Last week Bishop Viv issued a challenge to all parishes to work towards an Eco Church award, and for existing Eco Churches to set their sights on a higher award.
The scheme supports parishes to integrate creation care into all areas of church life. Read her call to action here. If this challenge has inspired you to explore Eco Church, take a look at the Eco Church website and sign up to one of our Eco Church webinars, Going for Silver or Going for Gold. Together we can meet this challenge, as we continue to honour and protect God’s glorious creation.
One way churches are answering the call to respond to the climate and ecological emergencies is by nominating someone in their church to be an Eco Champion. Around a third of churches in the diocese have already appointed someone in this role to champion environmental action. Being an Eco Champion involves:
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ensuring that creation care is a standing item on your church’s PCC/DCC agenda
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receiving regular Diocesan Environment Briefings
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ensuring that environmental information is shared with both the PCC and the wider church community, encouraging action
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sharing good news stories and events from your church with the Diocesan Environment Officer & Deanery Eco Champion to celebrate and share more widely
Contact Clare Fussell to sign up.
If your church doesn’t yet have a Lent course planned, or you want to do something environment-focused, Green Christian has a new small group course that could be perfect for you. It’s called Plenty! and it looks at the economic issues behind current ecological crises such as climate change and biodiversity loss and seeks to uncover more about why we are facing them, and what you can do about it from a Christian perspective.
Also over Lent, the Climate Coalition, whose members include Christian Aid, Tearfund and the Woodland Trust, has a new campaign asking people to write to their MP asking the government to respond to the climate crisis and implement the policies needed to reach Net-Zero emissions as quickly as possible. See more details of the campaign here.
Over the past few years a lot of churches, and indeed the diocese, have declared a climate emergency. And now there is a brand new 2022 update to the Climate Emergency Toolkit to guide your church in declaring a climate emergency; find it here.
Within the diocese St Mary’s Marshfield has launched a new link project the Women of Migori in Kenya with Send a Cow, a locally based international charity. This recognises that they are part of a global community facing very real environmental challenges. Have you got any projects linking the local and global response to the climate crisis? If you do please let us know!
And coming up soon Wild Church in North Wiltshire are hosting their own ‘Big Harvest’ on the 13 March, where they will be preparing the ground and blessing the seeds for their growing season. Click here for more information on the Wild Church event and here for information on hosting your own ‘Big Harvest’ event.
If you have any stories to share, please contact Clare Fussell at clare.fussell@bristoldiocese.org. Check out the full bi-monthly Environment Briefing for churches here.