Candle Replacement Disciples

Have you ever wondered whether it is acceptable to burn candles in your church when they could be replaced by solar lamps? If this is too much of a change for your church to implement you are still encouraged to consider how gifting solar lamps can be used to encourage youth attendance and/or young adult attendance.

Candle Replacement Disciples: (an action plan for churches to consider following replacing candles with solar lamps):

1. Within your church, find a member prepared to take the lead (called the lead solar disciple) with replacing candles with solar lamps (that person could be you!). Be prepared to purchase say 12 solar lamps (or access funds to purchase). The vision is to keep 6 solar lamps fully charged onsite (managed by the lead candle replacement disciple) and to distribute the other 6 solar lamps between regular church members (called candle replacement disciples) who are invited to use the lamps during the week on the understanding that they bring back to church on Sundays their charged solar lamps to be placed on the altar before the start of Sunday services they attend (whoever is setting up the altar can then position the solar lamps beside the candle stations). The vision is after each Sunday service individual candle replacement disciples will collect/care/recharge/return the solar lamps that have been allocated to them (it will therefore help if name labels are attached to allocated solar lamps).

2. The lead candle replacement disciple needs to seek approval from their church leadership to replace candles with solar lamps (be prepared to find ways integrate solar lamps with candles). It needs to be explained to your church leadership that the project vision is for churches to consider donating funds saved from candle expenditure to gift solar lamps to encourage youth attendance and/or young adult attence and/or to enable mission agencies to purchase solar lamps in developing countries (how this is delivered is left to indiviual churches). If total candle replacement with solar lamps is too big a step for church leadership to accept, they need to be invited to consider partial candle replacement with solar lamps. Although many churches may well desire to retain paschal and altar candles, church leadership still needs to be encouraged to consider how they can integrate solar lamps with their existing candle usage (there is no reason why candlesticks and candleholders cannot remain with solar lamps simply placed beside unlit candles).

3. Once approved by the church leadership, the lead candle replacement disciple will need to be in pocession of say 12 solar lamps and prepared to communicate the solar lamp project to church members, inviting up to say 3 regular church members to get onboard by becoming candle replacement disciples each responsible for the care and return of 2 charged solar lamps each Sunday they attend church (if more than 3 church members express keen interest the option exists for up to 6 candle replacement disciples each receiving one solar lamp).

4. To ensure that sufficient charged solar lamps are always available for Sunday services (such as when candle replacement disciples are absent) it will be necessary to always keep onsite 6 charged solar lamps (managed by the lead candle replacement disciple). In effect, the remaining 6 solar lamps held by candle replacement disciples may well be surplus to requirements but there is no harm in using the surplus solar lamps to double up at candle stations. Any system needs to work with and without candle replacement disciples in attendance but at the same time needs to encourage project engagement.