Going Green
One church's prophetic witness to the greater community
by Ben Daniel

In January 2003, Foothill Presbyterian Church, a small congregation in San José, California, was honored as the first certified “Green Business” in Silicon Valley. The award came after a season of determination and hard work that began when a dear and sainted veteran of the congregation’s prayer chain stood up during worship and asked for our prayers, inaccurately reporting information that was supposed to be confidential.

The discomfort of that awkward moment inspired the congregation’s worship committee to move away from the habit of sharing prayer requests during worship, with me, the pastor, walking up and down the nave, microphone in hand à la Phil Donahue. Instead we started using more liturgically structured prayers, such as those found in the Presbyterian Church’s Book of Common Worship.

The great gift of liturgical “prayers of the people” is that they invite us to pray categorically, so that each week the congregation remembers in prayer the Church, the world, our nation and its leaders in government, the sick and those in need, and God’s creation. And it was in answer to our weekly prayers for God’s creation that God’s spirit moved in our congregation, inspiring one of our elders, Sara Lienau, to ask our church to “go green.”

Ben Daniel is pastor of Foothill Presbyterian Church in San José, California. He provides commentaries for KQED-FM in San Francisco and writes a weekly column for UPI’s Religion and Spirituality Forum.

Photo courtesy of Foothill Presbyterian Church

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• Going Green
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• Caring for God's Creation
• What Is Enough?
• Above and Beyond Bible Study Resource
• 2007 Thank Offering Grant Recipients and Dedication Service
• Dispatch from Forbearance Presbyterian Church
• Nurturing Our Faith
• Building Community
• Mosaic
• Health Connections
• Thanks for Coming