Is your church green?

In the United States, buildings account for over forty percent of energy consumption and process over fifty percent of greenhouse gases. Are churches concerned about the environmental impact of their church buildings? Have you ever heard environmental impact discussed in a building committee report? Most churches argue more about carpet color than whether or not their church building is environmentally sustainable.

The US Green Building Council has developed a wonderful system to guide churches in new construction and renovation to provide an example to the world of what environmental stewardship can look like. The system is called LEED. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System "encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices through the creation and implementation of universally understood and accepted tools and performance criteria."

And why should we care? Remember in the Genesis creation narrative that in his sovereign act of creating, God calls all of creation into covenant relationship with himself and calls humans to manage it? "God covenantally binds himself to creation," says Dr. Michael Williams in the book As Far As The Curse is Found. Additionally, remember that the fall affected all of creation (Gen. 3), and all of creation needs redemption (Rom. 8-9). God has placed mankind into creation to manage it as a spiritual discipline. How a church uses its building is as much about the environment as it is its ministry usefulness.

The Cornwall Declaration reminds us that "a clean environment is a costly good; consequently, growing affluence, technological innovation, and the application of human and material capital are integral to environmental improvement."

Undergoing a LEED-evaluation is a great voluntary first step to show the world that faithfulness to Christ includes caring for the environment in which redemption takes places. LEED gives "building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings' performance." LEED promotes a "whole-building approach" to sustainability in five key areas of social development: "sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality."

A church can be an additional blessing to its community simply by reducing the environmental impact of its building because all of life is a witness to the story of the Christ-centered cosmic redemption of creation.