Eco Church
What has ‘eco’ got to do with church?
In the beginning, God tells humans to guard and care for creation: the very first chapters of the Bible tell us this as the first commandment. We are part of that creation, but have a special role, bearing God’s image.
So it’s not simply because it’s a ‘good idea’ or because it will ‘save the planet’ to give us and future generations a decent place to live. As Christians, we want to do God’s will and see the Kingdom come. Caring for creation is part of our mission, to glorify our Creator and Redeemer.
Our Commitment
As a community of faith, we have made a commitment to Creation Care and set it out in a declaration about the climate and ecological emergency that the world is now facing.
This catastrophic crisis of environmental degradation and climate change affects the future of human civilisation - and the main cause of the crisis is human activity: we’ve failed to follow God’s direction. And it’s linked to injustice and inequality, globally.
We need to tell the truth; to ourselves and to others: understanding and speaking out, encouraging each other. We need to take practical action; as individuals, families, households and as a church family.
One of our commitments as a church family is to track our progress towards a ‘new normal’; and Eco-church, from Christian charity A Rocha, is a way to do this. We achieved a Bronze award in July 2022, a Silver award in August 2023 and are now working towards Gold – but this will require undertaking a number of physical changes to the building e.g. thermal insulation, some more double glazing, changing even more of our lights to LED - we’re also investigating installing solar panels with battery storage for 2024.
We are networking with other local churches to organise joint eco events and/or join existing community ones to engage people further. We did a survey of church members’ thoughts, feelings and activities in 2022 - here is a summary of the results. We now need to revisit this to see how things have moved on and how people have engaged with Creation Care so far.
If you’d like to join the Eco Church group, click here.
Stories
February 2025 - Joint Crookes Churches event (Repair Workshop) at St Vincent’s Church.
December 2024 - Solar panels installed on the Church Centre Room 1 roof with battery storage in Room 4.
November 2024 - Joint Crookes Churches Eco-Christmas event at St Vincents Church on 23rd Nov from 10am-12pm, a morning of activities and reflection looking forward to Christmas and how to include an attitude of care for creation into our preparations (and purchases). A Rocha zero-waste Christmas ideas.
October 2024 - ‘Gardening Morning’, undertaking grass cutting for sowing wild flower seeds in our re-wilded areas and other weeding with general tidying, ready for the winter.
September 2024 - ‘The ‘Season of Creation’ in the church calendar when, in the letter of Paul to the Romans, it pictures the Earth as a Mother, groaning as in childbirth (Rom 8:22). The times we live in show that we are not relating to the Earth as a gift from our Creator, but rather as a resource to be used and this is not sustainable. 2024 has already been the hottest on record with many floods, droughts, heat-waves, and feeling very scary.
June 2024 - ‘Garden Party’ undertaking hedge cutting & other weeding / general tidying/ etc. ‘A training session on how to best approach politicians with questions’, held at St Timothy’s Church. ‘A Hustings’, held in Church, attended by around 170 with 7 candidates from the Hallam & Central Wards taking question with many having an Eco & Social Care focus. These June events hopefully highlighted an area where we can start to press to make a difference with those responsible for running our Local & National Governments.
March 2024 - ‘Repair Café’, organised by the local churches at Wesley Hall when the focus was on clothing repairs but not exclusively with the option of other practical repairs, one being bicycle heath check/adjusting, which STC staffed.
February 2024 - New article published on plastics.
October 2023 - The grass in the churchyard has been cut and Yellow Rattle seeds planted for next season.
August 2023 - We received our Silver Eco Church Award from A Rocha.
May 2023 - Churchyard ‘re-wilding’: we have been leaving the grass in the churchyard to grow long in the hope of encouraging insects and wildflowers to flourish in this space.
February 2023 - Caring for Creation in Lent – we included some tips in our weekly church emails throughout Lent encouraging our church family to ‘give up’ or ‘take up’ various things throughout the season of Lent.
October 2022 - We held an ‘Eco Church Sunday’ with encouraging messages shared at all three church gatherings on our responsibility to care for the world and the people in it!
July 2022 - We received our Bronze Eco Church Award from A Rocha.
May 2022 - We installed two bird boxes for swifts on the church building. They are located under the roofline on the north side of the main church opposite the Prayer Shed.
Resources
Information on plastics, their environmental impact and some alternatives.
Some ideas on how to reduce, reuse and recycle in our local community.
Crookes Litter Pickers (meet on the last Saturday of the month outside The Ball Inn at 9:45am for a 10am start. Equipment is provided).
What can you do? Evaluate your own ‘carbon footprint’ using the tool at Creation Care - as featured on Songs of Praise in February 2024. You can even get bronze, silver or gold (virtual) medals! See where changes can make the biggest impact.