A lot of “just one persons” working together can accomplish mighty things.

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Our Savior’s Covenant to Care for Creation

As a congregation committed to care for creation, Our Savior’s:

• Affirms God’s creation in all its glory and beauty
• Acknowledges God as the source of all things
• Acknowledges Christ as the redeemer of all things
• Acknowledges the Spirit as the sustainer of all things
• Strives to respect all of life as sacred
• Accepts our vocation as Earth-keepers who care for creation
• Accepts our responsibility to live justly in relation to our fellow human beings in ways that all creatures may mutually thrive together

Download full text of Our Savior’s Covenant to Care for Creation

Church/Congregation Care of Creation Actions

Reducing Waste and Increasing Recycling at Our Savior’s

In August of 2021, OSLC eliminated the use of single-use disposable cups by using china cups and insulated mugs and bottles. By the end of February we will have been using reusables for 6 month or 26 weeks. That means we stopped the disposal of more than 1,000 styrofoam cups which would have sat unchanged in a landfill for up to 500 years, according to estimates by the Society of Environmental Journalists. Our legacy from this action is not creating a 500-year pile of waste.

To learn more about styrofoam waste, see https://www.sej.org/publications/backgrounders/styrofoam-facts-why-you-may-want-bring-your-own-cup .

Actions YOU Can Take to Care for Creation

EXPLORE Online Green Resources

READ Recommended Books

CONTACT Your Elected Official to Protect Our Environment

TRY these Care of Creation Tips:

Tip #1: Composting

Composting is a great way to help the environment,  if you compost you are not only keeping things out of the landfill but you are making new soil that is full of nutrients.  So here are a few tricks and tips to help you start composting and continue to compost.

  1. Find a place in your yard where you can put the compost.
  2. Educate yourself on what you can and can’t compost.
  3. Turn the pile frequently to help it decompose.
  4. In hot dry weather, water the pile down (damp not soggy).
  5. In the winter, keep a 5 gallon covered bucket in your cold garage to limit your trips through the snow to your compost pile or bin.
  6. For more tips and tricks about composting, look at this website: https://learn.eartheasy.com/guides/composting/ 
  7. Turn food scraps into compost: Food Scrap Drop Off in Washington County

Tip #2: Reuse, Repair, Repurpose – Textile Wastes

Old clothes and other fabrics being discarded in landfills grew from about 6 million tons in 2000 to more than 11 million tons in 2017. Those numbers don’t include amounts that were recycled or burned for energy recovery. “Fast Fashion,” which is less-durable, fad clothing, drove much of this increase with cheap costs that encouraged a throw-away attitude.

You can help eliminate these piles of old clothes by buying well-made clothing in classic styles that you can REUSE for years and not discard at the end of the season. If clothing has been outgrown, it can be given to RESALE centers such as Goodwill and Salvation Army. When clothes become worn or torn, you can take needle and thread to them to REPAIR them for further use, even if that means relegating them to “work around home” status. (Which is just fine for Zoom meetings during the pandemic.) If the clothes are beyond repair, you can cut them up to REPURPOSE them as patchwork-quilt material, as material for home sewing projects, or as cleaning, painting, and car-repair rags.

Download more Care of Creation Tips

Care of Creation Team Members

Laurie Burns
Jack Kalmon
James Kalmon
Mary Knuteson
Dale Newton, co-chair
Lara Otsuka
Don Schuld, chair
Lann Zimdars