Interfaith Network

The Academy’s Center for Environmental Policy’s initiative facilitates communication and collaboration among regional faith-based and religious groups working to promote sustainability. Many churches and faith-based organizations have made stewardship of the environment a central element of their creed.

The Academy’s Interfaith Environmental Network is intended to support partnerships between faith-based environmental organizations and between these organizations and the secular environmental community.

To start this process, the Center for Environmental Policy website will host a directory of faith-based environmental groups. This directory will be updated continuously.

If you would like to add your group to this coalition, please email cep@ansp.org. Also, check here frequently for announcements related to interfaith environmental activities.

Participants in the Interfaith Environmental Network include:

Congregation Or Hadash

190 Camp Hill Rd.
Fort Washington, PA 19034
215-283-2076
www.orhadash.com

Contact: Len Zangwill, lzang@dvol.com , 215-517-5541

The Environmental Working Group of Congregation Or Hadash has been in existence since November 2006. We have implemented a number of programs, including recycling at our synagogue, a symposium with the folks at pachamama.org, an environmentally themed Havdalah social in honor of Tu B’Shevat (New Year for the Trees in Judaism).

This year we are planning programming around the Jewish Year of the Sun (Birchat Ha-Chamah), a coffee house to benefit the synagogue’s purchase of wind energy, and an expanded Pachamama symposium.

Central Baptist Church

106 West Lancaster Ave
PO Box 309
Wayne, PA 19087
610-688-0664
www.cbcwayne.org

Central Baptist Church has had an active Ecology Mission Group for
20 years. Its mission is to help our place of worship operate in a greener
fashion, help our congregants do good things for energy consumption and the
environment, and affect policies at the regional and national levels.

Current Environmental Activities:

  • Installing a 9.8 kW photovoltaic system on the roof of the church’s education wing
  • Selling compact fluorescent lamps to the congregation and giving free lamps to low-income residents of Chester, PA
  • Holding an ecology service each year for the entire congregation
  • Buying 25 wind blocks per month from PECO
  • Prepared a green manual on how churches can improve their purchasing and use of materials and operations
  • Provided compact fluorescents to Habitat for Humanity in Norristown and the Bernadene Center in Chester
  • Each Sunday, we sell fair trade coffees, teas, chocolates, and snack foods

Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia

3723 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-3189
215-222-1012
www.interfaithcenterpa.org

Contact: Rev. Nicole Diroff, ndd@interfaithcenterpa.org

The Interfaith Center is currently in its 4th year of running an interfaith youth service-learning initiative called “Walking the Walk” where groups of high school students selected from neighboring congregations gather throughout the school year for interfaith engagement, service learning, community building, and creative reflection. As part of this program, we have developed a 4-part service-learning curriculum that explores the themes of water, trees, air, and wildlife from an interfaith perspective. This year, participants in the Suburban-West “Walking the Walk” network will be going through this curriculum in partnership with Lower Merion Conservancy.

Another part of this program is a one-day community-wide event, The National Day of Interfaith Youth Service. This event is planned and facilitated by a committed group of “Walking the Walk” alumni from a variety of religious backgrounds. This year, the Day of Service will be taking place once again at the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Center in partnership with Philadelphia Green and Fairmount Park. The theme for the service activities and the interfaith engagement component will be caring for the environment.

Jewish Reconstructionist Federation

101 Greenwood Avenue
Beit Devora, Suite 430
Jenkintown, PA 19046
215-885-5601 x 24
www.jrf.org/Sustainable_Synagogue_Resources

In 1990 JRF passed a movement-wide resolution on the environment and congregational life. In 2006 we launched our Sustainable Synagogues Initiative: Living a Jewish Life Rooted in Ecological Values. With the enthusiasm of JRF’s 105 congregations, participation in the COEJL Climate Change and Blessing the Sun (Solar Energy) Initiative, JRF is deepening its work with member communities, other religious movements, and partner organizations in the area of sustainability.

Resources on Judaism and the sustainability are available at:

Mishkan Shalom

4101 Freeland Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19128
215-508-0226
www.mishkan.org

Contact: Dan Wolk, dwolkfp@pol.net

Mishkan Shalom is a spiritual, progressive, and inclusive Reconstructionist Synagogue located in Philadelphia. Our synagogue is a place where we integrate tradition and innovation, share our faith and doubts, ask questions, and learn from one another.

We are committed to:

  • A spiritual life that impels us to work for a better world, strengthens us in times of need, and challenges us to grow
  • The feminist reconstruction of Judaism
  • Children being an integral part of the community
  • The inclusion of gays, lesbians, and interfaith families
  • The pursuit of economic justice in the Philadelphia Region and a just and lasting peace in the Middle East

Current Environmental Activities:

  • Environmental education in Religious School
  • Tree-Planting in the Wissahickon
  • Minimizing waste in synagogue operations
  • Outreach to interfaith groups and other organizations in Philadelphia that are developing “green jobs”

National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE)

49 South Pleasant Street, Suite 301
Amherst, MA 01002
413-253-1515
413-253-1414 fax
www.nrpe.org

Founded in 1993, NRPE is the American religious community’s premier instrument of environmental initiative. Its mission is to weave programs to care for God’s creation across the entire fabric of religious life (liturgy and worship, theological study and education, advocacy for health and environmental justice, stewardship of home and resources, ministry to the poor and vulnerable) and to provide spiritual and moral inspiration and resources to all those seeking to encourage environmental sustainability and justice. NRPE is an association of independent faith groups across a broad spectrum (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Council of Churches U.S.A., the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, and the Evangelical Environmental Network), serving and reaching over 100 million Americans of the Judeo-Christian faiths.

Neighborhood Interfaith Movement (NIM)

7047 Germantown Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19119
215-843-5600, Ext.104
www.nim-phila.org

Contact: ewilden@nim-phila.org

NIM created the “Sustaining Creation” task force several years ago to bring together representatives who are working on environmental initiatives. Previous activities have included congregational screenings of “An Inconvenient Truth,” an annual energy efficiency workshop, and an environmental justice forum.

Current Environmental Activities:

  • NIM’s new “Healthy Homes” initiative, funded by the EPA Office of Environmental Justice, trains volunteers to assess pesticide, lead and other environmental health risks in neighborhood homes and offer education and materials to reduce exposure.

St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church

8000 St. Martin’s Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19118
215-247-7466
www.stmartinec.org

Contact: Charles Day
3416 Warden DrivePhiladelphia, PA 19129
215-438-7479 (Home) 215-680-9621 (Cell)

The Church of St. Martin-in-the-Field has formed a Sustainability Committee which is conducting an energy audit of parish facilities, building ecological themes into worship and education, and encouraging parishioners to become more ecologically conscious in their everyday lives.

The Shalom Center

6711 Lincoln Drive
Philadelphia, PA 19119
www.shalomctr.org/taxonomy_menu/1/1

Contact: Rabbi Arthur Waskow awaskow@shalomctr.org

The Shalom Center is a national network (with a special concern for Philadelphia) that draws on Jewish and other spiritual teachings to seek peace, justice, and healing of the earth. It sponsors the Green Menorah Covenant program for work by congregations and households for both hands-on “greening” and action to change public policy, especially focused on addressing the danger of global scorching and the world-wide climate crisis.

Current Environmental Activities:

  • Organizing advocacy for strong climate-healing legislation
  • Organizing use of a new Freedom Seder for the Earth and observance of the 28-year cycle of the Blessing of the Sun, on April 8, 2009
  • Circulating materials for celebration of Hanukkah and Tu B’Shvat (Re-Birthday of the Trees) in an earth-protective way
  • Honoring with the Green Menorah Award a Jewish congregation that has done important work to protect the earth
  • Circulating “ Elijah’s Covenant Between the Generations,” a curriculum and ceremony for Bar/ Bat Mitzvah and confirmation-age youth on how to heal the earth from global scorching
  • Distribution of books on eco-Judaism by Rabbi Arthur Waskow: Down-to-Earth Judaism and Torah of the Earth (2 vols)

Sisters of Saint Joseph Cecilian Center for Earth, Arts and Spirit

100 W. Carpenter Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19119
215-849-3364
www.ssjphila.org/cceas

Director: Sister Mary Elizabeth Clark, meclark2004@verizon.net

Cecilian Center for Earth, Arts and Spirit, a sponsored work of the Sisters of St. Joseph, fosters opportunities to reflect, practice, and celebrate the truth that all is sacred. By integrating artistic expression with holistic spirituality, the Center hopes to model ways of living in harmony with all of creation.

Tabernacle United Church

3700 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA, 19104
215-386-4100
www.tabunited.org

Tabernacle United Church is a socially active, justice-oriented community located in University City and belongs to the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Church of Christ.

Current Environmental Activities:

  • A Sustainable Living Affinity Group whose members educate and support one another around how to live more sustainably
  • Implementing measures to reduce the church’s environmental footprint (including purchasing 100% renewable electricity, a monthly “paperless Sunday” to minimize paper usage, switching to CF lighting, recycling and composting, exploring the possibility of geothermal, and exploring the possibility of having a community garden plot near the church)
  • Identifying as one of our 2009 mission priorities supporting green collar jobs in Philadelphia
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