Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

Produced for worship on Sunday, April 15th
Paul Hedges and Winton Boyd

This audio sermon consists of interviews and reflections from several people outside the congregation of ORUCC. They were each invited to reflect on the role of the church in the world today. {Please note, the sermon begins about 10 seconds into the recording}

—www.gratefulness.org

by Bro. David Steindl-Rast O.S.B.

“Could it be that the mystic gratefulness in the depth of every human heart sings with “a still, small voice,” and is easily drowned out by the noise we endure and the noise we make?”

Remember a night when you stood outdoors looking up at the stars, countless in the high, silent dome of the sky, and saw them as if for the first time. What happened? Eugene O’Neill puts it this way: “For a moment I lost myself – actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the…high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life…to Life itself! To God, if you want to put it that way.” [You may have good reasons for not putting it that way, for not using the G-word, but in any case you have caught a glimpse of "something greater" than your limited self.]“For a second you see – and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning!”
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by John M. Buchanan
It is instructive and ultimately very encouraging for an American churchperson to get a glimpse of the global Christian enterprise. I had a chance to do so recently at a pastors consultation sponsored by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in Geneva, Switzerland. The alliance is a loose affiliation of 216 Reformed and Presbyterian denominations.

As different pastors talked about their ministries, amazing stories emerged. Gideon Khabela of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa described his ministry in a rural church composed of 27 different local congregations. Khabela preaches in each every few months; the rest of the time congregational elders are in charge of the preaching, teaching and pastoral care. Zsigmond György Vad described the resilience of the Hungarian Reformed Church in Debrecen under communism and its rebirth with multiple Sunday worship services, hundreds of baptisms and an impressive array of outreach programs.
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Think Globally: The Cartridge Family
According to Fifty Simple Things Your Business Can Do To Save the Earth , published in 1991, American businesses were throwing away about 15 million plastic toner cartridges every year. The meant that more than 40,000 tons of plastic cartridges were ending up in landfills every year. But by the mid to late 90’s people were realizing the waste in time, money, and resources involved in tossing the cartridges. Companies such as Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark, and Xerox have helped diverted tons of cartridges from the landfills through recycling efforts.

Act Locally: Recycle and Re-use Toner Cartridges
It only makes sense, recycle that cartridge. It saves on resources, landfill space, and costs less than new cartridges. If you don’t know where to recycle your cartridge, check the yellow pages or surf the web. I got 1,090,000 hits when I typed in recycle toner cartridge.

Think Globally: “Organic buildings are the strength and lightness of the spiders’ spinning, buildings qualified by light, bred by native character to environment, married to the ground” (Frank Lloyd Wright)

Act Locally: Consider Low-impact Materials

“Most-but not all- of the environmental impacts associated with building materials have already occurred by the time the materials are installed. Raw materials have been extracted from the ground or harvested from forests; pollutants have been emitted during manufacture; and energy has been invested throughout production. Some materials, such as those containing ozone-depleting HCFCs and VOCs, continue emitting pollutants during use. And some materials have significant environmental impacts associated with disposal. Sample strategies include: Avoid materials that generate a lot of pollution (VOCs, HCFCs, etc.) during manufacture or use. Specify materials with low energy use in creation. Specify materials from waste or recycled materials. Specify materials salvaged from other uses. Avoid materials that unduly deplete limited natural resources, such as old-growth timber. Avoid materials made from toxic or hazardous constituents (benzene, arsenic, etc.)