BELFAST (AP) – You won’t find foam cups, paper napkins or plastic spoons at the morning coffee at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Miller Street.

The church recently became certified as a “Green Sanctuary,” one of just 21 Unitarian Universalist churches nationwide that are so designated. As a Green Sanctuary, the church hopes to build a faith community that acts as a good steward of the Earth. That means no disposable items at its coffee gatherings. Across Maine, a number of churches are taking steps to tread more softly on the environment.

“This whole Earth has been created, and we as humans ought to be taking care of the place where we live. We need to play our part,” said Happy Bradford of Belfast.

Eastern and indigenous religions often center the practice of their faith in the natural world. And the Unitarian Universalists, long known as a liberal denomination, embraced ecology as part of their official doctrine during the environmental movement of the 1960s.

But only recently in the United States have mainstream Judaism, Islam and Christianity begun to speak of a responsibility to care for the Earth. That’s a change that Paul Gorman of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment calls “an almost universal religious awakening.”

“I think churches really had a wake-up call that the Earth is in trouble,” said Andy Burt, a Quaker who heads the Maine Council of Churches’ environmental justice program. “We’ve kind of turned a corner and begun to understand that the first commandment was to take care of the garden, to care for this Earth.”

Some Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Catholics, Episcopalians and Jews across Maine will participate in a “creation” Sabbath, a religious celebration of Earth Day during their regular services next weekend, which marks Earth Day 2005.

About three dozen Maine congregations have created so-called EarthCare teams to work within their communities increasing energy efficiency and reducing pollution.

St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Gorham, for example, is creating an organic garden to produce vegetables for its food pantry. The Bath United Church of Christ encouraged members to buy local produce and to give up foods that require extensive transportation, donating their savings to charity.

The Midcoast Friends Meeting has retrofitted its Damariscotta building with energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs and biodiesel heating fuel.

At least 27 churches and synagogues have participated in free energy audits conducted by the Maine Public Utilities Commission.

The energy conservation that resulted has kept hundreds of thousands of tons of greenhouse gases from being emitted into the atmosphere, Burt said.

“People came together and realized there was a moral and religious component to the energy choices we make,” Burt said. “The choices that we make about energy impact people around the world.”

In 2000, Maine churches drew national attention for their role in the creation of Maine Interfaith Power and Light, a nonprofit “green power” company that supports wind, solar, biomass and hydroelectric power.

In its first two years of providing power, the company has served more than 3,000 customers, including churches all over the state, and the movement is growing, said outreach coordinator Christine James.

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Information from: Bangor Daily News, http://www.bangornews.com

AP-ES-04-17-05 1315EDT