Eco Church is 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. A Rocha UK is a Christian charity working for the protection and restoration of the natural world.  

The All Saints’ Eco Group has been working hard, exploring the different ways in which we can reduce our environmental impact as well as making the spaces around the church attractive to wildlife and places of rest and contemplation. We are always looking for more people to join us and help create and promote a both more carbon-free church and community.

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The work of the All Saints’, Ockham Eco Group follows the key areas identified by the A Rocha Eco Church initiative which seeks to encourage practical sustainability projects and actions, in respect of:

• worship and teaching

• looking after our buildings and land

• engaging with our local community and in global campaigns

• the personal lifestyles of our congregation.

 

The actions taken by churches in each of these areas can lead to the prestigious Eco Church Award at Bronze, Silver or Gold levels. All Saints’ Ockham currently has a Gold Award and St Michael’s Chapel, Downside has a Bronze Award. To be an Eco Church is to show that we are concerned to look after our church. We want to pass it on in a good condition to those who come after us. It is the same with our planet. There are practical, financial, social and of course environmental reasons for doing this, for example, to save energy and other finite resources. But there are additional arguments which are especially relevant to us as Christians:

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• The church should be demonstrating to all Christians and non-Christians that it is concerned with social and environmental issues. The church can set a good example to the local community and make visible to the wider world, as a matter of witness, its concern for the environment.

• The church can demonstrate that the social and physical environment is inseparable from the spiritual environment.

• Christians believe that God is revealed in many ways - through the person of Christ, through the working of the Holy Spirit and through the physical manifestation of all Creation. The respect and protection of the environment ought, therefore, to be an essential element in Christian belief and practice.

• As there is a theological imperative for social action, so too is there a theological imperative for environmental engagement and action.

• Christians ought to be concerned with social justice in the whole of God’s world. The environment is an inseparable part of social justice.

• Act Locally, Think Globally ought to have special significance for Christians. The church with its local, national and international networks is in a unique position in the cause of environmental justice and action in both the local and wider community, in the countries of the developed world and the Global South