Earthcare

As Psalm 24 reminds us, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” God gifted us a magnificent planet to live on. Loving God, we should love what God loves, and steward it well. Our congregation is among the many Presbyterian Earth Care Congregations listed at https://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/environment/earth-care-congregations/ . Beginning in 2021, with strong guidance from our late Pastor, Scott, we qualified for this by our efforts to lift up and make progress in Earth Care, in each of the following areas:

·         Worship –  celebrate God’s grace and glory in creation
·         Education – encourage and support each other in keeping and healing the creation.
·         Facilities — manage, maintain, and upgrade our building and grounds to respect and cherish all creation
·         Outreach —  encourage community involvement and public policy to protect and restore the earth

Our Earth Care Team is attentive to ways to advance our work in all these areas. We call upon all in our WPC community to be on the lookout for such opportunities, and to support our efforts. Talk to Jim Turner about contributing to our Earth Care Committee efforts!

Current Goal: Solar Panels!

Thanks to a generous donation from Tim Thomas’s estate, we have begun work toward installing a solar panel system on WPC’s roof. Our church is a heavy user of electricity because we are a large building that is being used far more than anyone realizes. For example, our Showers Ministry uses five washers and five dryers for laundry for the homeless throughout the week. Many groups use our spaces. And we also have a delicate, temperature-sensitive organ in the very large Sanctuary that requires a very specific temperature range to live in. We have yet to gather enough funds to buy the solar panel system we would need to counterbalance our costs, but we are trying to figure out what can be done.