Our churches are a part of the A Rocha UK’s award scheme for churches in England and Wales who want to demonstrate that the gospel is good news for God’s earth.

The benefice has embarked on the A Rocha eco-church scheme. A Rocha is an international network of environmental organisations with a Christian ethos, “a rocha” being Portuguese for “the rock”. The eco-church scheme is a methodology whereby each parish assesses its contribution to the conservation of the environment in five areas of our church life: worship and teaching, management of our buildings, management of our church land, community and global engagement, and personal lifestyle.



Each of our six parishes has engaged in the process by initially answering a survey of questions from the A Rocha methodology, which are separated into the categories above. More information about the scheme, including the survey questions, can be found at https://ecochurch.arocha.org.uk . Under Jane's leadership we have put together a small team to implement the scheme, comprising one person from each parish. The team's members are Jane, Teresa Thomas, Brenda Scott, John Steele, Lawrence Harwood and myself. Jane asked me to chair the group.



The answers to the survey questions attract scores, according to their level of eco-compliance. The total score in each category may attract a bronze, silver or gold rating, where, roughly, 30% upwards scores a bronze, 50% a silver and 80% a gold. These ratings are then combined to give an overall rating for the parish. To date Brimpton has been awarded a bronze and Beenham is currently being assessed for a bronze. There is no reason why we should not all aspire to at least silver.

So much for the mechanics of the scheme. Why are we doing it and where will it lead? We know that greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced so as to stop man-made global heating; and that habitat loss has to be reversed to arrest the current mass extinction of species; and that dumping of plastic at sea has to stop to prevent damage to our oceans; and that the pollution in this country of our rivers caused by the run-off of waste from intensive farming has to stop if we are to save our rivers. As Christians, we have a responsibility to be stewards of our environment, and the eco-church scheme is a way in which we can all pull together to make that stewardship more effective.

Early results from the surveys show that in the worship and teaching category we can be or are up to silver standard, in the management of our church buildings and land we can or do achieve bronze, but in our involvement in local and global communities, and in our personal lifestyles there is much room for improvement. The A Rocha website contains many helpful pamphlets, one of which is about carrying out personal carbon footprint audits. You'll find it in the lifestyle resources section https://ecochurch.arocha.org.uk/resources/lifestyle/ . I do urge everyone to assess your own carbon footprint. It's the place to start and is the only way to understand fully what an enormous challenge we face.

We also need to have two-way conversations on the topic, to hear each other's views and ideas. We plan to start this with a late morning meeting on Saturday 29th April with a guest speaker, Dr George McGavin, a leading biologist and TV personality whose talk will be entitled: "Looking after God's Acre: Barren Boneyard or Garden of Earthly Delights?". Do please put the date in your diary and look out for further details.
 
Richard Foster
Chair of Eco Church Group