A Letter to the Churches of North America

Has the Body of Christ in North America grown obese?

Has the Church of Jesus of Nazareth ignored its call to be stewards of God’s Creation?

As a pastor, I am sad to admit that the answer to both of these questions appears to be undoubtedly affirmative.

We who call ourselves Christians are generally as unhealthy and unfit as the rest of the population despite our confession that our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit.

We who claim to follow Jesus in North America have too often bought into the mainstream idea that the chief aim of humanity is consumption.

The Church now faces a crisis; we must face the Truth that we are succumbing to the sins of gluttony, sloth, and prideful self-centredness. We must take collective corrective action immediately.

I believe that God has compelled me to bring an idea to His Church that will be one small step towards combating the Spirit of this Age. And I believe the power lies at our feet.

The basic idea is based upon the fact that on average approximately 50-100W/h of electricity can be generated by an individual pedaling a bicycle.

50-100W doesn't seem like much - only one 100W light bulb - but that is 6-10 energy-efficient fluorescent light bulbs (or 30-50 L.E.D.s). Furthermore, 100W adds up as more people pedal; it only takes 10 experienced cyclists to generate 1KWh. The electricity can be used immediately, stored in hydrogen cells, car batteries, or put directly into the power grid.

My plan involves the growth of a social movement. The Christian world is filled with huge buildings that have many empty rooms during the week. If we simply opened up one room for a gym per Church we would do the world a great service, as well as actually get to know our local communities. Millions of people spend millions of dollars on gym memberships; I don't think it is much of a stretch to conclude that we could get many people out to a free (or inexpensive) gym which was also helping reduce tonnes of toxic gases. Eventually our culture could one day look at a church building and say, "They are doing some concrete things to help the environment in there – and keeping healthy at the same time."

To give you an example of the potential of this idea, I have a list of almost 5760 different churches in my home country of Canada. Let's pretend that somehow, through a movement of the Spirit in His Church, only 5% of these churches (=288) decided to open up a energy-producing bicycle gym. If they were able to have just 20 man-hours on bikes per day that would mean of course 5760 man-hours. With each person generating 0.1kWh, that would equal 576kWh of power per day, or $51.84 dollars at $0.09/kWh. Each year that would mean $18921.60 in savings to the Church in Canada and 210240kWh of clean energy introduced into the system. As the cost of electricity continues to skyrocket, these savings will increase substantially.

I think believe that these numbers will eventually prove to be very conservative. If a Church had 10 bikes and was open 10hrs a day … that would be 100 man-hours a day. Depending on the size of the church, it is possible that each church could cover their entire lighting bill with these community-building workout spaces. If efficient lights were installed and solar-power was used to help take care of the heating and wind-power used for additional miscellaneous purposes, we could see many churches operating (almost) entirely with clean electricity.

If this idea was implemented en masse in the United States of America, the Church of Jesus Christ could significantly alter the way the entire world perceives the God-given gift of energy.
This plan has many benefits including: green electricity; finding one practical way to get the church to actually start exercising their Temples of the Holy Spirit; reconnecting churches with their local community; getting the Church to actually think about their environment in the first place; being a prophetic voice; saving a significant amount of money on gym memberships for individuals; and, finally, saving some money on electric bills.

We should not underestimate the potential of this idea for physical and spiritual health. Gluttony and Sloth have crept into the Church and are very difficult to remedy. People who spend an 1hr on a bike every day or two will have more energy and motivation in volunteering on other projects. God would be happy to see his people taking care of their bodies. How better for the Church to make a stand on this issue than to open their own doors?

As far as getting people motivated, I doubt I could have so quickly got so many people on board with any other initiative – this is the chief difficulty facing any collective action. Now is the opportune time. As I pastor, I have to think about how the people of God can make an impact as a social unit and I truly believe this will be a culture-changing initiative.

I have spoken with people in leadership in many churches and non-profit organizations and have had positive feedback and interest. There is an actual chance to see this idea spread once our experiment at The Gateway homeless shelter works. Thus, for right now, I must go ahead with this project if I am to feel at ease in my Spirit. I pray that other Christian churches, organizations and individuals will also hear the call.

Some may laugh at this idea in self-satisfaction – a natural reaction – but a fraction of actual action will have more attraction than all the sermons that leave people squirming in our lacking reactionary factions. In the Electric Power of Christ,

Cyril Guérette

Associate Pastor, Freedomize Toronto

Associate Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies, Heritage CollegeFounder

President, WeloBike.com