Eco Church

St Swithun’s has become an Eco Church. Fear not, there will be no sudden change to the church building, Church Rooms or our churchyard. We do intend, though, to make evolutionary changes to reduce our environmental impact.

What is an Eco Church?

Churches may apply to A Rocha UK to join their Eco Church organisation. A Rocha UK is part of the international A Rocha family, a network of green christian organisations present in more than 20 countries in six continents. As an Eco Church, St Swithun’s has joined an ecumenical community of over 7,500 churches in England and Wales taking practical action to care for the earth. I should mention that this community includes our colleagues from the local Methodist churches.

Here’s where the fun begins: member churches are not just given guidance and resources to be greener. There is an award scheme (Bronze, Silver and Gold levels) to test if the member is using those resources to make a change and how they are progressing. The tests are a survey, which the member church completes. Whether there is an audit to ensure accuracy of the survey I doubt, but Eco Church grace their members with a presumption of honesty.

The five survey categories question churches about their energy consumption, stewardship of outdoor spaces (roughly 1.6 acres for St Swithun’s), inclusion of environmental issues in their worship, community engagement and the personal lifestyle choices of people in their congregations. 

Reconciling eco-surveys to christian teaching, A Rocha speaks of Jesus’s command to love your Neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22: 39) and reminds us of the catastrophic disasters global warming is causing in poorer nations. If we love these neighbours, they say, we must be greener. They also assert that Chapters 1 to 2 of Genesis confers responsibility on believers to take care of God’s beautiful creation.

Stephen Snow