North Church is a Certified Earth Care Congregation. In an effort to live this out, North Church is also a “solar church.”
North Church has been named as an Earth Care Congregation by the Presbyterian Church (USA). In order to become certified, the Session affirmed an Earth Care Pledge. It pledged that:
1. Our worship and discipleship will celebrate God’s grace and glory in creation and declare that God calls us to cherish, protect and restore this earth.
2. In education, we will seek learning and teaching opportunities to know and understand the threats to God’s creation and the damage already inflicted. We will encourage and support each other in finding ways of keeping and healing the creation in response to God’s call to earth-keeping, justice and community.
3. Our facilities will be managed, maintained and upgraded in a manner that respects and cherishes all creation, human and non-human, while meeting equitably the needs of all people. In our buildings and on our grounds we will use energy efficiently, conserve resources, and share what we have in abundance so that God’s holy creation will be sustainable for all life and future generations.
4. Our outreach will encourage public policy and community involvement that protects and restores the vulnerable and degraded earth as well as oppressed and neglected people. We will be mindful that our personal and collective actions can positively or negatively affect our neighborhood, region, nation and world. We will seek to achieve environmental justice through coalitions and ecumenical partnerships.
We also needed to complete an environmental audit showing that we had already attained at least 100 points, 25 in each of 4 categories: Worship, Education, Facilities, and Outreach. (Our total was 295 points.)
To become re-certified we will need to attain additional points in the coming year. Some of the activities that are planned for Fall 2011 are a Sunday School series on Genesis, an adult education series on water, installation of solar power and its dedication in a worship service, and an October 16 advocacy day in which we will write letters advocating the protection of water.
