On Pentecost 2003, the Takoma Park Presbyterian Church will receive an offering to purchase wind power as a sign of our commitment to providing cleaner energy for our community. While the church budget includes a tithe of our electricity use toward wind, we felt a need to invite a deeper commitment from our congregation to this vision.
As stewards of God’s creation, people of faith are responsible for how our actions effect the earth’s resources and have an obligation to be wise and careful keepers of the planet. The need for cleaner energy is clear and becoming harder to ignore as air quality suffers, climate change increases and the resulting problems to humans and the eco-systems upon which we depend surmount. While as individuals we all can and must make choices and changes that positively influence our environment, as congregations we have an opportunity to have a far greater impact on the economics and politics of clean energy.
We chose Pentecost as the time for this special offering for several reasons. First is the Biblical connection between wind and spirit. In Hebrew the word ruah is used interchangeably for wind and spirit and breath. Is it the spirit of God or the wind of God or the breath of God that blew over creation in the beginning? In the New Testament, in the story of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came into the early church, it is described as being "like the rush of a mighty wind." (Acts 2:2). In Greek, as in Hebrew, the word translated into English as spirit -- pneuma -- can also be understood to be wind or breath. Pneuma is that which is life-giving. The breath and the spirit leave the body simultaneously. To lose breath is to lose life. It is this life-giving spirit, breath, wind, that we are called to share with the world. In the case of our current environmental crisis, the call to life-giving wind is literal.
Pentecost is also the time when the first Christians ceased to be a small and motley crew of followers and began to become a bold and transformative community, changing not only individuals, but the course of history. The Spirit of God continues to call all people of faith to be bold and all communities of God to be transformative in the world. We believe that the time has come for people of faith to change the course of history again as we lead the effort to save our earth. Christians around the world care deeply and work diligently for the well-being of people in all kinds of difficult situations. Climate change, because of its universal impact, will effect all of our other efforts at relieving suffering, empowering the disenfranchised, providing education and health care and spiritual nurture to people far and near. Staying uninvolved is not a reasonable option for any Christian with genuine concern for humanity.
We invite other Christian communities to join the TPPC in this Pentecost Offering for Winds of Change.
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