St Mary’s are an A Rocha UK EcoChurch Bronze Award winner 2021
A RochaUK is a Christian charity working to protect and restore the natural world and committed to equipping Christians and churches in the UK to care for the environment. It’s Eco Church initiative provides a framework to support churches to take practical action on caring for God’s Earth and to ‘go green’ in five areas of their life and ministry – worship, buildings, land, community & global engagement, and lifestyle.
St Mary’s Eco Church journey began in March 2021 and in June 2021 we were thrilled to gain our Bronze award after gaining gold standards in worship and buildings; silver standard in land; and bronze standards in community and global engagement and lifestyle. This gave us a Bronze standard over all. We are now continuing our journey towards our Silver award.
What we are doing now
We are currently trying to calculate our carbon footprint and we are asking all members of our church community to calculate their carbon footprint too, to see if there is anything they can do to reduce it. Find out more here https://footprint.wwf.org.uk/#/ (opens in new tab).
We are encouraging our church community to travel less by car, switching to walking or cycling instead and are hoping to install a bike rack soon. For those who are unable to walk or cycle we are encouraging a car sharing scheme.
With the lack of rain this summer, in July, we looked at trying to reduce our water usage. Some simple tips can be found here 13 best ways to save water | Friends of the Earth (opens in new tab).
In September with Harvest in mind we will be looking at sustainable eating:
- Prioritising and eating more fruit and vegetables;
- Minimising how much meat we eat;
- Eating from sustainable fish stock;
- Buying local;
- Buying organic or fairtrade if you can afford to;
- Eating mindfully
Prayers
As part of our Eco Church activity, we are committing to praying regularly for an environmental charity. We are currently choosing a different charity each month.
In March 2023 we will prayed for Groundwork (opens in new tab).
So far we have prayed for the following:
charity: water
www.charitywater.org (opens in new tab)
www.ukharvest.org.uk (opens in new tab)
Please hold the invaluable work that these charities do and the communities that they serve in your prayers.
For more information on St Mary’s Eco Church work please contact Rachel Butterworth rachelabutterworth@gmail.com