An increasing number of central Texas churches are going green as they expand to accommodate growing congregations, the Austin, Texas American-Statesman newspaper reports.

In San Marcos, St. Mark's Episcopal Church has bought land for a new church and is weighing options for green construction, including solar panels, rainwater collection systems and concrete floors that would help keep it cool.

"We're supposed to take care of the Earth, not just take what we can get from it," Larry Hanson, chairman of the church's building committee, told the newspaper.

The Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, which includes parts of central Texas, has set up a website explaining how churches can build in environmentally sensitive ways.

The Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit in Dripping Springs recently completed a church that has double-paned, tinted glass -- "seventy percent of the time, we don't even have to turn on a light," said the Rev. Nancy Coon -- and a zoned heating and air-conditioning system so the church can heat or cool only the areas that are occupied.

Congregations often operate on tight budgets and have to weigh the cost of eco-friendly construction against basics such as Bibles. In the short run, going green can be costly, and some churches have had to balance their environmental convictions with economic realities.

St. James' Episcopal Church, which is finishing a new building in East Austin, has put its rainwater collection system on hold and scrapped a high-tech heating and cooling system because it would cost three times as much as a conventional system, said Amy Bramwell, a project manager at Steinbomer and Associates, the architectural firm handling construction.

"It's a bigger investment upfront, but you get the payback over 10 or 15 years," she said.
The congregation did preserve most of the trees on its new site and is reusing bricks from its old building.

"We want to be as green as we can be and not break the bank," said Ora Houston, a member of the church's building committee.

Bob Adams, a consultant with North Carolina church building company J.H. Batten, told the newspaper that much of the energy behind greener churches is coming from congregations, rather than pulpits. More church members are seeing their employers pursue green construction, he said, and "they come back to their churches and say, 'What are we going to do?'"