How can we be Good Stewards of God’s Creation?

Most of those reading this article have become very painfully aware of the deaths and enormous damage that has happened in Upper New York due to weather events: flooding, snow storms, tornadoes and fires. And we have heard with great clarity the cause of these weather events, the burning of fossil fuels. What can Good Stewards of God’s creation do? Is this warming of the atmosphere so overwhelming or widespread that we can do nothing?

Jesus tells a story of a man who had to go on a trip. He put his three servants in charge of what he owned. To one he gave 5000 coins, to another 2000 coins, and to the third 1000 coins. When the man came back from his trip the first man had faithfully stewarded his master’s money so that he now had 10,000 coins. The second steward also had faithfully stewarded his money and now had 4000 coins, but the third steward had done nothing, because he was afraid. Jesus implies in the telling of the story that it was not the size of what was given to these three stewards as to whether what they did was good or not. It was that they had acted and acted faithfully. They did something.

We cannot become overwhelmed by the heating of our planet or the great destruction we see happening. God wants us to do something, take action.

I am going to list below a number of things that we can do as Good Stewards. Some of us may be able to do every one of them and maybe already do. Others may be able to do only, say, 10 of them. But, all of us can do something. And, some of us can doing even greater things, but being God’s faithful Stewards means we will worship God with action.

What can you do?

1. __ Make sure lights get turned off
2. __ Install a motion detection light switch
3. __ In the summer, close curtains or blinds in windows facing the sun.
4. __ In the winter, close curtains or blinds in the windows at night
5. __ Caulk cracks around windows or doors
6. __ Put more insulation in your attic
7. __ Unplug things that don’t need to be plug in
8. __ In the summer, turn off furnace timers and thermostats
9. __ In the winter, turn down the thermostat as low as you can
10. __ In the summer, turn up the temperature on you AC as high as you can
11. __ Don’t drive your car any more than you can help it
12. __ When buying a car, look for the make and model that gets the best mileage
13. __ When buying appliances, look for the one with the highest energy rating
14. __ Turn down the heat on your hot water tank
15. __ When it is feasible, take mass transit
16.  __ If you can afford it, have solar panels put on your house and/or place of worship
17. __ Consider asking your utility provider to supply only renewable energy to your home and/or place of worship
18. __ Hang your clothes out on the line instead of drying them in the dryer
19. __ Grow your own vegetables and fruit
20. __ Replace old inefficient windows in your house and/or place of worship
21. __ If you own, or your place of worship owns stock, ask the people who know to divest from fossil fuel companies
22. __ When going somewhere, see if you can car pool with others going to the same place
23. __ Buy locally
24. __ Wear more clothes in the winter
25. __ Wear less and looser clothes in the summer
26. __ When planning meetings at your church, meet when other meetings are planned so you can share utilities
27. __ Plan meetings in rooms independently heated or cooled from the rest of the building
28. __ Walk
29. __ Cut out red meat from your diet

      30. __ Buy battery powered lawn mowers or snow blowers