Church dinners, coffees and weekly bulletins can generate a lot of waste, from foam cups to reams of paper. Members of Kennesaw’s Kirkwood Presbyterian recognized the problem and put their conservation efforts – and faith – to work to find an alternative.
The church already had a creation committee charged with raising awareness around being good stewards of the planet. But this year, they raised the bar for the roughly 200 members and earned the distinguished Earth Care Congregation designation from the Presbyterian Church USA.
The denomination has 8,705 member churches, according to Jessica Maudlin, associate for sustainable living and earth care concerns at the PC(USA) Kentucky headquarters. But only 331, including five in Georgia, have met the criteria for the designation. Kirkwood is now one of those five, joining Druid Hills in Atlanta and St. Andrews in Tucker with the Earth Care seal.
The congregation earned the honor by demonstrating a commitment to a lengthy list of criteria, said Pic Petelle, a 10-year members who serves on the creation care committee.
“We had to go through a lot of different steps with a checklist of about 150 items to show we were doing those things,” he said. “You had to get a total of 100 points in categories of worship, outreach, facilities and education. We were somewhat surprised to end up with about 180 points.”
The high score came from efforts the church already had in place, such as using pesticide-free cleaners, having services without printed bulletins, hosting adult educational events and courses around earth care and keeping track of composting and recycling efforts. Members also built a prayer labyrinth that scored points as an outdoor meditation/prayer garden, switched to LED light bulbs and revamped the way they share meals.
“We were using a whole lot of Styrofoam and plastics, but now we use reusable plates and flatware,” said Petelle. “That was a big change; we’re now washing dishes, and we serve water from pitchers, not bottles. We use oilcloth, reusable tablecloths.”
Members also demonstrated their care commitment through social justice projects that included collecting food, clothing and furniture for the nonprofit MUST Ministries, going to Alabama to help with relief efforts after a tornado and writing to legislators about their concerns.
“What I like about having this designation is the mindfulness of it,” Petelle said. “By making yourself aware you’re doing these things, it gets more people involved and aware of the whole concept of taking care of creation. If it’s on cruise control, you’re not really giving thought to it.”
Information about Kirkwood Presbyterian is online at kirkwoodpc.org; details about the Earth Care designation are at pcusa.org/earthcarecongregations.
DOING GOOD
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