavy weekday traffic.
  3. Parking at many churches (especially in city locations) is sometimes difficult. When you ride a bike or walk, you free up a space for a visitor.
  4. In many churches, casual dress is quite acceptable. You can dress for church and a short ride at the same time.

A Plan to Encourage Riding

One of the best ways to get people to ride to church is to have a once a month bike to church day. (in some areas of the country, you may only be able to have them in the Spring, Summer and Fall). Publicize the “ride days” early enough that people have time to plan ahead, think about what they are doing and how they are helping our planet and how they are being good stewards.

Next, make sure that you have a secure place for riders to park and lock their bicycles. If you don’t have a bike rack at your church, now is the time to get (or build) one or two of them. Place these racks near the front entrance so that everyone coming to church can see them and see the bikes that are parked in them.

On the bike to church days, you might want to have “green greeters” who hand out water bottles or water (in recyclable paper cups of course) or snacks to those who ride.

Organize a “bike trade” day. This allows people who have used bikes they no longer need to give them or trade them to people who do. It also allows those who may want to participate but don’t have a bicycle to get or borrow one.

Encourage others to join by designating a kickoff day (we suggest that it is the third or fourth riding Sunday of the season so that people have a chance to get energized by the idea). The week after the kick off day,  publicize the oldest and youngest person to arrive on a bike and maybe the shortest and furthest bike trip that day. Also call the local newspaper and let them know of your event.

If you want to tie your biking program into a local missions project, contact a local agency that fixes and re-distributes bicycles to people who need them. Have people in your congregation donate bicycles that they no longer use to the agency. They may not be able to ride, but maybe they can encourage and enable others in this area of stewardship. You may also want to consider having a “bike tune up” class at your church for the community on the week before the kickoff day.

As a green team member, it is a blessing that you have chosen to set an example to others and help them become better stewards of God’s creation. There is no reason that you can’t have fun doing it too!bicycle_rack.jpg

#002 – Recycling Basics

Most likely, if you were going to ask people what they, as individuals, could do to help care for creation, recycling would probably be among the top 5 answers they give.

Towns and municipalities have recycling programs because they reduce “tipping fees”. These are the fees that the town has to pay to dispose of a specific volume of waste at a landfill. In other words, the less you “toss”, the less you pay.

Recycling is part of the “3-R’s” of environmental care and is actually the “end of the chain”. I say end of the chain because if the first two of the “R’s” are done correctly, the 3rd “R” wouldn’t be needed.

The 3 R’s are:

  • Reduce: reduce your use of items thereby reducing the amount of material you put into the waste stream.
  • Reuse: reuse items so that they never go into the waste stream. Glass jars are a good example of a reusable item. Reusing an empty glass jar to store soup or other item makes sure that it never even goes out to the trash.
  • Recycle: if you do have to dispose of something, by all means, try to recycle it (allow it to be turned into something else). This prevents the use of additional energy and materials required to manufacture a new item.

How To Recycle

There are no standards for what you can and can not recycle and how to recycle. In most cases, the exact how and why is left up to your city or town or to the company that actually picks up your trash.

The first thing that you should do if you are thinking about starting or improving a recycling program in your church is to contact the folks who faithfully come each week to collect your rubbish. If you don’t know who they are, you can either contact your town’s public works department or call the number that is on the front of the large trash bin that is emptied each week.

Ask whoever you talk to for a “recycling guide”. This will tell you things like:

  • What materials can I recycle? Can I recycle paper, plastic, wood, cardboard and other materials.
  • How do I have to package these materials? Does the cardboard have to be flattened or bundled? Can I recycle glossy paper (like magazines)?
  • Do I have to separate recyclable materials or can they all be in one container? This is called ‘single stream’ recycling.
  • How often will your recyclables be picked up? Is there a minimum or maximum amount of materials that can be disposed of at one time? This is important because you will have to arrange for adequate storage space between pick-up days.

Be aware that although you might be familiar with some of your town’s recycling rules for home trash, because your church may be considered a commercial business, the recycling rules and regulations might be different.

Plastics, Plastics, Plastics

Identifying things like paper and cardboard are pretty easy. Paper types that can be recycled are usually identified as “standard office paper” (the stuff you run through copy machines and fax machines) or “coated glossy” paper (typically found in magazines or brochures). Identifying cardboard is also pretty straight forward (although, for some reason, your refuse company might exclude pizza boxes or imported cardboard from the items it takes as recyclables. The exclusion of pizza boxes might be something worth considering next time you have a youth group pizza event!)

Plastics are a bit more of a challenge. To help consumers identify what plastics can be recycled (and also what plastics to purchase), the American Chemistry Council developed a resin identification coding system. This coding system are the small numbers surrounded by the familiar recycling arrows that appear on the bottom of most plastic containers. Your hauler will most likely have a list of what they will or will not take as recyclables. Items on this list will be identified by the resin identification coding system.

Here’s a brief description of what these codes mean (1) and an indication of what things you should be rescuing from the trash stream so that they can be recycled:

  • Recycle Code 1 (PET): PET or PETE stands for Polyethylene Terephthalate. It is usually found in items such as:
    • Plastic bottles for soft drinks, water, juice, sports drinks, beer, mouthwash, catsup and salad dressing.
    • Food jars for peanut butter, jelly, jam and pickles.
    • Ovenable film and microwavable food trays.
  • Recycle Code 2 (HDPE): High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) is used in
    • Bottles for milk, water, juice, cosmetics, shampoo, dish and laundry detergents, and household cleaners.
    • Bags for groceries and retail purchases
    • Cereal box liners
    • Reusable shipping containers.
  • Recycle Code 3: Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC, Vinyl). This material is used in:
    • Blister packs and clamshells.
    • Bags for bedding and medical, shrink wrap, deli and meat wrap and tamper resistance packaging.
    • In addition to packaging, PVC’s major uses are rigid applications such as pipe, siding, window frames, fencing, decking and railing.
  • Recycle Code 4: Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE). LDPE is found in:
    • Bags for dry cleaning, newspapers, bread, frozen foods, fresh produce, and household garbage.
    • Shrink wrap and stretch film.
    • Coatings for paper milk cartons and hot and cold beverage cups.
    • Container lids.
    • Toys.
    • Squeezable bottles (e.g., honey and mustard).
  • Recycle Code 5: Polypropylene (PP). Polypropylene is used to make:
    • Containers for yogurt, margarine, takeout meals, and deli foods.
    • Medicine bottles.
    • Bottle caps and closures.
    • Bottles for catsup and syrup.
  • Recycle Code 6: Polystyrene (PS). PS is used for:
    • Food service items, such as cups, plates, bowls, cutlery, hinged takeout containers (clamshells), meat and poultry trays, and rigid food containers (e.g., yogurt). These items may be made with foamed or non-foamed PS.
    • Protective foam packaging for furniture, electronics and other delicate items.
    • Packing peanuts, known as “loose fill.”
    • Compact disc cases and aspirin bottles.
  • Recycle Code 7: This code is used to indicate that the item is made of resin but is not one of the types listed above. It is typically found on:
    • Three- and five-gallon reusable water bottles,
    • Some citrus juice and catsup bottles.
    • Oven-baking bags, barrier layers, and custom packaging.

A couple of other things to note:

  • Some states have deposit rules on bottles and aluminum beverage cans. If your state has these laws, by all means collect and return these bottles for the deposits. The beverage companies take responsibility for recycling items like these.
  • Check with your refuse hauler or town to see about things like cans (the type you have to open with a can opener).

One final piece of advice. If you can’t recycle it, then don’t buy it. Following this advice might require you to be a bit more selective on what it is you purchase and might require you to shop a bit harder for your next church-wide function or your office supplies but in the end, caring for His creation by reducing the number of things we throw into our landfills is well worth it!

Notes:

[1) This list is from the American Chemistry Council. It is on the web at:

http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_plastics/doc.asp?CID=1102&DID=4644

#001-The Green Team

Congratulations! You decided to move the needle. Now for the two pieces of bad news. First, you won’t be able to do it alone and second, it’s going to take longer than you expect.

But, there is good piece of news. You won’t have to do it alone. There are probably others in your church who are thinking exactly the same way as you are thinking. Your first task is to find them, and start working together as a team.

Some people call these teams “Green Teams” and others call them “Eco Groups” or “Affinity Groups” (so called because it is a group of people in the church who are interested in a specific subject).

Whatever name you choose for your group, your goal is both to educate and to gently demonstrate to others in the church practical ways that they can be good stewards of your building and your land.

At this point, pondering a bit on what James says in James 1:22 will help you to understand your goals

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. (James 1:22 NIV)

How To Form A “Green Team”

Here are some suggestions to smooth the process of forming a green team:

  1. Find others who may be interested in the subject of creation care. You may want to locate these people by word of mouth or by putting a notice in the church bulletin or on the church bulletin board, A short simple notice is probably best. Something like: “We are looking to put together a group of people who are interested in helping to make Southside Church ‘greener’. If you are interested in recycling, alternative transportation  and conservation, please call me.”
  2. For your first meeting, just spend the time getting to know each other. A potluck dinner (of local foods) might be a perfect way to do this. Try and let everyone tell about why they decided to come and what they might like to accomplish in the group.
  3. At one of the meetings after you all get acquainted, come up with a set of goals for the group. More on this later but for now, make sure that you set a small set of goals that you can accomplish in a short time. Set yourself up for success. For example, you might want to take on a simple project like adding recycle bins to the fellowship hall or gathering space so that bottles, cans and paper coffee cups can be separated at the time they are used. Or you might want to set out a basket to make sure that the church bulletins are recycled.
  4. Find out who else on the church staff you have to work with to make your project a success. If you need to work with the church custodian or maintenance crew, by all means do so. Your job is to get others on-board and involved so make sure you make these kinds of contacts early.
  5. If you aren’t ready to take on a project yet, you may want to consider having your group read through and discuss a book about creation care. Doing this makes a great bible study and helps people understand the reason that we should be caring for creation.

Seven Key Points For A Successful Group Meeting

Good meetings are something that requires work. Here are some “rules” to follow:

  1. Include everybody. Make sure that everyone in your group feels included and participates as much as they want to. Let everybody shape your projects and contribute their expertise.
  2. Communicate sideways. E-mail and other tools are ideal for communicating and encouraging. Keep people up to date on what is happening with the group. Start a mailing list and make sure that people who have expressed and interest in the subject but can not attend meetings are copied  on  e-mails about the group.
  3. Communicate upwards. Make sure that you have personal meetings with the church leadership to keep them up to date on what you are doing and what the group is thinking. This will help make sure that they endorse what you are doing and don’t see your group as “radical activists”.
  4. Start small. You will build encouragement if your group works on one or two small projects to start. After you are successful with these projects, get together and decide what to do next. You might want to start with the “low hanging fruit” — projects that are obvious, not to complex and will give an immediate benefit.
  5. Meet on a regular basis. Make sure that you meet regularly to bring others in the group up to date. Be aware of people’s schedules and conflicts they might have. Set your meeting schedule so that you always have something to act upon or discuss. Once every two or three weeks may be a good starting point — it’s enough to keep people involved but not too much so that that it terribly impacts their schedules.
  6. Send out meeting reminders ahead of time. Include the agenda and minutes of the past meeting.
  7. Start and end with actions. Always start a meeting reviewing what you decided and assigned last time. Always end the meeting with assignments and actions to be completed by the next meeting.

#000 – Beginning the Journey to Green

So you’ve looked around you one Sunday and wondered why all these people around you in church don’t seem to be energized about things like recycling, cutting down their use of fossil fuels and caring for the land.  As your mind wanders, you may also be asking yourself how energy efficient and green is the building you are sitting in. We care about God, we care about others, we certainly care about ourselves so why don’t we care about where we live?

Before you start with the “weeping and gnashing of teeth”, think about the process that you went through to change your lifestyle from one of consumption to caring. It probably was a long, gradual process, a bit painful at times and is still going on. What you saw around you in your community that Sunday was simply a group of people who aren’t as far along as you are.

That’s where the opportunity comes in. WIth your knowledge and experience, you and perhaps a few more people who are thinking like you, have the opportunity to change the way your congregation sees and uses the gifts that God gave us — the gift called Creation.

Your journey is not going to be an easy one. There are people who will resist you (“the earth is going to be distroyed anyhow, why should we care”) and those who can’t quite figure out how this “ecology stuff” goes along with what be believe about the creator, creation and the earth.

If you are ready to start a change at the grass roots (parden the pun), then read on. Hopefully, this information will help you find some like minded thinkers, identify some “starter” projects and show your church community (and un-churched commununity) how God meant us to steward (take care of) the earth that we live on.

The longest journey starts with a single step.

Fred

Everyday Should be Earth Day

Earthday LogoDon’t get me wrong, I appreciate that we have a day set aside to honor God’s green earth and to raise awareness of how we are treating the gift that God gave us. But just like we should be striving not to be “Sunday Christians”, shouldn’t we also be striving not to be “once a year ecologists”? With that in mind, this Earth Day, here are some thoughts to help you pray and meditate about His earth . Continue reading →

New Urbanisim – Problem of the Head or of the Heart?

This week. I had a first-hand experience in something called New Urbanism.

As far as I can tell, NU is a movement designed to help us “get back to our community roots” through urban design. NU is expressed as an architectural philosophy that designs and builds neighborhoods with multiple types of living spaces (single family homes, apartments, senior living) that are close to shopping and work.

The driving force behind this movement is a belief that weak urban planning has contributed to a loss of community and a loss of neighborhood.

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The Box We Have Created

I am in the middle of reading a fascinating book that talks about various peoples in Africa and how they survive. Comparing our lives in the West with theirs may seem like a foolish pursuit but there is a bit of deep understanding that can come out of this exercise.

One thing that we have done in the West very well is to isolate ourselves from nature. Our life style has incorporated technology that we say we couldn’t survive without.

We air-condition our houses and buildings so that the weather has very little effect on us. We drive cars that can get us from here to there regardless of the road conditions or how far point “A” is from point “B”. We wear high-tech clothes to keep us warm or cool and we shop in super markets where the food is so far from nature that it’s sometimes hard to tell if it is real or not. Continue reading →