One Year Later

Attendance at the Caring for God’s Creation conference at Lake Junaluska served as a catalyst for the forming of our Environmental Stewardship team at First Church in June of last year. To date, the mission of this group has been fulfilled in the following ways:

• Program to emphasize Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs
• Church energy audit by our electric utility company
  
• Added Environmental Stewardship information to the church website
  
• Periodic environmental articles in the Steeple
  
• Encouraged the church to recycle paper, cans, plastic bottles, print cartridges and batteries
  
• Changed copy paper to 35% post consumer content
  
• Created a list of where to donate re-useable items
  
• Created a list of earth-friendly Christmas ideas
  
• Movie night with the showing of An Inconvenient Truth and provided a copy in church office for members to borrow
  
• Lenten emphasis on reducing the amount of carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere

This is a beginning, but we must continue to keep the focus on caring for God's earth in the minds and hearts of our congregations.