Two stories in The New York Times today that are related.
The details vary, but the main elements are the same wherever you go. Clean energy brings economic stability to rural communities, along with some intangibles.
Mr. Chamberlain, 70, grew up in Atchison, one of Missouri’s most rural counties, and over the years watched as waning opportunities and population decline steadily ate away at the place. Young people didn’t come back after college. School enrollment fell. Farms got bigger, and fewer farmers meant less tax revenue. Businesses on Main Street closed and the area went from having two grocery stores to one.
One thing the county did have was lots of wind, and Mr. Chamberlain thought that having a few commercial turbines might bring an economic boost. He contacted the state’s Department of Natural Resources about putting up a wind monitoring tower on the hilltop of a nearby pasture. The paper, the Atchison County Mail, announced this endeavor under the headline, “Chamberlain to Study Wind,” drawing mirth as well as the attention of a wind power developer from St. Louis.
The developer came to Atchison County, and Mr. Chamberlain drove him and some engineers around to prospective sites, in the van he also used to drive around pallbearers. He also connected the group with local landowners, laying the groundwork for the county’s first wind farm.
Mr. Chamberlain ended up becoming a local consultant on the project, and, as it was being developed, thought it would be a good idea to also set up a small community wind project to help power the county seat, Rock Port. The small city bought power from a municipal power pool, but also had its own power plant that could supply electricity during outages.
Mr. Chamberlain convinced the wind farm’s developer, as well Rock Port’s City Council and utility board, that installing several wind turbines to directly feed the city’s power system would be economically advantageous for all involved.
“I won’t deny that there were environmental benefits that I believed in,” Mr. Chamberlain said. “Unfortunately, I also believe that it would have been a harder sell if that was the only talking point.”
The project was paid for by John Deere’s former wind energy division, and three landowners allowed turbines on their property. The four turbines came online in early 2008, producing 5 megawatts of energy for a city that, according to Mr. Chamberlain, used 3.5 megawatts, tops. That day, Mr. Chamberlain took a picture of the city’s electricity meter. “It was running backward,” he said. Rock Port, population around 1,300, eventually announced that it was the first community in the country to produce more electricity from wind energy than the town needed.
Rebecca Herron, whose late mother was one of the first landowners to accept a turbine, heartily applauded the move.
“I was very thrilled because I thought it was time that we produce our electricity in this country, instead of relying on all the foreign stuff,” said Ms Herron, 78, a retired farmer. Two turbines are on the family’s pastureland, sharing space with cattle, and the family collects rent payments once a year. “That was good, to have extra money, and it helps the city and the community,” Ms. Herron said. “I’m very happy with it.”
Today, Atchison County is home to 342 wind turbines that support about 50 permanent jobs, along with a wind technician training facility and yearly landowner lease payments of several million dollars, Mr. Chamberlain said. According to the Atchison clerk’s office, the county collected $5.9 million from taxes from wind turbines in 2024, accounting for more than half of its real estate tax revenue. The city utility also doesn’t have to pay transmission line fees on the energy it uses from the wind farm, Mr. Chamberlain added, saving around $50,000 a year.
The solar panels on the churches were inspired by Scripture.
So were the LED lights throughout the buildings, the electric-vehicle charging stations, the native pollinator gardens and organic food plots, the composting, the focus on consuming less and reusing more.
The evangelical Christians behind these efforts in Indiana say that by taking on this planet-healing work, they are following the biblical mandate to care for God’s creation.
“It’s a quiet movement,” said the Rev. Jeremy Summers, director of church and community engagement for the Evangelical Environmental Network, a nonprofit group with projects nationwide.
In Central Indiana, a patchwork of evangelical churches and universities has been sharing ideas and lessons on how to expand these efforts, broadly known as creation care. Some have partnered on an Earth Day-like celebration they named Indy Creation Fest.
Faith communities of all kinds have been caring for nature throughout history, and many have taken up environmental causes in recent decades. Some religious leaders, like Pope Francis, have made the environment a central focus and have called for action on climate change.
But the efforts in Indiana stand out because they’re springing up in communities that haven’t been as engaged.
Of all major U.S. religious groups, evangelical Protestants are the least likely to hear about climate change during sermons, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center, and the least likely to view global climate change as extremely or very serious. Now, networks of evangelicals are looking to shift that.
“If you frame it as environmentalism, or if you frame it as combating global warming, it suddenly gets really politicized,” said the Rev. Nate Pyle, senior pastor at Christ’s Community Church in Fishers, Ind. “When you frame it as stewardship or caring for the creation that God has given us, people are more open.”
In 2021, the creation care committee at his church led an effort to put solar panels on the building. Some members questioned the move, Pastor Pyle said. But they seemed to come around after learning that the church paid for them through grants and private donations and that the panels would save on energy costs, he said.
The next year, Christ’s Community joined forces with Grace Church, a few miles away in Noblesville, and the Evangelical Environmental Network to sponsor the first Indy Creation Fest, a day of education and family-friendly activities.