St Helens Deanery are focussing on the fifth mark of mission this year and want to strive to make all churches more eco-friendly. Eco Church St Helens will be a deanery-wide project that will see each church selected one or a group of ‘Eco Champions’ who will take the lead on the project on their church and gather information needed to complete the A Rocha UK ‘Eco Survey. We are also encouraging churches of all denominations to join us on this journey, to continue the strong ecumenical links that have been forged in our town.
The aim is to bring together churches in St Helens to put care for the environment at the forefront of the mission and work we are doing. All the churches in the Deanery are involved to make a big impact in our town, and in the Diocese as part of the new Eco Diocese so that St Helens can be a leading example of bringing more churched to the Eco Church award and become more aware of issues regarding the environment.
We are in the process of gathering together our Champions and we hope to officially launch Eco Church St Helens towards the end of March. The Champions will meet on a two-monthly basis to share each church’s progress as a group and to pray for the project and God’s creation together. Also plans for one church’s champions to ‘buddy up’ with another church’s after six months of the project running to share best practice and help each other out. In terms of the changes to be made, we will be using Bishop Paul’s call to ‘do ten things’ so each parish church signed up to Eco Church St Helens will do ten new things to improve their church’s relationship with the environment.
I look forward to serving as the ‘champion of champions’ as part of my Tsedaqah internship with the Diocese this year and helping to make St Helens a hub of Christian worship focussed on care for God’s creation. We are encouraging young people (25 and under) in our churches to step forward as Eco Champions to make their voices heard in their church community and show their enthusiasm for stewardship and conservation of creation.
The youth perspective is key because it’s the future we are to inherit that we want to influence. Getting young people’s voices heard in church is so important, so that we can influence those who in the past have not thought about prioritising environmental concerns.
The hope is that we will be able to make a real difference in our churches to show our care for God’s creation and set a precedent for future generations in the church and our communities that must dedicate ourselves to preserving the integrity of creation and that when young people come together to strive for a common cause, great things can happen.
How are we going to achieve this? It is the work of the eco champions completing eco surveys for their church, in continual assessment to keep assessing progress and planning future initiatives. Our vision is that within one year, all churches signed up will have reached the Bronze standard of the Eco Church Award, which is the first milestone of making the church more eco-friendly, assessed in five areas: worship, management of church buildings, management of church land, community and global engagement and the lifestyle of the congregation. The result being that churches will have a widely recognised award to be proud of and if nothing else, can say with confidence that they are living out the gospel command to care for creation in a proactive way.
Diocese Update
Annie Merry, Chief Executive Officer at Faiths4Change gives an update on the Diocese Eco Project:
We're having our first Eco Diocese Team meeting on 26th Feb - the Team are Annie Merry (Coordinator), Phil Leigh (DEO), Ellen Loudon, Canon Reverend Mal Rogers, Don Thompson (Mossley Hill Church, Eco Congregations Assessor, Merseyside Cycle Campaign & many good environmental connections), Helen Parker Jervis (St Brides Church & Merseyside Christian Aid), Sam Rigby (Intern St Helen's Deanery & Eco Churches Lead).
We'll be planning some pop up Eco Church events, activities and lots of support...we'll be sharing more in the March Eco Diocese feature in the Bulletin.
We're so pleased to share that we now have 13 registered Eco Churches and 1 Bronze Award Eco Church which is St Martin's Church, Southdene, Kirkby.
Congratulations to newly registered in 2019
Mossley Hill Church, St James in the City, St Mark's North Road, St Mary's (Lower Ince), St Mary's (Great Sankey), St Cleopas, St Cuthberts, Emmanuel Church, St Gabriels Huyton Quarry.
The hope is that we will be able to make a real difference in our churches to show our care for God’s creation and set a precedent for future generations
Congratulations to those who have signed up
13 churches registered as Eco Churches
We're so pleased to share that we now have 13 registered Eco Churches and 1 Bronze Award Eco Church which is St Martin's Church, Southdene, Kirkby.
Congratulations to newly registered in 2019
Mossley Hill Church
St James in the City
St Mark's North Road
St Mary's (Lower Ince)
St Mary's (Great Sankey)
St Cleopas
St Cuthberts
Emmanuel Church
St Gabriels Huyton Quarry.
3 steps to help us become an Eco Diocese
Start by registering as an Eco Church
Step One: Register as an Eco Church
Register as an eco church online and login - it's simple and starts your journey. You don't have to be doing any activity, click here and sign up.linkneeded but error on page
Step Two: Complete the Eco Survey
It will help you to identify the environmental work that your church is already doing and what else you could do. https://ecochurch.arocha.org.uk/eco-survey-non-saving-example/ linkneeded but error on page
Step Three: Contact Faiths for Change
For extra support email annie@faiths4change.org.uk
#DoTenThings
#EcoDiocese
#GoForGold