Category Archives: Making Connections

Valley Friends Meeting celebrated its fifth anniversary of becoming a solarized faith community on October 14, 2023.  They accomplished this by a roof-mounted, 10.5kw, 34-panel array financed through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). In those five years, the array has produced 65 megawatt hours and saved 100,000 pounds of CO2, the equivalent of 760 treesContinue reading “Valley Friends Meeting project”

On April 15, the Harrisonburg Mennonite Church congregation planted over four hundred trees on the church grounds as a project to create a Garden of Trees on the hilltop campus. The workday brought together congregation members, including youth, community members, and community children, of the Wednesday evening ‘Kids Club.’ HMC responded to the MCUSA MennoniteContinue reading “HMC Announcements: Tree Project Update”

On April 20, 2022, Harrisonburg Mennonite Church (HMC) switched on a roof-mounted, 87-panel, 37 KW solar photovoltaic generator. This system provides roughly one-third of the church’s annual electricity demand. In the first 17 months of trouble-free operation, the system generated about 80 MWh of electricity, saving the church nearly $9,000 in electric bills. This system’sContinue reading “Harrisonburg Mennonite Church Solar Panel Project”

The following offers some guidance for congregations wanting to engage their members in a specific political climate action to reach out to elected officials.  The guidance is only that; it is not prescriptive.  We believe a concrete example will be helpful to understanding the steps shown below: The Example We documented these steps following aContinue reading “A Model for Congregational Political Action”

Earth Day Sermon at Otterbein United Methodist Church, Harrisonburg, VA  Scriptures: Psalm 95:1-7; Luke 12: 32-34  It was a perfect day. The sky was bright and the trees formed a canopy overhead, shading me from the sun as I stood silently in the woods. I could hear the stream tumbling slowly across the rocks downContinue reading “Celebrating and Caring for Creation”

Turner Pavilion, Harrisonburg, VA  It’s 3:23 in the morningand I’m awakebecause my great great grandchildrenwon’t let me sleepmy great great grandchildrenask me in dreamswhat did you do while the planet was plundered?what did you do when the earth was unraveling?. . .what did you doonceyouknew? From the poem, hieroglyphic stairway by Drew Dellinger, in theContinue reading “Earth Day Ecumenical Service”