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15 items

  • Profile: Rev. Craig A. Foster, P.E.

    Craig Foster, the Founder and President of Foster Energy Management, has over 33 years experience as an engineer and manager. His experience spans many areas of facility design, optimization and management including Energy Management Auditing and Implementation, Utility Management, Building Design and Operation, Water Treatment and Waste Water Treatment Plant Design and Operation, and Solar Thermal Installations. Craig has worked for a gas and electric utility, as an engineering consultant, and in facilities management and engineering for a major manufacturer. In addition, he has 15 years experience managing Environmental, Health, and Safety programs in an industrial setting. He graduated from the University of Iowa in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and is a registered professional engineer in the State of Ohio.

    Craig is also a Deacon in the Episcopal Church. Ordained in 2007, he serves St. John’s Episcopal Church in Columbus where he is involved in ministry to the homeless and marginally housed through Street Church and His Place. He has helped lead an effort of the BREAD organization in Columbus to reduce neighborhood blight through formation of a funded Community Land Re-utilization Corporation. Craig is also deeply committed to Kairos Prison Ministry and the issues surrounding those returning to society after being incarcerated. He dreams of having the Chapel at North Central Correctional Complex become a member of OhIPL.

    Craig has spent 17 years committed to Kairos Prison Ministry and the issues surrounding those returning to society after being incarcerated. He helped found Franklinton Community Solar, a new non-profit dedicated to bringing solar energy to the Franklinton community in Columbus. The groups goals are solarize the community to provide environmental resiliency, to provide local jobs for those facing employment barriers, and to educate the neighborhood about the impacts of climate change in the inner city.

    Craig is married to Kathy. They live in Columbus and together have five daughters, eight grandchildren and one dog. They enjoy being together, whether puttering in their yard, traveling, or just hanging out at home.

  • Profile: Dr. Job Ebenezer

    Dr. Job S. Ebenezer is the president of a nonprofit organization called Technology for the Poor. He is a retired professor of engineering. He started Technology for the Poor to design, innovate and disseminate simple technologies for less income people. He designed a dual purpose bicycle that can enable an ordinary bicycle to power small scale agricultural implements and other mechanical devices. He served as the director of the department of Hunger Education and Environmental Stewardship of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). In 1993, he established a roof top garden at the ELCA building using wading pools. He established container gardens in several cites in the US as well as in Africa, Costa Rica, Belize, Ecuador and India. Recently, he is promoting vertical gardening appropriate to slum dwellers and apartment dwellers. He established container gardens at the Ascension Lutheran church, Faith Mission Men’s shelter, Columbus Academy for Humanities, Arts, Technology, and Science and in a soup kitchen in Franklinton. He lives in Westerville and has three children and five grandchildren.

  • Speaker: Job Ebenezer

    Job S. Ebenezer Ph.D, is the President of Technology for the Poor, which is a non-profit organization based in Columbus, Ohio. Their mission is to “develop, innovate and disseminate sustainable technologies to the poor all over the world”. He is a retired professor and previously taught engineering at Messiah College and the University of New Mexico. He created a course called ‘Global Sustainability – A Christian Perspective’ as well as taught the course himself at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. He earned his Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering.

    He designed a dual purpose bicycle that can enable an ordinary bicycle to power small scale agricultural implements and other mechanical devices. He served as the director of the department of Hunger Education and Environmental Stewardship of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). In 1993, he established a rooftop garden at the ELCA building using wading pools. He established container gardens in several cities in the US as well as in Africa, Costa Rica, Belize, Ecuador and India. Recently, he is promoting vertical gardening appropriate to slum dwellers and apartment dwellers. He established container gardens at the Ascension Lutheran church, Faith Mission Men’s shelter, Columbus Academy for Humanities, Arts, Technology, and Science and in a soup kitchen in Franklinton.

    Through Technology for the Poor, he has travelled all across the world to conduct workshops on sustainable technologies for the poor in 4 African, 3 Central AMerican, 2 South American, and 2 Asian countries. He has spoken at numerous conferences, including Ohio Interfaith Power and Light, Master Gardeners Association of Ohio, Ohio State University Extension Services, and 4-H Club of Ohio. He has also given lectures at Ohio State University and Otterbein University.

    His involvement in earth keeping activities is based on Genesis 2:15, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.”

    Speaker Topics: global sustainability with a Christian perspective, technologies for the poor, urban agriculture, and environmental degradation and hunger.

  • Profile: John Hill

    John Hill is a member of the General Board of Church and Society (GBSC) for The United Methodist Church. His work there includes overseeing their advocacy and organizing department. He also directs the economic and environmental justice program work. Having previously worked as a lobbyist in the private sector, John soon realized the difficulty of integrating faith into his occupation. Since joining The United Methodist Church in 2002, John enjoys the opportunities he has to work with individuals in ways that allow them to integrate faith more fully into their daily lives.

    One example of John's passion projects, building a green roof for the United Methodist agency, can be found here https://www.umc.org/en/content/green-roof-reflects-united-methodist-care-for-earth. John discusses how this type of project is a way to show the organization's faith in action, serving as environmental stewards that can be seen by many throughout the D.C. area. In addition, their administration has switched to 100 percent renewable energy and installed water bottle fillers to reduce waste.

  • Profile: Shantha Ready Alonso

    Shantha Ready Alonso serves as Executive Director of Creation Justice Ministries. Since the start of her appointment in 2015, Shantha has prioritized racial-ethnic equity in support of protecting, restoring, and more rightly sharing God's creation. Shantha's work has appeared in The Hill, the Colorado Gazette, The Day, Sojourners, Patheos, and Justice Unbound. She has also been interviewed by NPR, Religion News Service, U.S. Catholic, and various podcasts.

    Shantha has taken the initiative to arranged numerous stakeholder meetings between people of faith and policymakers. She has testified before the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US Department of Interior, and the White House Office of Management and Budget. Shantha is listed among the 2018 “Grist 50 Fixers," an annual list of emerging leaders from across the U.S. who are working on fresh, real-world solutions to our world’s biggest challenges.

  • Blessed Are the Consumers

    In this work, Sallie McFague unites her love of hagiography, the study of the saints, and the urgent need to address overconsumption in the economy and the environment. McFague suggests a close study of lives of the saints. Here specifically, she considers Simone Weil, John Woolman, and Dorothy Day, in the hope that contemporary believers may find a path from belief to faith-inspired action. A kenotic lifestyle, one of self-emptying, the author sees reflected in the lives of the saints considered here. She sees the unified path to kenosis inspired by the “wild space” of voluntary poverty, the awakening of the saint through this poverty to material needs of others, the increase in view of the self to include a universal self, and finally the connection of the kenotic lifestyle to the personal and public spheres of life.

    Speaking specifically to middleclass readers, McFague condemns the complacent comfort in which we live that destroys God’s creation, human and nature alike. She calls for a radical understanding of the divine incarnation and expansion of the self to include the universal. An unsettling of traditional theology in favor of recognition that kenotic love is that which fuels the universe is the good news that can oppose the crisis in the economy and environment. McFague brilliantly weaves the example of the saints with our own call to action which must, like the saints discussed, be personal and public.

  • Profile: David Rhoads

    David Rhoads is a pastor, professor, author, and environmentalist. He was on the faculty at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC) beginning in 1988 and is now a professor emeritus. He is the author and editor of many books including, The Season of Creation: A Preaching Commentaryand Earth and Word: Classic Sermons on Saving the Planet. He also was instrumental in the creation of “The Web of Creation,” a resource for faith communities looking to improve their environmental advocacy.

  • Profile: Rev. Dr. Heber M Brown

    Rev. Dr. Heber M. Brown is a Baptist pastor in Baltimore, Maryland. Brown is committed to social development and has been instrumental in the creation of several programs in the Baltimore area. These include Orita’s Cross Freedom School, of which he is the founding director, and the Black Church Food Security Network. The latter works to support the accessibility of food by linking historically African American congregations with urban growers and Black farmers. Brown has received a number of awards recognizing his work, including the Ella Baker Freedom Fighter Award and the Food Justice Award from the Baltimore City Office of Civil Rights.

  • Profile: Rev. Pat Watkins

    The Reverend Pat Watkins is a missionary with the General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church. He is guiding a new, globally-focused United Methodist Ministry with God’s Renewed Creation, based at Global Ministries and also closely related to the Council of Bishops. While faith has traditionally looked at relationship with God and relationships with other people, he began to see a relationship between faith and the created order. Please click the link below to read more about Reverend Watkins:

  • Profile: Rev. Dr. William H. Casto, Jr

    Bill is a retired United Methodist Minister from Ohio. He spent much of his ministry teaching at MTSO (Methodist Theological School in Ohio). He is a graduate of The Ohio State University (B.S. in Educ. and Ph. D.) and of MTSO (M. Div.). His involvement with the Climate Justice Movement began in 2014. During that time he has been active on the Creation Care Taskforce of The West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church and in Fossil Free UMC.

  • Profile: Rev. Deborah Conklin

    The Rev. Deborah Conklin is pastor of Peace Lutheran Church, Bowling Green Ohio and is the Executive Director of a transitional housing program for homeless women recovery from chemical dependency. Her advocacy work began in 1988 working for the Toledo Metropolitan Mission where she led an Employment Readiness and Placement project for African American young men, the highest unemployed population in most communities.

  • Profile: Rev. Frank Edmands

    Born in Massachusetts, Frank fell in love with Creation wandering the woods and exploring the beaches of Onset and Buzzards Bays, fishing and sailing. As a sonar technician in the US Navy, deep ocean sounds, chirps, clicks, and whale songs introduced him to marine science and oceanography… Father Edmands has served primarily in parish ministry in upstate NY, PA and Ohio for the past twenty-one years and has enjoyed being a chaplain, assistant coach and teacher of Biology, General Chemistry and Religious Studies for three years at Trinity Pawling, Pawling NY (a boys boarding school) for three years

  • Profile: Jared Howard

    Jared Howard is a 3rd year Master of Divinity student at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and Pastoral Intern at Peace Lutheran Church in Gahanna, Ohio. At Trinity, Jared is actively involved in the Eco Justice and Spirituality group, SEEDS (Sustaining Earth and Environment Daily and Sustainably), serving as a Student Intern

  • Profile: Rev. Meribah Mansfield

    The Rev. Meribah Mansfield has been involved with Ohio Interfaith Power and Light since its initial meeting in October 2007. She served on its founding board from 2008-2011, and rejoined the board in 2016. Care for creation is fundamental to her faith…

  • Profile: Sara Ward

    Sara Ward, Executive Director of Ohio Interfaith Power & Light since August of 2011, is one of its original steering committee members and previously served as the Advocacy Chair of the Board. She is a recipient of the 2013 Living Faith Award and is a Green Faith Fellow, a comprehensive education and training program to prepare lay and ordained leaders from diverse religious traditions for environmental leadership.