Prioritizing Just Energy for All

How do you eat a giant pumpkin?You invite the community and take one bite at a time.That’s what Todd Lafrenz, Green Team chair at Douglas Avenue United Methodist Church in Springfield, Illinois, shared about the church’s journey to installing a solar array. It took many meetings, many members and many months, but the solar array was approved by the church. In fact, it was being hammered and drilled into place while United Methodist Women’s Just Energy for All training took place there in December 2019.Caring about our energy use is part of our faith walk as Christians, because the system by which we get our energy is inherently unjust: it harms the poor, people of color, and women and children and benefits corporations that pollute our land, air and water for profit.Over 70 United Methodist Women attendees and partners from all over the United States examined our personal energy use, learned where our energy comes from and lamented our complicity in an unjust system during the training. Through the training, we learned that transitioning our energy economy to one that prioritizes clean and renewable sources like wind and solar that is justice-centered will be a giant undertaking. But it’s not impossible. This transition will happen through steady but bold steps in each of our communities, and those steps can start with each of us.- - -This episode originally appeared in the July/August 2020 issue of response, the award winning magazine from United Methodist Women.Visit www.UnitedMethodistWomen.org to find out more.