Among the six honorees are Oak Grove Presbyterian Church in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Warner Memorial Presbyterian Church in Kensington, Maryland
April 20, 2024
Oak Grove Presbyterian Church in Bloomington, Minnesota, was named one of six Cool Congregations for 2024 by Interfaith Power & Light. The church puts on an annual electric vehicle expo. (Photo courtesy of Oak Grove Presbyterian Church)
Six congregations — two of them churches in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — were selected from 125 entries as 2024 winners of Interfaith Power & Light’s Cool Congregations Challenge.
Oak Grove Presbyterian Church in Bloomington, Minnesota, won the Electric Vehicle Award for the church’s annual electric vehicle demonstration days. Warner Memorial Presbyterian Church in Kensington, Maryland, won IPL’s Renewable Role Model Award for developing a community solar project with newly installed solar on the roof of the church that’s seeing its output exceed the church’s needs. As a result, Warner Memorial has been providing electricity at reduced rates to a neighboring nonprofit housing program and a number of low-income families.
Oak Grove Presbyterian Church’s 2023 expo drew 450 attendees and 25 electric vehicle owners who talked about their cars with guests and offered 100 test drives. The expo featured electric school buses, electric mass-transit options and car-sharing opportunities for lower-income communities.
Warner Memorial Presbyterian Church’s pastor and head of staff, the Rev. Adele Crawford, said, “Our faith tells us that all we are and all we have comes from God. One fundamental way Warner interprets that principle is through our commitment to sustainable practices for our world.”
For more than 10 years, the church has been a certified Earth Care Congregation, employing rainscapes, tending pollinator gardens, supporting environmental justice and more. “We are thrilled to finally realize our dream of solar panels, which provide renewable energy not just for us, but for some of our neighbors in need,” Crawford said. “We pray all of us do our part to make a more just and sustainable world for generations to come.”
June Eakin, a Warner Memorial member, said that since 2017 the church has had a dream to replace the electricity it was getting from its electricity supplier with cleanly generated electricity, “and by our example, encourage others to do the same. However, we wanted to do more than just create enough electricity for our needs, but also wanted to maximize the solar output from our roof. Being a PC(USA) Earth Care Congregation, we are committed to environmental stewardship, but nothing seemed financially feasible then.”
The solar panels on Warner Memorial Presbyterian Church in Kensington, Maryland, produce more electricity than the church needs. It’s able to provide electricity at reduced rates to a neighboring nonprofit housing program. (Photo courtesy of Warner Memorial Presbyterian Church)
“If we bought an array of solar panels for our roof, we could not recover our costs during the system’s life,” Eakin said. “If we instead signed a power purchase agreement with a small power company that would own an array on our roof, we would not be allowed to generate more electricity than we needed for our building; that is, we would not be maximizing our contribution to the grid.”
First, the church replaced its aging, leaking roof with a new roof that could support a solar array. In 2017, the state began a pilot renewable energy program, and a Warner staff member formed the National Capital Presbytery Youth Carbon Analyst Program, which brought together high school students to be leaders in energy transformation in their congregations. In 2020, the youth made presentations on rooftop solar generation. “The analysis showed that our roof could generate twice the energy we need,” Eakin said, but the pandemic paused the work.
In the fall of 2021, several Warner members attended a webinar sponsored by the IPL affiliate covering Maryland, the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia. In Maryland’s program, the owner/lessor can use up to half of the electricity generated, and the other half is made available to subscribers in the community. “To our delight, in the spring of 2022, this type of program received permanent legal status in Maryland,” Eakin said. “We also learned about funding possibilities through the Montgomery County Green Bank.”
The church’s Earth Stewardship Team shepherded agreement on a contract resulting in a rate reduction averaging 27%, more than twice the more common 10%. “This enabled us to pass along a large rate reduction (44%) on the remaining electricity produced to Housing Unlimited,” a nonprofit organization that seeks to provide affordable housing to very low-income adults in mental health recovery in Montgomery County, Eakin said. The church’s community solar project connected to the grid on Nov. 17.
Interfaith Power & Light’s mission is to inspire and mobilize people of faith and conscience to take bold and just action on climate change. Learn more here.
Interfaith Power & Light, Special to Presbyterian News Service
Daily Readings
Today’s Focus: Interfaith Power & Light
Let us join in prayer for:
PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Lemuel Garcia-Arroyo, Ministry Engagement Advisor, Ministry Engagement & Support, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Debbie Gardiner, Executive Assistant, Executive Director’s Office, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Let us pray
Faithful God, thank you for the opportunity to listen, ask questions and help one another generate plans for growth in Christ. May the ministry of coaching create a culture of care and transformation among us. Amen.
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