Earth & Spirit

The mission of the Earth & Spirit program at Grace is to raise the environmental awareness of everyone in the parish as to our spiritual covenant to care for God’s Creation. Climate change is an unprecedented threat and an opportunity for people of faith to protect and restore Creation’s integrity, to facilitate earth-friendly practices within the parish and in our personal lives. Our faith is an engine of transformation for our deeply troubled human relationship with God’s gift of life and love. Earth & Spirit is here to support this holy and wholly necessary transformation.

Contacts: John Kydd, Marcy Lagerloef, Nancy Peregrine

The Conversation for Creation Care

We meet on the first Sunday of most months during coffee hour after the 9:30 service. Upcoming dates may change, and will be listed on our events page and in our newsletter. 

Many of us struggle with how to respond to our chaotic and rapidly changing world. Perhaps the most important thing we can do right away is “rethink everything.” Those are simple, but challenging words, and it’s always easier to face such challenges when we do it together! Come join us to examine assumptions, address fears and uncertainties, identify the cultural story that no longer works, and perhaps, explore the nature of trust, truth, loss, hope, love. 

When we share from our hearts, we find it easier to make changes that Care for Creation.

Please join us on first Sundays. Everyone welcome. No preparation required! As Steven Charleston writes In Ladder to the Light: Our wisdom is not in what we know but in what we wonder. (p 90)

Let’s grow our wisdom AND our actions by WONDERING together!

Questions? Contact Nancy Peregrine.

 

Grace Is Going Solar!

Grace Episcopal Church is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a Clean Energy Grant from the Washington State Department of Commerce to support the installation of a 32.12 kW solar array on the roof of the church.

This Clean Energy Grant is supported with funding from Washington’s Climate Commitment Act. The CCA supports Washington’s climate action efforts by putting cap-and-invest dollars to work to reduce climate pollution, create jobs, and improve public health. Information about the CCA is available at www.climate.wa.gov.

The system is expected to generate about 30,000 kWh annually and marks an important step in Grace’s commitment to environmental stewardship. It will also support the church’s role as a Bainbridge Island resilience hub, developed in partnership with The Island School, to provide temporary shelter and resources during major disasters.

Grace will also extend the project’s benefits beyond its own campus. The energy savings generated by the solar array will be donated to Fishline to help provide direct relief to neighbors struggling to pay utility bills.

Once the church’s solar system is installed, Grace will host a second public workshop where community members can see the installation firsthand and learn more about how it works.

For more than thirty years, Grace Episcopal Church has been a proud part of the Bainbridge Island/North Kitsap community. Projects like this reflect its ongoing commitment to caring for creation, serving neighbors, and strengthening the resilience of the place we call home.

“We are grateful to be able to play our part in Bainbridge Island’s growing reputation as a leader in climate action and clean energy — and to be doing it alongside so many partners who share that vision.”

Dawn Chorus: Who Were Those Singers??

On April 6, 2025, eleven adventurous early risers came to explore the Grace trails to listen and watch for birds. The air was full of song, but due to misting rain, not many of our feathered friends were visible on the wing. The big treat was seeing a pileated woodpecker hard at work at the top of a tall dead tree. The chorus included song sparrows, white crowned sparrows, golden crowned sparrows, pine siskins, spotted towhees, American robins, yellow-rumped warblers, dark-eyed juncos, Bewick’s wrens, red-winged black birds, chestnut-backed chickadees, and the final glorious aria from a purple finch perched near the parking lot. Over the years, 46 bird species have been spotted on our land, which has great mixed habitat of trees, open areas, flowering shrubs, and a water source just past the fence on the farm property.

The next time you arrive at Grace in the morning, pause and listen for a while. It will bring you joy and hope.

Thank you, Demi Allen, for leading our crew. And thank you to the Cornell Ornithology Lab for the very helpful Merlin app for identifying birdsongs!