Michigan IPL Offers Free Energy Audits for Churches
Michigan IPL is helping congregations across the state go green by offering free energy audits to assess churches’ energy usage. These audits, which are funded by a grant from DTE Energy, are a part of the Michigan Public Service Commissions’ Energy Optimization program. The audits help people of faith find ways to make their buildings more energy efficient.
As a recent article published in Up North Live reports, “just making a few improvements can immediately start saving the church 20 to 40 percent off their energy bills.” These small changes contribute to a church’s long-term sustainability and help congregations fulfill the call to become better stewards of our natural resources. To read more about the program, click here.
“Religion and the Earth” by Sally Bingham
The Rev. Canon Sally Bingham contributed an essay in Less is More: Embracing Simplicity for a Healthy Planet, a Caring Economy and Lasting Happiness. This new book by Cecile Andrews and Wanda Urbanska is a collection of works by people who have been writing about simplicity for decades. Sally’s essay, “Religion and the Earth” explores the evolving nature of religion, which for thousands of years has adapted to changes in the world and instilled new values. From the Rev. Bingham’s essay:
How then are we to survive when so many millions of people are unaware or simply don’t understand the problem? I believe that in order to become sustainable our values have to change, and the place that will best encourage a value change is the faith community. This is where we find and instill hope – not without prayer and action, but hope is the glue that will hold people together when they see the potential catastrophic changes going on around the world due to our unprecedented contribution of carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere. And they will see it. Climate change, the focus of my ministry (the Interfaith Power and Light Campaign), is the most important moral challenge of our time.
Cool Congregation: Ascension Lutheran Church
Congratulations to IPL’s newest Cool Congregation: Ascension Lutheran Church in South Burlington, Vermont! Under the leadership of Pastor Nancy Wright and the church’s Care for Creation Committee, Ascension has implemented a comprehensive greening program that stems from what Pastor Wright calls a “deep sense that care for creation is part of the church’s mission.”
Ascension was nominated to be a Cool Congregation by Vermont IPL’s coordinator Betsy Hardy, who praised the congregation’s efforts to “educate faith community members about the climate crisis and the need to make significant changes.” Ascension achieves this goal through educational programs that both inform members about their impact on the environment and reach out to the local community. In Spring 2008, the church sponsored an interfaith lecture series entitled “Greening Our Religions.” About 100 people attended each of the five lectures, and the series drew attention from local media and others who were happy to see a faith community working at the forefront of environmental issues.
Members of Ascension Lutheran Church, also known as “the church in the woods,” pitch in to clean up the nearby Bartlett Brook.
The educational programs at Ascension are coupled with hands-on action that begins in the church’s own backyard with efforts to care for the surrounding woodlands. Ascension recently partnered with students from the University of Vermont to clean up rubbish from the nearby Bartlett Brook. Currently, the church is developing a plan to maintain and improve the health of the trees, plants, and animals living in the woodlands.
Ascension also has a successful energy conservation campaign that began in mid-2005. Changes such as switching lightbulbs and replacing old and inefficient refrigerators have reduced the church’s annual electricity usage from 51,080 kilowatt hours (kWhs) in 2005 to 28,618 kWhs in 2008. These changes are not only shrinking the church’s carbon footprint—they also equal an estimated $3,000 savings on the church’s annual electricity bill. Ascension also plans to upgrade its heating system with the help of a grant from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources to a more efficient system that, when completed, will reduce CO2 emissions by 8 tons annually.
Pastor Wright credits the success of Ascension’s programs to a strong network of leadership from within the congregation. She advises other faith communities interested in going green to learn from the work of other churches and begin with “small successful steps that keep the momentum going.” For Ascension Lutheran Church, this momentum has culminated in a creation care “energy explosion” that has earned this congregation the title of a Cool Congregation!
Cool Congregations are faith communities recognized by the national Interfaith Power & Light campaign for their outstanding work toward reducing their carbon footprint and promoting creation care.
Nebraska IPL’s Anne McCollister on ‘Anyway Faith’
An excellent article by Anne McCollister of Nebraska Interfaith Power & Light appeared in the Omaha World-Herald last Friday. She urges readers to consider Tuvalu, a tiny island in the Pacific with its own distinct culture, from which an entire population will be displaced within a decade.
In his Sunday sermon on June 28, the Rev. David Lux of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Lincoln reflected on [Martina] McBride’s song to ponder “ ‘anyway’ faith” — actions that arise from ‘nudges from God,’ inner calls to take action with uncertain outcomes, risk and our comfort zones behind.”
Consider some additional lyrics of “Anyway” by McBride:
God is great. But sometimes life ain’t good
And when I pray
It doesn’t always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway,
I do it anyway.
So, we should respond to climate change with “ ‘anyway’ faith.”
Read the rest of “Midlands Voices: Heed ‘nudges from God’ and tackle global warming” to find out how to have ‘anyway faith’ and what it has to do with the climate legislation currently being considered in Washington.
