Enhancing Spiritual and Social Wellbeing

Church buildings are important gathering places in our spiritual and community lives. They’re beautiful and inspiring structures, yet sometimes the land surrounding them isn’t as edifying. At smallMatters Institute, we believe using these lands to their full potential can enhance the worship experience and contribute to neighborhood development.

By working with faith groups to include green space in the worship experience, we tap into church properties’ potential to support:

• Community wellness
• Sustainability
• Worship experiences
• Professional skill development
• Neighborhood development
• Cross-sector civic engagement

Many religions believe it is humankind’s responsibility to care for God’s creations — the Earth and all its inhabitants. Genesis 2:15 states: The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

Crafting a Scalable Program for Churches Nationwide

Our Genesis2Fifteen project tests and measures the impact of environmental stewardship on the spiritual, social and economic wellbeing of faith groups. With a proof-of-concept project in New York (and others in Texas and Arizona in development), we’re creating a national conservancy model to transform empty church lands into peaceful outdoor nature sanctuaries.

Taking an outcome-based accountability approach, we measure social and economic metrics to illuminate long-term impacts and viability, including those around:

• Church member satisfaction and participation
• Church attendance
• Corporate, institutional and philanthropic return on investment
• Property values
• Neighborhood economic development