Mission
Our mission includes stewardship of church buildings and grounds with an emphasis on best environmental practices. We recognize the fragility of the earth and our own capacity to do harm. It is urgent that, as earth’s stewards, we make a commitment to our children and future generations to minimize our impact on the earth. We also recognize the need to support environmental justice in our local and global community. We believe that climate change is a critical global challenge and we are committed to meeting that challenge by advocating to limit carbon emissions, energy efficiency and transitioning to a clean energy economy. We believe that fossil fuels belong in the ground.
We will promote mindfulness in our use of energy, water, and all other activities that impact the environment: our worship services, education programs, maintenance of buildings and grounds, service to our community and in our individual lives.
Our Activities include the following:
- Reduce our energy and water use
- Protect the natural beauty of our land by planting local native plants and restoring our site by removing invasive exotic plants.
- Present an annual Earth Day Sunday service
- Create a walking trail on our property
- Protect children and adults by limiting exposure to toxic chemicals at our Church
- Educate our congregation about earth stewardship
- Hold movie nights to view and discuss films about environmental justice.
- Keep the church grounds clean, weeded, and thriving.
- And more…!
Initiatives and Action
These are issues, actions, and forums that we’re taking part in or initiated.
- No Coal in Oakland
- No Fracking in California
- Save Knowland Park
- Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour
- MLK Day Community Action
- Movie nights – see our calendar (Previously viewed: Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything, The Wisdom to Survive, and Before the Flood)
- Educational forums; for example during the drought we brought in experts on water conservation: “Water: A Local Concern”.
- Pope Francis’s encyclical study
- Environmental Social Responsibility Act
Partners
We participate with local and national partners to make our world greener and cooler. Come to a meeting or watch the newsletter for our next events and actions.
Our National UCC Environmental Justice Program: Why should people of faith care about the environment? 
As people of faith, we look to the scriptures for guidance for the choices we make in our lives. Genesis 1 says that when God created the heavens and the earth, God saw that everything was “very good.” We learn in Genesis 2 that as humankind has the freedom to make moral choices, and that each of us lives with the responsibility for our personal actions or inactions. With the freedom of God’s gift, the prophet Micah guides us towards moral and responsible lifestyle choices: we are to do justice, love kindness and mercy, and walk humbly with our God [Mic.6:6-8].
Learn more and join us in the cause!
