American churches have an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is. Historically churches have always depended upon donations or “collections”. Churches do not generate their own funds, but that can change and should change because as the world economic folds in upon its self, collections will decline as more and more church going Americans find their paycheck buying less and less or lose their jobs and health insurance. They have been giving now they will look to their church for support both spiritual and financial. Most Churches will not be up to the task, they do have a way to take the five fishes and feed the multitude, but do they have the vision and will?
The primary cause of today’s economic stress is because our world runs on energy. When one source such as oil gets squeezed all sources are impacted. We have watched oil prices surge upward and while many puzzle the cause, once certainty remains, all sources of energy are on their way up. Propane and natural gas has been going up in price and electricity is positioned for a 25% increase this year alone. The primary cause for the oil prices surge is because a tiny few control the oil faucet and that is what must change and can change.
Most churches set empty 90% of the time. They don’t consume as much energy as our schools, businesses, and homes and unlike home owners which have one or two sources of income church income come from their membership and that is what makes them so able to change our world in a meaningful way. Take world hunger, church members work at jobs and donate to their church which donates to world funds that feed the hungry. Because of the oil price surge, all food items have gone up so the donations buy less, fewer get feed. But what if churches didn’t have to depend completely upon their membership? What if churches had an income sources that grew when times got hard giving them the spare cash to help their membership and feed those in need? All American churches have to do to have this income is put solar panels and wind generators on their roofs and yards and start generating power. Churches are best positioned to do this because to generate enough power to sell back to the grid is expensive. It can take a home owner or business 15 or more years to break even but because churches set empty thus use less power, their roofs can generate far more than they use and can break even in just a few years and because America has so many churches, if only half did, it could have a major impact on the world. As individuals most church members cannot afford to put solar panels on their roofs and wind power in their backyards, but as a group, they can afford to put solar panels on the roofs of their churches and wind power in their church yards. By taking advantage of this gift from heaven, churches can depend less on their membership donations and give back more to their community and the world. When hard times hit, the church that has income from the power it sells will be able to do more for it members and for world hunger.
Consider the number of American homes, businesses, and churches that use fuel oil to heat. If solar and wind power generated by churches can move just half of those who currently depend on fuel oil to electric, that savings alone could mean American truckers would have cheaper fuel to move goods and for farmers growing our food thus making food prices less. If this move spread worldwide, it could break the back of the oil monopolies. One of the problems with moving to electric cars is unless the car has a power plant to generate the electricity that it needs there just isn’t enough electricity available to power all the cars in America that now run on gas. Hybrid cars still use fossil fuels so they are not the answer. We need total electric cars and to have total electric cars a new source of cheap electricity must become available for us to move from fossil fuel to electric power. What is holding this back are two issues, one is the stumbling blocks that our government and the oil monopolies put in our way, they don’t want to see the control of power move from them to the individual. Consider what would happen if solar and wind power became so cheap to install and maintain that every home and business in America could install it; the power monopoly would go under and how can government tax that which you gather freely from the sun and wind? The second issue that is holding back our move from fossil fuel to solar and wind power is the costs. Consider the first TV set in America, the costs was high but as more and more Americans bought TVs the costs came down because the profits from the sale of expensive TVs funded the research on how to make less expensive TVs and better TVs. Solar and wind power generation installation costs will drop as more and more of these installations are made. Industry will do as it always has done and use the profits to try to find an edge thus making it cheaper and cheaper until a line is crossed and solar and wind power becomes less expensive than coal fired power plants, nuclear power plants, or running a gas engine in a car. When that happens, when that line is crossed, the power industry will become obsolete and will no longer have the power to control our lives.
As fuel costs go up, those desperate for cheaper fuel will consent to actions to obtain fuel owned by others. Our own venture into Iraq would not have happened if Iraq didn’t have the second largest oil reserves in the world. By investing in solar and wind power, American churches will help bring peace to the world by removing one of the temptations that can lead to more wars.
President Bush told our nation that we are addicted to oil, yet what solutions does he offer? He wants to open up protect lands to produce more oil. That makes no sense. When someone is addicted to cocaine, do you treat his addiction by making more cocaine available? If a person is addicted to gambling do you build more casinos? If America is addicted to oil why would one take steps to make more oil available? We need to break our addiction to oil by moving to solar and wind power and by doing so we will break the backs of the monopolies that control our access to power and do more for mankind in the process which is after all is what Christ charged his followers to do. Churches are best positioned to do this and so it is time for Christ’s followers to stop calling themselves Christians but to be Christians in a positive way by using church funds to install solar and wind and generate power so in good times and bad churches can continue to feed those in need in our world.