Creation care is a core value of the Episcopal Church, said Bradley Mattson, priest of Hope Episcopal Church. The church is taking that mission to heart thanks to a $46,000 grant from the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation. The grant, given and administered by Lancaster Clean Water Partners, will empower the church to collaborate with local conservation efforts, protect the local watershed and embrace better land stewardship practices along Shearers Creek, which is part of the 17-acre church property located at 2425 Mountain Road in Manheim.

The grant was spearheaded by church member Rob Gokey.

"At the time, I was head of outreach for the church, identifying needs in the community and focusing funds toward the best opportunities. Nothing in my background ever said I was going to be involved in creation care," recalled Gokey, whose experience includes food marketing and sales and a commercial linen business. "But I was always sort of a friendly ecologist. We recycle. We plant trees. We do things around our house to help the environment. It was definitely an interest of mine."

Gokey soon realized the key to success involved working with experts in the field. He connected with Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake, an organization that works with congregations to help them with green initiatives.

While taking a boat tour in Maryland, Gokey had an aha moment.

"On the tour, they talked about watershed management and how it affected the Chesapeake Bay," Gokey shared. "That's what planted this idea at Hope Church. I wanted to get other people to get that same fire in their belly."

Gokey began contacting local partners and completing his own research on watershed management.

The members of Hope Church were already putting their environmental mission into practice by planting pollinator gardens and re-meadowing areas of land, said Mattson. The grant will extend that practice.

"The grant is going to cover the design and implementation of a bioretention swale to help with clean water," Mattson said, noting that the church found out it had received the grant in September. "It will help with retention issues. We're on a hill, with Shearers Creek at the bottom of our property. Erosion is a problem, because whatever runs downhill here eventually ends up in the Chesapeake. We want to keep the water cleaner."

The bioretention swale is just one phase of a Green Master Plan the church members hope to implement throughout the property.

"My original hope and vision was to have Hope Church be a beautifully well-stewarded place for people to host retreats," Mattson said, noting that Sight & Sound Theatres has filmed part of a full-length movie on the property and plans to record a second one. "This is a way we can show we are trying to love our neighbors by loving the land, by being aware of the people downstream."

Mattson said the goal is to finish the swale project by the spring, install signage so people can learn more about bioretention and then move on to other environmentally friendly projects such as installing a walking path and setting up prayer stations for spiritual practice.

He and Gokey both emphasize that the project's success relies on working with other organizations.

"I love it when a ministry and a community come together and do something together for the greater good," Mattson said.

Gokey agreed, adding, "To me, it's all about networking with people who know more than you do."

Mattson noted that Hope Church, which is 175 years old, is small but mighty. "Little churches like ours make up the bulk of faithful activity in this county," he said. "If we can inspire a little church to think bigger than itself, think beyond the family that's been sustaining it and move toward an identity that's centered on abundance, we can make a world of difference. We want to be a point of inspiration and open up the mind to possibilities."