Creation Care
BPC is certified, as of 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.
Worship
hanging up our earth care promises during the Season of Creation
Each September, 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 year we focus on 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, film screenings, nature walks, and a Vacation Bible School theme on Creation Care. Our Midweek email update often includes 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
Our building has energy-efficient heating and cooling and we recycle almost 100% of our paper, glass, electronics, etc. In 2018, we suspended use of chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fossil fuel-based fertilizers.
In 2016, we established a Creation Care garden on the side of the church near the parking lot using mostly cultivars of native plants and plants chosen for their desirability by pollinators. 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 property has been designated a Sacred Grounds wildlife habitat through the National Wildlife Federation.
Our garden is featured as a demonstration pollinator garden with the New River Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society. You can click here to read more about that.
Monarch butterfly and Native mistflower
(L to R) Forrest Thye, sarah windes, sandy power, darrell bosch, Nancy Furr (seated), Elizabeth Day (not pictured)
Outreach
As a church, we are connected to the Mulanje Mission in Malawi. One of the programs run by Mulanje Mission is Sustainable Livelihoods, which engages rural communities in conservation agriculture and empowers people to develop sustainable sources of income. Some of the program's activities are riverbank protection, reforestation, and projects which increase resilience to the impacts of 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.
Our congregation 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 have also recently held an Advocacy Gathering for Creation Care, where we took actions such as letter-writing and petition-signing on behalf of local and national earth care issues.
Plastic Bag and Film Recycling
Boxes are located at the eakin st entrance and the parking lot entrance.
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 and making composite furniture and decking.
We have now collected more than 4,500 pounds and have received nine benches!
The first bench we received from Trex (pictured) was donated to the playground at BPC Headstart.
