As we continue to experience rapid growth, we are abundantly aware of the need to have educational resources for all people.
Using excellent VCR tapes and teaching courses, we have a class in the Small Conference Room for younger children, ages 4-7 under the direction of Christine Mednick. A combination of play as well as as content, these children start to learn about the love of God.
Under the Direction of Kathleen Drake, our middle children work with more content, but still rely on video tapes. Discussion is key here, but the discussion is open-ended, not content driven. Most often, the content originates along real-life issues found in the tapes and revolves back to scripture and theological content.
This year, we will be using the duties of an acolyte to help shape the lower grades curriculum. Why do we light Candles? What is an Offertory? Why does a priest read the Gospel and laypeople read the rest? What are those funny clothes we wear? Why do we use bread and wine and water at Communion?
Our Green Ministry, along with our association with Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom in Mahwah, NJ, just three miles from here, has been launched with enthusiasm in both houses of worship. Listening to a speaker from Orange & Rockland Utilities, we were given a host of information to be shared with our congregants on how to reduce waste without sacrificing comfort, the impact of hydro-electric and air generation, coal, oil and gas conservation means. It is now our task to implement these ideas into the lives of those who share the common goal of leaving our children with a better environment than we found.
We are please to announce that ALL of the light bulbs in the Church were changed to compact flourescent this past week -- 12/15/07. Our lighting output has doubled while reducing our energy usage by 60%! It's one of those few win-win triumphs in parish life.
As part of our commitment to this, and through the generosity of The Hennessy Foundation, we have installed a new commercial dishwasher for our Feeding Ministries and for the Parish at large. We will reduce significantly the disposals with this gift -- plastics and paper. Currently, we have been spending $6000 per year on disposables, adding to land fill and chemical waste. This is a major "first step".
Our current project is to replace ALL of the light bulbs in the Church (approximately 60 of them) with energy efficient Compact Florescent bulbs. This will increase our light substantially while reducing our Sunday usage from 45000 watts to 15000 watts.
Through additional implementation and greater care, Christ Church dramatically has increased activity in the last two years, but was able to reduce energy consumption by a full 10 %.
