Eco Church – SILVER AWARD

We have been awarded a Silver award from Eco Church (An A Rocha UK Project) Their vision is for churches of all denominations to care for creation as an integral part of loving their neighbours and following God faithfully

To achieve our award we have been completing a survey online where we have been looking at what we do in 3 areas

Worship and Teaching: This is where we have expressed our care for God’s world. For instance, over the last two years we have Harvest Festivals, worship on Creation and Water. Messy church where the theme has been related to Water and Air, and we have had visits from outside speakers like a local farmer

Community and Global Engagement: showing how we have interacted with local communities and the world. For example. we started a Little Free Pantry, not only to help local people who are finding times difficult but also to help reduce waste of food. A group, Springfield Wombles meets regularly to litter pick in the local area. We also had a Lent appeal to raise money for Water Aid – this was done by a sponsored virtual walk to Jerusalem.

Lifestyle: This is where we have encouraged our congregation to change their lifestyle. We had a bazaar where some of the games focused on recycling. We support Fairtrade and try to use their products in church whenever possible. Every week there is an item in the newsletter – Thought of the week or Eco Tip of the week – a recent one was use your LOAF –

At the moment because we share the building with the Roman Catholics we were decided not to complete the sections on Management of buildings and Land. However this is an area that may be looked at in the future.

Eco Thought of week 15/10/2023  Use your LOAF- stands for food that is: Locally produced Organically grown Animal Friendly, and Fairly traded