Here at St Helena's church, we see care for God's good earth and all creation, both human and non-human, as an integral part of who we are as God's church here in Austerfield.
We are part of the ARocha Eco Church scheme, where we seek to take practical actions to love our neighbours as ourselves and love God, through the lens of creation care and environmental justice.
We have achieved both the bronze and silver awards in the scheme, which involves actions across the following areas: Worship and teaching, Buildings, Land, Community and global engagement and Lifestyle.
You can see all that we are doing in our information display in church, including a photographic journey of creating our Eco Garden, and how you can play your part in treading more gently on the earth, often small but meaningful ways. The garden, a place of peaceful reflection within a bio diverse natural habitat, is a haven from our busy life and we offer a walking reflection to help people find God within nature.
This space is plastic free and we seek to minimise the use of plastic flowers in our open churchyard and always use wild flowers or from the garden for our church displays.
As a PCC, we have undertaken to commit to reducing our carbon footprint and offsetting what's left, which is a challenge in a 1000 year old building but we do all we can, often in inventive ways; we have knitted knee blankets to heat the person, for use during the colder months, and are looking at ways of insulating our heating pipes in church and have installed all LED light bulbs.
Why not measure your own footprint here: https://360carbon.org/en-gb/
The Church of England is committing to achieve Net Zero carbon by 2030, which is an ambitious target, and recognises this is a fundamental outworking of justice and mutual flourishing for all creation. To find out more about what The Church of England is doing practically and how your own church might play its part, click here: https://www.churchofengland.org/resources/net-zero-carbon-routemap
Here is a calendar of events that the Church of England is holding for 2025: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2024-05/sustainability-calendar-pdf-version.pdf
We also have adopted an Environment policy that shows the ways we seek to tread more lightly on the earth and care for those most adversely affected by the climate crisis.
And we want to help our community to play a part too, such as holding our 2024 Patronal Festival themed on creation care and climate justice, which was full of education about the environment and climate challenges as well as ways of minimising our own footprints on the earth and good lifestyle choices that can be made.
As a church committed to creation care and climate justice, we plan the following events and services for 2025:
At our monthly services we will commit to praying for those suffering most from the climate crisis and for the work of charities that work towards this.
We will hold an Environment Sunday service at St Helena's during June 2025.
We will continue to open the church for visitors and our local community to share information about creation care and what can be done locally to help the environment.
We plan to invite the local community to join a working party to work in the Eco garden and to help share inspiration about what we can do in our own green spaces.
We will hold at least one service of communion outside in the churchyard to celebrate the 'natural cathedral' God has given us.
We will participate in NoMowMay in our churchyard and Plastic Free July, including encouraging our congregations to commit to taking part.
We have recycling points for blister packs, bras, stamps, plastic sweet tubs, aluminium cans and eyeglasses, and support charities such as Tearfund, Christian Aid and Caring for God's Acre, and initiatives such as Earth Hour, Tippy Taps, Churches Count on Nature and the Tearfund Harvest Appeal.
Our Eco Champions are:
Church Warden Kay Beckett
Christine Wigglesworth
