Adamah Congregations - Frequently Asked Questions What Is an Adamah Covenant Congregation? An Adamah Covenant Congregation is any faith congregation that is committed to starting a creation stewardship ministry. To join, click here. Each quarter, Adamah Covenant Congregations receive an e-mail from the National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Program. The e-mail will focus on a different issue every quarter. It will give theological and environmental background on the issue, suggestions for action, and a specific challenge to every congregation to change their pracitices or habits in a small way to protect God's creation. What Is an Adamah Challenge? An Adamah Challenge is a quarterly challenge that any congregation can take in order to help protect God's creation. Your congregation does not have to be an Adamah Covenant Congregation in order to take the Adamah Challenge. There is no commitment to accept or complete the challenges, we simply hope that you will learn something about how something as simple as your choice in lightbulbs can impact God's creation. We will ask you to interact with us - celebrate your successes, report on the challenges and the barriers in your congregations, give us feedback on the information that we provide. Every congregation that completes the quarterly challenge will be entered in a drawing to receive a full print library of NCC Eco-Justice resources and an in-kind donation of supplies to help you complete another Adamah challenge. Who Can Sign Up? Everyone! We are counting on YOU to propose the idea of taking an Adamah Challenge or becoming an Adamah Covenant Congregation to your church leaders. When you get the e-mail forward it to your clergy or lay leaders and suggest that you talk about it over coffee on Sunday. They may never hear about this wonderful opportunity to expand ministry otherwise. The program is geared toward congregations, but the information and the challenges can easily be applied to a home setting. Why Does NCC Want Me to Accept the Challenges and Give Feedback? We want to hear from you because this is hard work that we're all doing! We believe that faith-based environmental action can have a great impact on the health of creation, but we can't quantify how much good we're all doing, unless we know what you're doing. We want you to accept the challenges, so that we can help you achieve success - so that we can provide you with resources that will help you meet the challenge and so that you can call or e-mail a real person in our office for support and ideas. We especially want to hear your feedback on what's easy and what's hard and what you were able to accomplish. Your success stories help and inspire others that are just starting out or that have encountered barriers. We can also help publicize your events and initiatives. Knowing the difficulties that you encounter helps us to know how to help people with similar problems. And lastly, when you meet a challenge or accomplish something else great, we want to know so that we can all know something about what God's people are doing collectively to save God's creation. Thank you in advance, for all of your wonderful feedback! Upcoming Challenges February/March/April - Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs May/June/July - Hot Water August/Sept/October - Cleaning Products Also on the horizon - Water Consumption, Organic and Local Food, Transportation, and Native Landscaping!