{"id":4520,"date":"2024-03-15T15:41:34","date_gmt":"2024-03-15T15:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/?p=4520"},"modified":"2024-03-15T16:13:40","modified_gmt":"2024-03-15T16:13:40","slug":"a-square-for-care-of-creation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/climate-change\/a-square-for-care-of-creation\/","title":{"rendered":"A square for care (of creation)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Earth Day is April 22. Interfaith Power & Light<\/a> encourages observance of a Faith Climate Action Week April 19-28, presenting excellent opportunities for people of faith to lift up what we should be doing all year: taking good care of God\u2019s gift of creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Use this Brethren BINGO card to set goals for your congregation, or celebrate things that you already are doing for creation care. If you complete a line (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) or\u2014better yet\u2014if you fill all the squares, take a picture of your card and send it with your congregation\u2019s name to messenger@brethren.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brethren Bingo card<\/a> (PDF). If you have vision issues, you can have the PDF read out loud to you; search to find out the easiest way to do this using your existing browsers and programs. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

B<\/th>I<\/th>N<\/th>G<\/th>O<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Install a programmable thermostat and make sure lights are turned off when not needed.<\/td>Hold a church movie night using a film such as the award-winning Kiss the Ground<\/a><\/td>Create a pollinator garden, a bed of native plants, or a
rainwater garden, and\/or install a rain barrel<\/td>		Install solar panels or subscribe to
community solar or another source of renewable electricity<\/td>		Offer municipal
recycling bins and\/or purchase TerraCycle boxes<\/a> for hard-to-recycle items<\/td><\/tr>
Plant or offer a community garden space<\/td>Adopt a section
of road or highway in your area to do regular
clean-up<\/td>		Have a craft time to create reusable shopping bags or gift wrap or other items out of recyclables<\/td>Offer a Christian
education class or study group around care for creation themes<\/td>		Measure your food waste after each church meal and try to reduce it to zero<\/td><\/tr>
Install a compost bin or subscribe your church to a composting service<\/td>Become a “Cool Congregation” through
Interfaith Power
& Light<\/a><\/td>		FREE space<\/td>Shift to energy efficient heating and cooling equipment and\/or install heat pump technology<\/td>Write to your government representatives<\/a> sharing why creation care is important to your faith<\/td><\/tr>
Plan a worship
service celebrating God\u2019s creation and our care for it<\/td>		Plant a tree (or two!) on your church property or at another location<\/td>Do a church trivia night with
questions on climate and creation care<\/td>		Reuse extra bulletins as scratch paper or as coloring sheets for kids<\/td>Hold a creative church carry-in meal with healthy and locally sourced food<\/td><\/tr>
Support the ministry of your local church camp and join nature activities there<\/td>Work to reduce single-use plastics in your church building<\/td>Encourage people to bring reusable coffee cups or water bottles for fellowship time<\/td>Have a \u201cWalk or Bike to Church\u201d Sunday and\/or install a bicycle rack at church<\/td>Do children\u2019s activities such as planting native seeds or a sorting recycling game<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Helpful organizations and resources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Church of the Brethren Creation Care Network<\/a>
Creation Justice Ministries<\/a>
Interfaith Power & Light<\/a>
New Community Project<\/a>
Science for the Church<\/a>
Churches Together in England Season of Creation<\/a>
Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology<\/a>
Climate Reality Project<\/a>
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility<\/a>
Minnesota Stormwater Manual Environmental Education Toolkit for Congregations<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Use the Brethren creation care BINGO card in April as a way to focus on Earth Day and Faith Climate Action Week. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[17,366,161,560],"class_list":["post-4520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change","tag-climate-change","tag-creation-care","tag-earth-day","tag-environment"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4520"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4530,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4520\/revisions\/4530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}