Green Team Attends Synod Green Fair

Good Shepherd Green Team exchanged ideas with other congregations on how to be more green in our ministries and events. After the event, the Synod invited our team to lunch, brainstorming and consulting with us for ideas to improve their efforts synod-wide and also, how to create a working Synodical Green Team. What follows is the May 2008 Shepherd Staff Article to read about our exciting day.

Green Article: Living Green

Five Good Shepherd members attended the Green Fair and Green Discussion that the Synod sponsored at Ashburn Lutheran Church in Chicago. We enjoyed a worship service that included our own Kate King’s rendition of ‘It’s God’s World’ (a song that she wrote to raise environmental awareness).

A representative from Faith in Place, a group that promotes environmental caring among various religion based organizations, spoke for almost an hour. The highlights from the speech were:

  1. To green your faith-based organization start by Thinking Big.
  2. Do not start out by defying cultural moirés (like removing Styrofoam cups).
  3. Infiltrate your council/committees instead of creating a separate Green entity.
  4. Be tenacious and patient.
  5. Faith in Place successfully worked with a Muslim Mosque to install solar panels and other green systems.
  6. Many churches site financial roadblocks for green projects yet social justice is an issue in environmental degradation because the poor are most affected. These same churches are willing to support social justice projects but not greening projects.

We had breakout groups to discuss obstacles and solutions for greening our congregations. We noted that church culture was sometimes an obstacle for greening (congregation doesn’t want to change, etc.) One of our breakout sessions was to discuss ideas for synod action. We later brainstormed over lunch about ways the synod could influence greening in its churches. Consensus was reached on the following points:

  1. The synod should provide seminars for pastors. The seminar would educate about the problems with the environment and solutions for congregations.
  2. The synod should create a working committee of both synod staff and lay volunteers that would create a web page around solutions (local/regional/global). This group would also connect churches to create networks of green congregations.

The Synod Assembly in June will be the timing for introducing resolutions around these green issues.