Caring for our environment
God’s creation is valued and cherished by the Christ Church community.
We demonstrate this through:
- Celebration and thanks to our Creator God. We are never too old to stop being in awe and wonder at the natural world
- Caring for the environment as a core element of discipleship
- Using engagement with our environment to help people encounter God
- Being good custodians of the resources we have been given. This includes careful and appreciative use of resources to heat and light our church buildings
- Teaching and education.
We have a small eco team that tries to work as a catalyst inside the Christ Church community to champion all these elements.
Recent activities that we are proud of include:
- We achieved the A Rocha UK silver eco church award in recognition of efforts to care for God’s earth
- Our Connected children’s group undertook a pollinators survey in the church garden
- Our Ignite youth group built a bug hotel aptly named ‘Bugingham Palace’, along with bird and bat boxes for the churchyard
- We hosted an interactive exhibition using resources from the inspirational Hazelnut Farm Community to encourage the Christ Church family and wider community to explore God through the natural environment
- We supported the harvest festival sermon series ‘Encountering God through all his creation’.
We plan to extend these activities to include:
- Encouraging different groups in the Christ Church family to join together to grow vegetables and flowers at the front of our parish hall on North Street. We pray that this will be another opportunity to encounter God and improve the tarmac and concrete environment
- Developing prayer walks around the parish to encourage prayer in and for our communities, nature and built-up environment.