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CHAPEL HILL -- More than 50 clergy, laity and community members will gather this morning at United Church of Chapel Hill for the first Transition Congregation workshop in the nation.
The Transition Congregation workshop is part of a larger, global initiative known as the Transition Town movement. Aimed at reducing local communities’ dependency on oil and building sustainability in the community through environmental, transportation and food-production projects, the Transition Town movement is now mobilizing the Chapel Hill faith community.
“How do we develop a future that is joyful and productive and flourishing knowing that the future is going to be without reliance on fossil fuels?” asked the Rev. Richard Edens of United Church of Chapel Hill.
The Transition Town movement began in Ireland about five years ago and today has spread to communities in countries such as England, Germany, Italy, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Canada and the United States. Trainers certified through the Transition Town movement hold workshops throughout the country to start conversations and to mobilize communities.
United Church of Chapel Hill and North Carolina Interfaith Power & Light, a North Carolina Council of Churches’ program that promotes renewable energy alternatives to local congregations throughout the state, are co-sponsoring the inaugural Transition Congregation workshop.
Tina Clarke, a certified Transition Town trainer from Amherst, Mass., will lead the workshop along with the Rev. Jim Deming, the United Church of Christ’s national minister for environmental justice.
Clarke said her training will focus on what the Transition Town movement calls the “Four Es”— economy, energy, equity and environment.
A goal will be to talk about how clergy and congregations can plan ahead and integrate new options so that they can make wise decisions that benefit the environment and their local communities in the future.
“We all see the instability happening,” Clarke said. “The real solution to all of this is to build our local communities to increase our resiliency.”
Not only will clergy and laity learn how to think about future decisions — such as installing solar panels on their roofs, planting community gardens and planning church building projects that congregants can access easily through walking — but they will learn how to make decisions in the present that can have positive, long-term effects.
Kathy Shea, co-director of North Carolina Interfaith Power & Light, said that the opportunity to take part in today’s conversation is unique for clergy and people of faith because the dialogue will bring together one’s faith and one’s love for the Earth.
“You are able to access people in a different place…You are accessing them through their heart and soul and empowering them as part of their faith journey to do this work,” she said.
In addition, Edens said participants will have opportunities after the workshop to integrate the dialogue from the Transition Congregation workshop with their theologies of caring for the Earth through the National Preach-In on Global Warming.
The event, initiated by Interfaith Power & Light, is scheduled for Feb. 10-12 and encourages local clergy to preach sermons about becoming better stewards of the Earth and to envision a different type of world.
“I think there can be a world beyond fossil fuels, and it can be a hopeful world,” Edens said.
