St Mary’s Eco Church Committee seeks to promote care for God’s creation by way of personal and collective actions towards a greener and more sustainable future.
The award scheme is run by Christian environmental charity A Rocha and aims to recognise churches taking steps to a greener approach in their ministry, practical management and community outreach.
Churches work their way through the various criteria to achieve Bronze, Silver and Gold awards depending on progress.
The award criteria are split into 5 categories;
Worship & Teaching – ensuring the topic of caring for creation is included in ministry for the wider church and youth work, praying for environmental issues and communicating these concerns in our publications and online.
We are taking direction and inspiration from the Eco Church award scheme of which many UK churches are already members.
Buildings – calculating the carbon footprint of the church buildings and taking necessary measures to reduce it, ensuring consumables are sourced ethically with as little waste as possible and developing green facilities on site to serve both the church and local community.
Land – considered management of our Churchyard which respects the resting place of the generations that have passed on whilst nurturing and safeguarding the ecosystem for the generations to come.
Community & Global Engagement – working with local groups to share resources and ideas, organising events to engage with the community, local council or MP on environmental issues and fundraising to support environmental charities.
Lifestyle – providing information and resources to the local community to encourage sustainable lifestyle changes and ensuring church members are leading by example and practicing what we preach!
We have a vision to see the Benefice churches working together to put concern for creation at the centre of our church life, sharing resources and collaborating to organise events and projects.
The existing Overton Churches Together group gives us the opportunity to join forces with the Community and Catholic churches in Overton to encourage each other in a collective effort towards a more sustainable future.
We are also incredibly fortunate as a town to have proactive and dedicated community groups such as Sustainable Overton and The Overton Biodiversity Society who have already established some fantastic projects which we are keen to learn from and support in any way we can.
Through supporting initiatives such as Plastic Free July and reforming our collective behaviours we hope that this will strengthen support for our local businesses who are already taking steps to reduce their impact on the environment.