Songwriter and Creation Care advocate to "host" GINI Awards

[Emily Page Bidgood]

Join us for a wonderful evening of music and celebration ~ Sunday October 21st 4pm-6pm hosted at Munsey United Methodist.

North Carolina songwriter Charles Pettee and his acclaimed "Folk Psalm" project set Old Testament psalms to bluegrass and new acoustic settings. At his home church University Baptist, Chapel Hill, NC, Charles has been active in Creation Care. You can listen to FolkPsalm online www.folkpsalm.com - and watch a YouTube video to see Charles in action.

Along with FolkPsalm, GINI will be giving the Annual Green Interfaith Leadership Awards! Read below who our 2012 recipients are.

The concert is Pay-What-You-Can. Come out and celebrate all the good things going on around us with your regional green faith community ...There is a lot to be thankful for, a lot to be inspired by, and a lot left to do together.

ACCOLADE FOR CHARLES PETTEE: "For lots of folks, the psalms have mostly been stylized throwbacks to some quaint, ancient piety safely removed from any relevance to our stumbling humanity. Charles Pettee frees these audacious songs from our neutered banishments, to work their dark-bright alchemy once again. Surely these raw, touching vocal settings must be very close to the spirit of those wandering desert people who first thrust these God-songs heavenward. In Pettee's tunes God dances, dips and reels around our primal heart campfires again. Something very old, very true is at work here." – Mitchell Simpson, pastor University Baptist Church, Chapel Hill, NC

And the GINI Awards go to.....
St. John's Episcopal Church of Johnson City is being honored with the Stewardship Award. The recipient of this award has demonstrated an exemplary program or project that leads to sustainable habits and a "cool" congregation. St. John's is being recognized their consistent commitment to energy efficiency and resource conservation within the church facility, for encouraging the same among its membership through a Household Green Steward Challenge, and for being GINI's pilot church in the Green Audit Revolving Loan program.
Holston Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Gray is being honored with the Spirit Award. The recipient of this award has demonstrated an exemplary program or project in the area of environmental education or ecology-themed worship or community program. HVUUC has been selected for their outstanding mission with food gardening in Kingsport, growing an impressive amount of produce for Hunger First Food Pantry, teaching and engaging their church community – young and not-so-young – in the values and process of sustaining the environment and “greening the faith.”
First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton is being honored for a second time with the Eco-Justice Award. The recipient of this award has demonstrated an exemplary project that supports environmental justice, earth care, community leadership. FPCE spearheaded a courageous campaign to engage the congregation and community at large to stop Mountain Top Removal Mining in Tennessee via the "Tennessee Scenic Vista Protection Act" and along with regional partners made unprecedented strides.