Getting Started:

The Overall Plan

The materials below are designed to train a small group of lay people and clergy to bring care for creation into the full life and mission of your congregation. You may use this manual in different ways, doing some or all of the processes and projects suggested here. For the program to work well, you may want to follow the steps suggested and the principles recommended. (You can read the entire manual as a pdf here).

In brief, the following steps represent the procedures to become a Green Congregation.

Try these Resources to Green Your Congregation Through Worship:
Reflection: why worship is essential
Action Plan: ideas on how to do this
Resources: liturgies, litanies, prayers, sermons, and more!

the quote above comes from:
Edinger, Jennifer. "Creation and Celebration Connections," in
Care of the Earth: An Environmental Resource Manual for Church Leaders, ed. Tina B. Krause, page 45. Chicago: Lutheran School of Theology, 1994.

GREEN CONGREGATION PROGRAM: EDUCATION

It is absolutely crucial that education becomes an integral component in our efforts to become communities that care for creation. We cannot assume that people discern the urgent nature of the ecological issues. We cannot take for granted that they understand the dynamics of global warming or the deterioration of the ozone layer or the loss of biological species. We cannot assume that people will see how some biblical interpretations and some theological points of view have in fact been contributing to the mentality that degrades the Earth. Learning about these things is essential to becoming part of the movement in the church to care for the earth.

Reflection: why education is essential
Action Plan: implementation ideas
Resources: curriculum, books, ideas, and more!

Green Congreation Program:

Buildings and Grounds

Ideally, the physical plant of the parish and its grounds should serve as a model for ecological responsibility. This concept of model is rooted in the vision of the church as an alternative community. In contrast to an understanding of the church that fits into the culture around us, we argue for an understanding of the church that would make the church a model for an alternative way of life. If the society believes we can use pesticides without harming people, the church will face up to such a denial of responsibility and do something about it. If the society is willing to put comfort and ease above the need to limit emissions that increase global warming, the church will seek earth-friendly alternatives. If the society believes that we can be a “use and waste” society, the church will seek to approach 100% recycling/reuse of its waste. The contrasts can be proliferated further, but the point is clear. The church will make moral and theological reflections on its ecological responsibilities and then choose to be a community that is alternative to the prevailing popular wisdom.

Building and Grounds:
Reflection: why caring for creation can be expressed in the church's grounds
Action Plan: ideas on how you can do this
Resources: to help you do this

See these printable and complete manuals:
Environmental Guide for Congregations, Their Buildings and Grounds (pdf).
and
Building a Firm Foundation: 'Green' Building Toolkit:

Discipleship at Home and Work

We encourage you to be intentional about your commitment to care for earth. Do a room by room assessment of your home and figure out what choices you can make to walk more lightly on the earth. Look at the practices of lawn and garden care. Evaluate your purchases of goods and food. Get a manual that explains how to green your home. Make a list of commitments you plan to embrace in your home and at work. Post these commitments on the refrigerator or as reminders throughout the home. Get some daily devotional material that reminds you all the time why it is important to do these things. Find a group at your church or in your neighborhood to share your commitment and provide support. Take a course, read a book, consult others who have already begun the journey. Teach others in your family how to participate as earth-keepers. Together join the movement to participate in the great work of our generation—caring for all Earth community.

Discipleship at Home and Work:
Reflection-why we try to live this way
Action Plan - ideas on how to live this way

Try this Devotional to Guide and Encourage You:
Stewardship of Creation: a Thirty Day Discipline

Download a copy of LSTC's "Greening your Apartment" brochure
that is given to each incoming student.

GREEN CONGREGATION PROGRAM:

Public Ministry & Political Advocacy

The church exists for the sake of the world. We diminish our understanding of the church and, more importantly, the work of God, if we limit the activity of God to the church. There has been a tendency to bifurcate the work of God into a spiritual/ religious realm separate from the rest of the world by divisions we make into distinct spheres of influence: religion and politics; church and state; Sunday and the rest of the week; the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world; spiritual and material; heaven and earth. All these separations tend to isolate and limit the activity of God to things that explicitly have to do with religion.

Reflection: why we support advocacy
Action Plan: implemention ideas
Resources: organizations already advocating