St Luke’s Church, Great Crosby

We would like to introduce you to an award scheme called Eco-Congregation. This is a national environmental programme for churches managed by A Rocha UK. It builds on our existing environmental concerns & Christian perspectives and aims to encourage us as members of the church to CELEBRATE the gift of creation and CARE for it in appropriate practical and spiritual ways. We realise that St Luke’s is already actively involved in many ways - care for our church grounds (Breathing Places), sale of Fairtrade goods, use of low energy lamps and loo hippos, recycling of printer cartridges to name but a few - and on those things we need to build.

What could St Luke’s do? Let us know your ideas of what you would like to see happen and get involved! Contact Gillian or Paul (tel: 0151 932 1272). There is more information on the Eco-Congregation website.

So how will we respond?

What do we have to do?

Form a Green Team to complete the Church Check-up.

What is the Church Check-up?

It covers areas of Worship, Work & Witness and is designed to help us to establish our priorities for action, covering such topics as worship, children’s & youth activities, care of church land and personal lifestyles.

• Spiritual: link environmental issues and Christian faith
  (modules on worship, Theology, Bible study, children and young People)
• Practical: take environmental action in Church
  (modules on buildings, finance and Purchasing, grounds and gardens)
• Community: work with the community for a greener world
  (modules on personal lifestyles, community projects and global links)

Some examples of what other churches have done

Community litter picks, green themes in worship, study groups and children’s work, recycling, installing more efficient heating & lighting, to name a few.

How long will it take?

There’s no set time limit to implement any ideas – so it could be 6 months, or it might be a year. It doesn’t really matter.

What happens then?

We apply for the award, the work that the church has achieved is assessed, and if we meet the standards we’ll get a plaque.

A prayer from the Eco-Congregation website

In the eco-footprints of Jesus Creator God, let us walk in your footsteps with footprints that heal rather than harm this planet that you have placed in our trust. We offer our care of creation to you, not as an act of desperate self-preservation but as our devotion of worship to the one who has made it. Amen.

What have we done so far?

Diary of events

Reflections – Sunday 8 June

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and all your mind
and love your neighbour as yourself.
[Matthew Chapter 22 verses 37,39]

At the beginning of Lent we launched the idea of Eco-congregation and encouraged the congregation to participate in ‘Carbon-Fast’ as part of our focus on the sacrifice made for us by Jesus and showing our care for each other and the environment, by taking up something that may mean a sacrifice to our daily routine or living. In actively living a life that cares for others we can see how the gospel can have an impact on our lives and those around us – not just those in our locality, our ‘next door neighbours’ but those living hundreds or thousands of miles away in different circumstances.

Recently I have taken the opportunity to spend some time in further reading and learning about Matthew’s Gospel, as Matthew seeks to show us that Jesus is Immanuel. Whilst Jesus did not preach on ‘saving the planet’ he did preach in his sermon on the mount that there are those who will find the narrow road and those who will not. There are divisions amongst society and we are challenged to renew our commitment to sharing the good news with others in many ways, not least through our actions and attitudes to each other.

God’s creation places on us all a great responsibility; we are stewards of this earth; called to care for his creation and therefore each other in a loving way.

Through the project of Eco-congregation we are asked to examine our own personal lifestyles and look at different areas of church life; do we praise God and thank him for his creation regularly? How green is our management of financial, catering and purchasing matters? Do we look at the Bible studies in our cell groups?

Our lifestyles continue to consume more and more energy so we need to reflect on ways in which we can love our poorer neighbours – what will you do? Are our decisions based on what will benefit us or do they demonstrate that our lives are committed to Christ?

Gillian Beardwood

What do we do next?

That’s up to you!

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This page was last modified on 10 August 2008.