Environment

Resources

Creationtide Season

The Chaplaincy joins the Eglise Verte - a seed growing...

A bit of background : COP 26 has for all of us, made us aware of the current desperate situation that our world has found itself in. It has also mobilised many groups of Christians around the world who want to take action.

In France this movement was started by a group of 2000 young Christians following a celebration in the commune of Notre Dame de Paris, which resulted in the mobilisation of a number of churches around France to start this movement Eglise Verte, well before COP26 last November.

Back to our own chaplaincy: Following a meeting of the Mission and Outreach group, our Chaplain Tony, along with members of the environmental advocates, decided that if we, as a Chaplaincy are going to be serious about ‘Caring for Creation’ it is important that we are supported along the journey. Eglise Verte is the French version of Eco-Church. It is a label which can be used to identify to others that we, as a Chaplaincy, care enough to start and try to make a difference, firstly within our churches and secondly amongst our congregations. It gives the Chaplaincy a destination to achieve objectives which will make a difference to our environmental impact.

The image for the first step of this process is a seed. We are this seed which can start to grow and hopefully produce a harvest.

The first step of this process; which in French is called ‘Graine de Senévé’ represents the seed starting to germinate and involves filling in an ‘eco-diagnostic survey’ online. Within the Chaplaincy many of our centres completed the ‘Eco-survey’ last year so we are well on the way to completing this first step.

We hope that all our centres will want to get involved with this initiative as we have registered our Chaplaincy as a parish. All we need is one person from each centre to want to be involved in this initiative, one person who wants to make a difference. If your centre does not as yet have an environmental advocate and you would like to be involved please contact David Albrecht by email (albtd@orange.fr).

To start on this journey is the most difficult part as the issues surrounding the climate are immense and the solutions complex. This is why we have decided to join forces with Eglise Verte as it will help keep us motivated. There is a step by step methodology and support from the community behind the group who are ready to accompany us on this journey of discovery. This is just the start – are we ready to get involved?

Be a Resolutionary!

In our constant quest as individuals and as a Chaplaincy to preserve God’s beautiful creation, check out the “366solutions.com” website which offers a solution each day so that we can all do our part…

A groovy and upbeat “Resolutionary Anthem” by Sophia Dady is on-line (audio version and pdfs to download to make your own recording). Join the movement, and learn the song, which ends:

Find solutions, that’s the key
Join your voice and sing with me
The World deserves our respect

Solutions come so easily, when you focus on these three: Clean, Repair, Protect – Our World

Our aims and core suggestions:

Caring for God’s Creation, our collective home planet earth, is part of our Christian calling. Our aim is to minimise the impact of our activities on the environment and encourage others to do so too. Many of you have contributed to developing our strategy to achieve this aim through the lent study, ‘Caring for Creation’, and the Environment survey sent to all sectors, thank you.

Thus, as a Chaplaincy we aim to :

1.MINIMISE WASTE.

2. MINIMISE CO2 PRODUCING EMISSIONS.

3. PROMOTE RECYCLING.

4. ONLY WHERE NO OTHER OPTION IS AVAILABLE, OFFSET EMISSIONS GENERATED BY OUR ACTIVITIES

5. MONITOR PROGRESS AND HOLD OURSELVES TO ACCOUNT, ENCOURAGE ONE ANOTHER AND SHARE WHAT WE ARE DOING, KEEP THE ENVIRONMENT ON THE AGENDA AND THE CONVERSATION ALIVE.

View the core suggestions made by chaplaincy members to help achieve our aims

Caring for Creation

What comes into your mind when you hear the following words?

Environment, Climate Change, Ecology, Biodiversity

If these words invoke an emotional response, I suspect that it could go one of two ways. For some they will be exciting and invigorating, spurring them on to act and make changes that will help to improve our relationship with our planet. However, if we’re honest, we must acknowledge that there will be others who will heave a world-weary sigh and feel that they are once again being brow-beaten by the latest socio-political band-wagon.

As a Christian church, we clearly have a role to play in the God-given responsibility to care for the world that He has given us. The question we face today, perhaps more than ever before, is what that responsibility looks like in everyday life? How can we approach the very real challenges in a way that addresses the issues without burdening us all with almost impossible ideals?

The well-known environmental activists are certainly, on one level, providing the prophetic voices of our day, but they also have the luxury of being able to concentrate on this single issue rather on the more universal challenge of how that one issue fits into the global society. I think that we are all aware that there is no simple, universal answer to the problems that we are addressing and that it is the inherent complexity that makes the subject both so fascinating and exhilarating and also so confusing and apparently hopeless.

This is where we, as Christians, have a vital part to play. If we look at climate change as a purely scientific, political and/or social problem, we are inevitably going to get bogged down in the sheer complexity of any potential solution. However, we believe in a Creator God who didn’t just create the world, press the ‘on’ switch and then sit back and passively watch what happens. We believe in God as a constantly creative God who is present and working in the world though his Holy Spirit as much today as he was at the very beginning of Creation. The Spirit brought order out of chaos then, do we honestly believe that he can’t or won’t do it now? The difference in the equation is us. This time round, the Spirit is working in and through us to help bring about the new heaven and new earth that is foreseen in the Bible.

For many years now, in the Church of England, the period between 1st September and 4th October (the day on which we commemorate St Francis of Assisi) has been designated as the season of “Creationtide”. It is a time when many churches will be preparing for, or celebrating their Harvest Festival and is an opportunity for us to focus on God as Creator and Sustainer of all life.

 

Let us use this annual season as a time to reflect together on our relationship with our environment. The last years have been a wake up call to the need to restore our relationships with God, creation and each other and in so doing to get a clearer insight into the way forward for us and our environment.

Our Chaplaincy is located in a particularly beautiful part of God’s amazing creation; let us  ensure that it remains equally beautiful for future generations. May we take time to consider how we fit into God’s amazing plan for his Creation.