Llanpumsaint Church achieved a bronze award in March 2020, continuing on their Eco Church journey to achieve their silver award two years later in February 2022. They shared a few of their recent Eco Church activities with Delyth Higgins, our Eco Church Officer for Wales.    Eco-themed Open Church Event Our small rural church in a village with a population of about 800 people partnered with other churches in our Local Ministry Area, Plant Dewi, our diocesan children’s charity, our local allotment association and the local bus company (who provided free transport), to host an eco-themed open church event.  The event attracted over 60 people and focused on the Biblical creation story in Genesis and our call to be good stewards of God’s Earth as an expression of love for God and our neighbour. There was a Godly play session on the creation story, we made recycled bird feeders, planted wildflowers and vegetables, made and shared local, organic, animal-friendly and fair-trade (LOAF) cawl together, established our bug hotel, had a fair-trade stall, and a host of other activities and games. A great day, all in all!    Pop-up Cafe Llanpumsaint Church hosts a pop-up café every Tuesday from 11.30am – …

We include representatives of almost all the churches in the Hope Valley in the Peak District. We realised that many Christians were involved in the Hope Valley Climate Action group and wanted to create an opportunity to share ideas and inspirations amongst ourselves. At our first meeting we decided to commit to every church on the valley becoming an Ecochurch. In two years we have gone from one to four bronze awards and 9 out of 11 churches registered. We meet roughly every three months in each other’s churches to share ideas on worship, building and land management and lifestyle. As a visible part of Hope Valley Climate Action we have an opportunity to demonstrate God’s concern for His creation within a secular group with over 800 supporters. Working together gives us a louder voice when we declare His love for His creation. We hope this can be a helpful model for others to follow. Written by David Hughes

St Peter’s Church, Alton, achieved their silver award in September 2021. They shared the following story with us: We’ve had some very good engagement with the local cubs, who have taken on an Eco Project for the land in our graveyard. They have created display boards of their ideas to improve the churchyard for wildlife and the public use of the space. There were some common themes running through their ideas: – Planting more flowers and fruit in the churchyard to attract insects, birds, other animals, and people – Providing more homes for the bugs and mini-beasts that the fruit and flowers attract in – Providing homes for larger animals like hedgehogs – Having a pond for frogs, newts, toads, and all the other interesting pond wildlife See the photos below for how they developed their ideas and the final display boards they produced, which are now on display in the church.                      

St Margaret’s Church achieved their silver award in September 2022. Read more about their Eco Church journey here. “This will be the second year we have held a ‘Green’ Christmas Market. Last year it was hugely successful and raised a lot of interest, money and support from other organisations in our village. The principles of the event are: To bring Christmas joy to our community through the market To spread a green message into the heart of the Christmas season We manage this by all our stalls having an eco-ethos and being as plastic free as possible.” The main stalls are as follows: Homemade edibles – delicious cakes, jams, chutneys Natural decor – wreaths, poinsettias, potted bulbs,  and pinecones Re-gifting – anything nearly new or in good condition which would make a good present (no electrics or clothing) Handmade – crafts, knitting, willow weaving, woodwork, artwork Re-homing good quality toys (with kite mark) and children’s books This year we have invited OXFAM to have a free stall, and our local Citizens Advice Bureau will have a table and be available to talk through how to keep warm this winter with anyone who wishes to receive advice. We have a real …

All photos were taken in the autumn around the harvest festival by Becca Riley We had a wonderful harvest festival during October last year in our church. Our local farmer from the village kindly agreed to come to along church to address the congregation. We hosted a question-and-answer session with him during the service. He was able to describe and help those present to understand more about his farm – a mixed farm, growing crops and managing livestock. He talked about challenges faced by farmers, particularly the weather, and he shared things that help local farmers, for example, villagers being tolerant of tractors moving around the village. Non-perishable foods were gathered from our congregation and the wider community and donated to the local food bank. Thank you to Becca Riley, Eco Church Lead and member of church PCC at St Michael and All Angels Church, for writing this piece and providing photos. 

(Creationtide Display Board 1) Creationtide is celebrated at Christ Church West Wimbledon with an annual display of pictures and artefacts in the church. Members of the congregation contribute photographs, paintings and other artworks and objects they have found or made relating to Creation. These are displayed with Bible verses about Creation Care on boards hung around the church. The backgrounds on the display boards were painted by the Sunday morning children’s groups. Everyone is invited to contribute and a wide range of people join in. (Creationtide Display Board 1 Most years, we also have an art installation, inviting further contribution and commentary on environmental themes as we think about these during Creationtide. Last year we had a water-themed installation, and the congregation were invited to write a prayer and make an origami prayer boat in support of the Young Christian Climate Network ‘Rise To The Moment’ campaign and Relay to COP26. This year we have a Prayer Tree – everyone is invited to write a prayer on a paper leaf celebrating creation or about the environment, climate change, biodiversity, pollution or whatever is on their heart and then to hang the leaf on the tree. Prayer Boat Installation for ‘Rise …

In September 2021, the Shropshire and Marches Methodist Circuit held its first Care for Creation Day Away on a farm in the south of the circuit. As this was a first, we weren’t sure how many people would attend, so we were delighted to have 60+ from all over our large Circuit. We were blessed with good weather, meeting in the garden due to Covid restrictions at the time. The garden lent itself to three groups meeting in the different ‘rooms’. The three speakers moved from group to group, speaking on Forest Church, Eco Church and the farm’s sustainability plans. Forest Church is active in the northern part of the Circuit, and our speaker explained that it follows the Celtic Year. We looked at trees, seeds and hedges (each group choosing one of these) and contemplated and shared what we had found. We also received an introduction to Eco Church and were shown examples of the questionnaire. We explored questions like how to reduce our carbon footprint, where to make changes and how to encourage the congregation to get involved. Father and son Gwatkin (John and David) told us about the development of their farm from being tenants to owner-occupied, …

(IMAGE: Buff-tip and a Privet Hawk-moth as photographed by Emily Best) Churchyards and church spaces are some of the UK’s most unpolluted nature sites. From 4-12 June 2022, Churches Count on Nature (CCON) brought communities together to discover the wildlife in their local churchyard. Over 250 churches across England and Wales took part, counting many species, including rare and endangered ones, in their churchyards, spaces and burial grounds across England and Wales. Emily Best from St Michael’s Church Eco Team shared about their experience of welcoming hundreds of school children to their church grounds: During Churches Count on Nature week, the Eco Team ran biodiversity monitoring workshops for their local C of E school and village pre-school. These are located next door to St Michael’s church in the centre of Aldbourne, Wiltshire, and approximately 230 children participated. Each session began with a welcome from one of the clergy, who shared God’s creative nature and how He has loaned the natural world to us to enjoy and protect. We sang, “He’s got the whole world in his hands”, and thanked God in prayer for his beautiful world. Each group spent 1.5-2.5 hours with us being “wildlife detectives” using their senses and …

‘Coming soon to a tree near you!’ was our headline on social media this February. 200 small cotton gift bags had been filled with seed balls and tagged with a label explaining that they were a gift for the person who found them, to help care for God’s world.  We were inspired by a similar project carried out in 2021 by St Mary’s and St John’s, Walton, but took a slightly different approach, encouraging church members to take a bag and prayerfully consider where they might leave it for someone else to find. Perhaps on a tree near a friend’s house, on the way to school, or on a popular dog walk. In this way, we hoped to not only bless the community with the gift of seed balls but also to encourage our church members to think in a missional way about their local communities. The project generated a sense of excitement amongst our church members, as bags were taken, hung on trees around the village – and then disappeared a few hours or days later. Our social media accounts were buzzing too, with positive comments and ‘likes’, and the project has helped to raise the profile of creation …

St Luke’s Hedge End, who received their Silver award in December 2021, found a creative way to share their eco church journey through this wonderful poem ‘lots of small things.’  As we approach the year ahead, take inspiration that the ‘lots of small things’ add up, and consider the ways your church can come together as a community this year to take action.  ‘Lots of Small Things’  The folk at St Luke’s know we must Take action, pray, and thus be just Prayer means action, so we’ve started To make our God less broken hearted Climate change has made us think Of ways of drawing from the brink Climate change weighs on our heart So onwards we must play our part First we started Eco church And in small ways began our search To find the ways to change our practice And thus to become climate active  We aimed first for bronze award, And soon found we had worked towards Carbon neutral, less emissions, And this is coming to fruition,  We do not own a large church yard, But have a strip of green grass sward Now there is home for bugs, Tho eagerly welcomed by the slugs Our building …