Welcome to Eco Church!
We have a heart for the Environment and all of Creation and see ourselves as part of Christian Climate Action. We plant vegetables and flowers in our churchyard, and we have been awarded the Eco Church Bronze Award. In the past, we have maintained a bee hotel, and we have come together for litter picking.
We have an Eco Church Team. This is what is on our hearts – these are our aspirations:
- To integrate the environment into our worship and give space to voice Climate Action issues;
- to maintain a clean churchyard;
- to maintain flower beds with wide-ranging plants and grow more vegetables;
- to provide info about animal life in our churchyard;
- to plant fruit trees and harness rainwater;
- to get local schools involved in Eco projects;
- to make our churchyard more accessible & safer.
Currently, we are also looking into installing Solar Panels and finding non-fossil fuel heating for our church.
We want to work with the Council (who maintains our churchyard) and other partners on these aspirations and to create a space where all of God’s creation will thrive.
Any questions? Want to get involved? Please get in touch with our Church Office. We would love to hear from you!
Further Information
For “Eco Church” and its award schemes for churches who want to demonstrate that the gospel is good news for God’s earth, see https://ecochurch.arocha.org.uk/
For the Church of England Environment Programme, see
https://www.churchofengland.org/about/church-england-environment-programme
For local environmental projects we admire, see
- the award-winning churchyard at St Mary’s Walthamstow – see https://www.stmaryswalthamstow.org/churchyard/;
- East Ham Nature Reserve – see https://www.parksandgardens.org/places/east-ham-nature-reserve;
- Walthamstow Wetlands – see https://www.wildlondon.org.uk/walthamstow-wetlands-nature-reserve.
Web-Based Sources of Environmental Information
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN’s body for assessing the science related to climate change): https://www.ipcc.ch/
United Nations Climate Action: https://www.un.org/en/climatechange
National Center for Atmospheric Research: https://ncar.ucar.edu/
National Centers for Environmental Information: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/
Skeptical Science: https://skepticalscience.com/
Center for Climate & Energy Solutions: https://www.c2es.org/
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Resources from the Diocese of Chelmsford
Environment: https://www.chelmsford.anglican.org/about-us/our-faith-in-action/caring-for-the-environment
Climate Justice is Racial Justice: https://www.chelmsford.anglican.org/climate-justice-is-racial-justice
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Blogs
IMGBlog on Climate Change: https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs
NASA: Global Climate Change Blog: https://climate.nasa.gov/explore/ask-nasa-climate/?page=0&per_page=40&order=publish_date+desc%2C+created_at+desc&search=&hide_filter_bar=true&grid_list_klass=full_news_list&category=25
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Books
Bookless, Dave, Planetwise. Dare to Care for God’s World (Nottingham, 2008)
Butler, Octavia, Parable of the Sower (2019)
Christian Climate Action, Time to Act. A resource book by the Christians in Extinction Rebellion (London, 2020)
Church of England, A Time for Creation. Liturgical Resources for Creation and the Environment (London, 2020)
Foster, Claire & David Shreeve, Leading your Church through a Changing Climate (London, 2008)
Hinkel, Jason, Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (London, 2021)
Klein, Naomi, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate
Pope Francis, Encyclical on Climate Change & Inequality. On Care for Our Common Home (London, 2015)
Powers, Richard, The Overstory (London, 2019)
Valero, Ruth, Saying Yes to Life (London, 2020)
Wallace-Wells, David, The Uninhabitable Earth. A Story of the Future (London, 2019)
Wall Kimmerer, Robin, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (London, 2020)
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