Please Share: IPL-DMV Climate in the Pulpits 2024 "My Vote is Hope in Action!"

[Joshua Long]

Hello OWP Baltimore, 

This is Joshua Long, congregational Organizer with Interfaith Power and Light (DC, Md, NoVa). We are launching our annual Climate in the Pulpits program, inviting congregations all over Maryland, DC, and Virginia to sign up and participate. We only ask congregations to select 1 day between Sept 1 and Nov 5 to lift up Climate Action through our non-partisan civic engagement. Please take a look at the email announcement below for more details and a link to sign up. Feel free to share with anyone in your network. Thank you! 

- Joshua Long 

Dear Friends,

 

This fall, we invite your congregation to participate in our 2024 Climate in the Pulpits / on the Bimah / in the Minbar / at the Temple program with the theme “My Vote is Hope in Action.”

Sign up here!

If you are like me, you have many emotions and feelings about the coming election in November. But I know that my vote will be an act of hope for the world I want to see. As people of faith and conscience, we are called to vote for the welfare of all who call the earth our home.

 

Congregations across our region will celebrate Climate in the Pulpits from September 1- election day, Tuesday November 5th.

 

We ask congregations to select a day of worship over the two months leading up to Election Day for raising up climate change and environmental justice, and inviting our communities to vote with hope. These two months will include opportunities for many of our communities to connect hopeful climate action with the annual rhythms of our traditions, including the Season of Creation and Feast of St. Francis in churches, the Unitarian Universalist Climate Justice Revival, the Muslim celebration of Mawlid (the Prophet's birthday), the Jewish high holidays including the ecological holiday of Sukkot, the Baha’i celebration of the birth of Baháʼu'lláh, the Dharmic traditions’ harvest festival, Navratri, Diwali, the festival of lights, and the turn of the Wiccan Wheel through Mabon (the Autumnal equinox), and Samhain, marking the end of summer and the beginning of winter.

You are invited to participate in a way that best fits your community:

• Speaking from the pulpit (we can help!)
• Collecting bulletin insert pledges to vote with neighbors and our common home in mind
• Taking “souls to the polls” – going as a group to an early voting site
• Inviting a guest speaker, hosting a coffee hour induction cooking demonstration
• Planning a hands-on workshop to identify gas leaks in the immediate neighborhood of your congregation, or to measure indoor air pollution coming from your congregation’s or community members’ gas-burning stoves (a great youth group activity!)
• Planning a “party at the polls,” if your congregations serves as an election day polling place
• Something else — share your ideas and we'll work with you!

 

 

Sign up here!

 

All congregations that sign up will receive a download link for ready-to-use resources, including bulletin inserts and sermon helpers. Request mailed materials two weeks before your congregation plans to participate.

 

Is it legal for our congregation to get involved with voting and election activities? Yes! Our congregations have a uniquely powerful role to play in educating voters and celebrating voting in our communities. 501(c)3 non-profit organizations can fully participate in elections, voting, and democracy activities. IPL-DMV will support your congregation in educating your community in a way that is entirely compliant and appropriate. (What nonprofits cannot do is endorse or campaign for particular candidates.)

 

Please take a moment to sign up or to forward this email to the right person in your community.

 

Together, we can bring a message of hope, restoration, and justice to our houses of worship!

 

Peace, Love, and Hope,

 

 

Joshua Long (he/him)

Congregational Organizer
Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA)