Honoring and Protecting Creation
The mission of the Green Team is to catalyze Creation Care at St. Ambrose, our local communities, and across the Planet Earth. Adults and youth are welcome in the Green Team!
The Episcopal Church believes that “In Jesus, God so loved the whole world. We follow Jesus, so we love the world God loves. Concerned for the global climate emergency, drawing on diverse approaches for our diverse contexts, we commit to form and restore loving, liberating, life-giving relationships with all of Creation” (from the website of the Episcopal Church). The mission of the Green Team at St. Ambrose is to catalyze Creation Care at St. Ambrose, our local communities, and across the Planet Earth.
You are invited to join the Green Team!
Current Events
carbon footprint reduction
Human-related climate change is a major factor in extreme weather events such as hurricanes, wildfires, and floods, and the consequences fall disproportionately on the poor and marginalized. As Christians we are called to work for justice for those who can least afford destruction of their homes and livelihood. The Episcopal Church has called on its members to work to reduce their carbon footprint to help slow climate degradation, with a goal of zero emissions by 2030.
In 2025, St. Ambrose took steps to reduce their utility carbon footprint by 60 %. Guided by an electrification study paid for by Boulder County PACE, the church first replaced its four oldest gas furnace/AC units with high efficiency heat pumps, taking advantage of significant incentives and rebates from PACE and our utility company, Xcel Energy. Through the Growing Green campaign in June, the congregation raised sufficient funds to cover the net cost of this project and more. The church then pursued plans for solar panel generation on our extensive sunny roof, timed to make use of the heat pump Xcel rebate received in the fall and the remaining Growing Green funds. By November 2025, we contracted for solar panel installation that will generate about 33,300 kWh of electricity per year. These two projects combined will bring our carbon footprint down from 27 CO2e metric tons to an estimated 11 CO2e metric tons. The panels are expected to be operational in Spring 2026. The church will be applying for a federal investment tax credit through their elective pay program that will cover half of the costs of this project.
Pollinator Garden
St. Ambrose successfully started a pollinator garden this year, in support of both native pollinators and our beehive. The plants were purchased from the Resource Central Garden-in-a-Box program, and a new drip irrigation system was installed. With help from Scout Troup 69, we added new soil. The work is funded by the bees of St. Ambrose, through sales of their honey. Cool Boulder is advising us.
Past Events
Electrification Study
St. Ambrose has received its report from Resources Innovations on options for new utilities and HVAC equipment at our church. Boulder County PACE funded the study. The study evaluated three options: Conserving (replacing our current older equipment with modern, more efficient equipment), Displacing (replacing our gas furnace/ air-conditioning combos with dual-fuel heat pumps) and Eliminating (using multi-split heat pumps back with electric heaters for extreme cold to eliminate natural gas). They also assessed the solar panel requirements for each scenario and the costs and benefits for those combinations. The Displacing option is estimated to be less expensive than the Conserving Option because of the incentives offered through the county, state, and federal government. Green Team members are currently working on getting estimates on the Displacing and Eliminating scenarios. We have also met with representatives of St. John's Episcopal Church in Boulder about their financing plan that enabled them to install solar panels.
Love God, Love God’s World
Five sessions in March/April 2025 from a curriculum developed by the Episcopal Church national office on exploring God’s love for creation and sharing stories of our experiences of love and grief in relation to creation. Topics included participating in story-sharing from an Indigenous perspective, community organizing for local impact, truth-telling about the intersections of environmental health and public health, connecting the work of creation care to our baptismal covenant through water stewardship.
"Water is Love" film screening:
Cool Boulder and St. Ambrose joined together to present a free showing of "Water is Love" on Tuesday evening, April 8, 2025, to learn more about the ecology of water and projects to preserve it. Cool Boulder provided pizza and soft drinks.
More about Creation Care and the Episcopal Church:
The Episcopal Church’s Covenant for the Care of Creation is a commitment to practice loving formation, liberating advocacy and life-giving conservation as individuals, congregations, ministries and dioceses.
The Episcopal Church in Colorado has shared the following about Creation Care:
Caring for creation means living in mindful, ethical, and loving relationship with the earth and all living things, knowing that all life is interconnected and that we share a common home. Climate change is the most important threat the world is facing. As people of faith, it is incumbent upon us to take an active part in the solutions. The time for contemplation on this issue is over. We must act decisively now.
Almighty God, in giving us dominion over things on earth,
you made us fellow workers in your creation: Give us wisdom
and reverence so to use the resources of nature, that no one
may suffer from our abuse of them, and that generations yet
to come may continue to praise you for your bounty; through
Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Prayer for the Conservation of Natural Resources, BCP 827)
In Colorado, we live in a beautiful and sacred part of God’s creation, a place that calls us to reverence, prayerfulness, proclamation, conversation, and action. In the face of the many challenges impacting creation, we seek more than simple solutions that don’t go far enough. We seek to be educated, informed, and equipped, avoiding aggressive and confrontational attitudes and actions that polarize and divide.