Creation Care
BPC has been certified since November 2015 as an Earth Care Congregation through Environmental Ministries of the PC(USA). Our Creation Care Team, formed in the spring of 2014, helps us maintain our certification by continuing activities and projects which nurture and celebrate the earth and help protect its resources in the areas of worship, education, facilities and outreach. Our Session also affirmed an Earth Care Pledge as a part of the certification process.
hanging up our earth care promises during the Season of Creation
Worship
Each year, we observe a Season of Creation in worship, at a separate time from the other church seasons, during which we dedicate ourselves to continue “actively nurturing our relationship with all of creation.” Each Season of Creation has a theme which gives us inspiration, hope, and courage in caring for God's creation through individual and congregational actions.
Education
A game of advanced recycling
Educating people about the responsibilities of caring for Creation is a key element in maintaining our Earth Care Congregation status. There are a number of ways we have done this, including Sunday School classes, women’s studies, film screenings, and nature walks for children and adults. Our Midweek Update newsletter often includes news, quotes, and tips to help keep the issue of earth care before us. We have held a couple of Creation Care fairs for all ages in the Fellowship Hall after worship, with centers focusing on such topics as native and invasive plants, understanding climate change, recycling, and home solar.
Here is a chart to help you recycle items that cannot be placed in Blacksburg Single Stream recycling.
Creation Care Fair: items donated for the New River Creative Reuse Center being turned into art
Facilities
Monarch butterfly and Native mistflower
Our building has energy-efficient heating and cooling; and we recycle almost 100% of our paper, glass, electronics, etc. Our property has been designated as a Sacred Grounds wildlife habitat through the National Wildlife Federation. We restrict the use of chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fossil fuel-based fertilizers.
Creation care garden in autumn
Our Creation Care garden, first planted in 2015 with milkweed for monarchs, has since expanded to 28 Virginia native plant species or cultivars of native species, in addition to 6 or 7 other non-native species that were in the garden when we started it. The garden showcases easy-to-grow native species, attracts pollinators, provides food and shelter for wildlife, and provides a quiet, colorful, natural place for meditation or nature observation using all the senses! To access the kinds of plants on the grounds of BPC, click here. To access a map of the location of the plants, click here.
Our garden is featured as a demonstration pollinator garden with the New River Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society. Click here to read more.
Outreach
(L to R) Forrest Thye, sarah windes, sandy power, darrell bosch, Nancy Furr (seated), Elizabeth Day (not pictured)
BPC is a Water of Life partner with Virginia Interfaith Power and Light, through which we collaborate with other people of faith and conscience in Virginia to grow healthy communities by advancing climate and environmental justice.
Our congregation is a member of Presbyterians for Earth Care, and we actively participate in Peaks Presbytery's Earth Care Work Group, where we have been instrumental in encouraging other congregations to become certified as Earth Care Congregations, and educating congregations about ways to do creation care.
We regularly encourage people to take advocacy actions for creation care, including letter-writing and petition-signing on behalf of local and national earth care issues, and participation in our local chapter of the Citizen’s Climate Lobby.
Our church is connected, through the Presbytery, with CEDEPCA in Guatemala, which, through their Disaster Ministry, provides training in prevention and preparation to reduce impact and strengthen resilience to help communities recover more quickly after disasters such as hurricanes, which are made more powerful by climate change.
We are also connected to the work of Cobbie Palm and Dessa Quesada-Palm in the Philippines. Dessa coordinates Theater for Evangelism and Advocacy, working with Youth Advocates Through Theater Arts (YATTA), which has used theater to protest environmental degradation in their city of Dumaguete. Cobbie works with Silliman Water Ministry, which offers life and hope to communities needing safe and clean water.
Plastic Bag & Film Recycling
You can bring most plastic bags and most film type plastics and drop them in one of our boxes to be recycled for use by Trex in making composite furniture and decking.
We have now collected more than 5,000 pounds and have received nine benches which are distributed around the property and in the neighborhood.
The first bench we received from Trex (pictured) was donated to the playground for BPC Headstart.