Get started on Eco-Church
Eco Church provides a framework, a simple guidebook, that helps you answer the very real question of “What can we do?” The survey provides you with a series of goals, some simpler, some more challenging; as a parish you choose which goals you are already achieving and can tick off, and which you’d like to work on now. When you’ve achieved a certain amount across the different areas, you’ll receive an award.
The areas are:
- Worship and teaching
- Management of church buildings
- Management of church land
- Community and global engagement
- Lifestyle
The survey is engaging and leaves you feeling you are making a difference, and able to make progress at your own speed. The awards are highly motivating and bring a parish together as a whole to work on sustainability.
Join the Eco Network
The Eco Network is a growing community of people with a heart for the environment and net zero carbon, brought together by a shared desire to create positive change in our churches.
There’s a lot of action we can take, but at times knowing how to get started is the biggest hurdle. We are all on the same journey, so we’ve created an online platform (using the App ‘Slack’) so parishes can share what they are doing, what has worked for them and what hasn’t, and encourage each other. Together we’re on a mission to achieve Net Zero Carbon by 2030.
The great things is you can dip in or out as much as suits you, there’s no obligation at all. Everything’s listed under different topic headings so it's searchable and easy to find. Or ask a question, and others may be able to help. You can be a silent watcher or active participant, it’s up to you.
Make Space for Wildlife
Whether it’s a few plant pots on an urban street, or a hectare of cemetery land, any outside space you manage as a parish can be used to help preserve the biodiversity of our towns and countryside. The spade work has already been done for you and all the information you could possibly need is at your fingertips in the form of Caring For God’s Acre.
Green your Lifestyle
St Paul’s Dorking felt a desire to live out their calling to care for God’s Creation in a very real way, and created a companion to Eco Church but for Christian Households. It’s called the Creation Care Scheme, and just as with Eco Church, it’s a survey that acts as a guidebook, banishing all the confusion of eco messaging, and showing you exactly what you can do as a household to live sustainably. Not everyone can do everything – in a block of flats you can’t easily install solar panels – but this is about doing what you can, what suits you and your family or flatmates. As with Eco Church, you can achieve Bronze, Silver or Gold awards.
Speaking out
You don’t need to march down Whitehall with a banner and a loudhailer to speak out about caring for Creation. There are countless organisations, local, national and international, that are working fervently to bring awareness and action on climate change and biodiversity loss, and joining in with this work is part of our mission as Christians. From NGOs with global reach such as Tearfund, Christian Aid, WWF and Greenpeace, via pressure groups such as Christian Climate Action and Zero Hour Campaign, to local heroes such as ZERO Carbon Guildford, Tillingbourne Earth, or Surrey Wildlife Trust, there are trusted spaces to raise your voice with others and act to bring about change.