‘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 care within the church and the wider community. And it helped us on our way to our silver Eco-Church award too!
Written by Katherine Willis, Curate at Holy Trinity Claygate
