August 20th"What Can I Do?"
To my dear TFMC family,
This past Sunday we celebrated the recent rainfall. As I write this, we’re experiencing temperatures that are about ½ of what we experienced on average this summer and we’re expecting more rain. It certainly feels like this week is an answer to prayers.
I’ve thought a lot about our climate this summer. We’ve had a number of heatwaves, I remember growing up, a hot day was over 25C, not over 35C. We have had what felt to be, at times, a drought. I remember crispy lawns and water restrictions in the summer, but I don’t ever recall a fire ban, locally, ever being put into place. And as we’ve seen forests burn, again, across the country, this has not felt like summers that I remember growing up in this area. Perhaps it’s because I’ve changed, or perhaps it’s because our climate is changing, we can argue that some other time. Suffice to say, things have felt different.
A sentiment that I’ve heard often, with respect to climate change, is ‘what can I do?’ or ‘what can we do?’ This feeling of helplessness can be discouraging. It can be paralyzing. I’ve felt it too, does putting that glass jar in the recycling bin really make a difference? Does reusing that milk bag really help?
For the past 6 months I’ve been a part of a small cohort of pastors pondering climate change together. We’ve been discerning ways that we can lead with a spirit of hope. One of our assignments as part of this cohort was to complete a project, of sorts. The project could be anything. I chose a project that would help us, as a congregation, answer the question, “what can we do?” And so I’ve spent my time thinking about things that we can do as a congregation. I’ve come to realize we can do quite a bit.
This past week as my time with the cohort concluded, and as our projects are nearing completion I submitted a copy of my project to the church council and the trustees. In it I listed a number of projects that we, as a congregation, can take on. These projects are as mundane as sealing up air gaps around the windows and doors, and adding insulation to the attic, to more curious ones like, replacing most light switches with motion sensor light switches or installing bike racks for cyclists, or developing part of our lawn into a pollinator garden, or installing rain barrels to collect rainwater to water the pollinator garden, to ambitious, like when the furnaces are at their end of life replace them with air source heat pumps, or when we need to replace the shingles, install a metal roof instead, to the outright extreme of installing EV chargers and a solar array. I let my imagination run.
The great thing about projects like these is it allows us to dream big. Of course, there’s reality to contend with. These dreams cost money. And it’s usually money which holds us back from doing things. Some of these ideas I had, won’t cost us anything but some time and labour, others will cost a bit more, and others yet will cost a lot. And there is help out there, there are grants, and loans, and the opportunity to fundraise, to do together what we might not be able to do on our own.
The church is sometimes talked about as the city on the hill, the place to look for inspiration. All too often the church has reacted to things rather than being that beacon of inspiration. I see this as an opportunity for us to transform ourselves and our church to be that ‘shining’ example of what one could do. To be a congregation that says, we believe we are called to be responsible for the gifts that God has given us, and we see one of those gifts to be creation. I’m excited about the possibilities. I am hopeful, because there is something that we can ‘do.’
Yours,
Craig Janzen Neufeld