It's Not Easy Being Green

Just yesterday Sarah and I were talking about recycling at St John’s; I’m always drinking soda so I’m in constant search of recycling bins. Whenever we have our pizza days or other events, there are several items we could save from the trash and recycle. Of course at St John’s we have the obligatory Sunday bulletin recycling. Also, our church offers a community-wide paper recycling bin as a service to our neighborhood. The company we use for the paper recycling does not take tin/aluminum cans or plastic. My apartment complex takes both; I recommend we set up a recycling area in either/both the parish hall or the Y’ALL building. Every once and awhile I can take a few bags to the center at my complex, and perhaps someone else can step up and help take the cans another time.


I had no idea there was such a thing as the Episcopal Ecological Network (EpEN). EpEN is a nationwide network within the Episcopal Church USA that coordinates with the Peace and Justice Ministries Office of the Episcopal Church USA. As such they are part of the worldwide Anglican Communion and find their roots in the Celtic Spirituality of this tradition. The EpEN includes all concerned Episcopalians who are helping our Church assume a leadership role in the worldwide environmental movement, just as our Church leads in other peace and justice issues.
Ecology comes from the Greek word, oicos, which has ties to the English concept of household or dwelling. EpEN sees it as the relationship between living beings, the environment in which they live, and God, the Creator.

For more info: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/1829_ENG_HTM.htm
And: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/globalgood_84988_ENG_HTM.htm


I found this Statesman article on the Episcopal news page:
Episcopal flock going green for God
Read the full article here: http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/local/07/22/0722greenchurch.html

Here are a couple of bits I particularly enjoyed:
“We're supposed to take care of the Earth, not just take what we can get from it.”

The Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, which includes parts of central Texas, has set up a website explaining how churches can build in environmentally sensitive ways. The Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit in Dripping Springs recently completed a church that has double-paned, tinted glass -- "seventy percent of the time, we don't even have to turn on a light," said the Rev. Nancy Coon -- and a zoned heating and air-conditioning system so the church can heat or cool only the areas that are occupied.

Bob Adams, a consultant with North Carolina church building company J.H. Batten, told the newspaper that much of the energy behind greener churches is coming from congregations, rather than pulpits. More church members are seeing their employers pursue green construction, he said, and "they come back to their churches and say, 'What are we going to do?'”