Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Elgin told us about a wide variety of ministries and contexts that creation care showed up in their church. Read their submission below!
Creation Care in Worship
Our congregation has an operations team that meets weekly to repair, replace, and maintain the physical property. Our Do Day Ladies have been using recycled materials for decades to create quilts for LWR and local charity, as well as layettes. Our Creation Care Team has been in place for more than a decade and meets monthly to plan events, projects, and communication. Our library has a shelf dedicated to Creation Care materials that have been donated. We have replaced all lighting with LED fixtures and have installed solar panels in two phases on two areas of the roof. We have replaced old plumbing fixtures with more ecologically responsible options. We have discouraged single-use plastics and disposable water bottles for everyone who uses our kitchen facilities (both congregation and outside users). When our pew cushions were replaced, we researched and implemented a plan to recycle both the foam and fabric.
Encouraging others to take personal action
Participating in community events as leaders in solar panel adoption, the first local faith community to add them. We have posted our commitment to creation care document prominently in our facility. Our Savior’s applied for and won the 2022 Outstanding Organization Friend of the Environment award from Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful (KNIB). We also serve as a drop-off site for recycling semi-annually by KNIB. Our congregation has hosted monthly Vegetarians in Motion meetings for several decades–an organization that was conceived and run by members for the entire community. We host Becca’s Closet, a service that provides recycled prom dresses at no charge to students who otherwise could not afford them. We lead teams in the Earth Day annual Great American Cleanup. In 2023, we created and hosted a day-long Earth Day film festival on four screens throughout our church.