Creation Care

"The earth is the Lord's.."

Luther Memorial encourages greater awareness and joyful fulfillment of our mandate to become wise stewards of God’s creation. We seek to raise consciousness about the many actions we can take—as a church, as members of society, and as individual citizens—to reduce our impact on the Earth and to achieve a just and ecologically sustainable lifestyle for all. Through our work, we affirm and strive to implement the “Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice” statement adopted in 1993 by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s Third Churchwide Assembly.

Care of creation is an increasingly critical  challenge facing the the world and LMLC supports efforts to empower believers to act as caretakers of creation.

CreationCare Fair

The CreationCare Fair was held at Luther Memorial Sunday, October 5th. Displays and activities included Domestic Bunnies and their usefulness in organic gardening, pellet stoves, a CFL display, Hybrid Car on display and it's benefits, Blacksburg Recycles and America Recycles displays, Eating Locally, Green Cleaning Products, Sharing the Splendor of Gods Creation, Organic gardening display and a spring bulb planting activity with the Pre-K, K and 1-2 graded Sunday School classes as well as coffee, tea, chocolate and local apple samples tastings!

Fair Trade Coffee

Equal Exchange and Lutheran World Relief (LWR) are strongly committed to furthering Fair Trade and environmental justice together with Lutheran congregations across the U.S.  As a participant in the LWR Coffee Project, you make a positive impact on the planet and on the people who grow our food through your regular purchases of Equal Exchange fairly traded products and your contributions to LWR.  Luther Memorial shares in the vision of protecting the environment--a vision that connects you to our planet and to the small-scale farmer co-operatives who produce food in a sustainable way.

Farmer Partners are Greening the Planet:

* Over 90% of the fairly traded products offered by Equal Exchange are certified organic, meaning that no toxic chemical fertilizers or chemical pesticides are used that pollute the air or harm the earth.

 *Equal Exchange supports small-scale farmer practices such as terracing, water conservation, manual weeding, and crop diversification--all of which lead to greater soil fertility and reduce erosion.

*Farmers in Fair Trade co-operatives are encouraged to plant additional coffee trees and citrus plants to assist and increase bio-diversity and wildlife habitats. These practices also improve pest control, help to avoid soil erosion, and provide other food sources to the community.

 

*Co-op farmers plant shade trees as opposed to clear-cutting trees in conventional monocrop plantations. This helps to preserve songbird habitat, shield farmers from harmful UV rays, cool the planet, and absorb carbon dioxide, a harmful greenhouse gas.  All of these techniques help to remedy the extensive landscape degradation and deforestation that has occurred in countries over decades of environmental abuse.  Thanks to your support, small farmers have the means to help restore these landscapes as a result of the market access and improved income from the Fair Trade system.