ECO ISSUES
Welcome to the new “Eco” page on the District website
How green is your church?
In one form or another, environmental concerns have now become daily news. - not just climate change and peak oil – but also loss of biodiversity, food and water security, waste disposal and carbon footprint reduction; in short, the whole business of the need for us all to live more sustainably.
The Methodist Church is committed to doing all it can to help lessen the damage caused by climate change and as responsible stewards of God’s world our churches must become more involved addressing these global issues and to do so starting with their own congregations. Methodists are already cooperating with URC on Creation Challenge (www.creationchallenge.org.uk/) and the Baptists have recently joined in.
Evesham Methodists became involved with these pressing issues almost a decade ago, and became the first church in the country to receive a National Eco-Congregation Award. Since then a further 130 churches throughout the country have gained the award– 36 of them Methodist. Regrettably
I hope this page will encourage more of you to become involved.
There are already four active Christian-based organisations encouraging ‘Caring for God’s Earth’.
To involve your church community in an ongoing programme of environmental stewardshio find out more about Eco-Congregation - www.ecocongregation.org .
If you want to know more about campaigning and practical action contact Christian Ecology Link (CEL) – www.christian-ecology.org.uk. CEL also initiated Operation Noah (http://www.operationnoah.org) which campaigns on climate change and under “Take Action”/”Groups” there is a Bristol District group which you can sign up and/or contribute to.
For more news of creation care both in the
And if you’d like to learn more about bringing together scientific and Christian understanding of the environment visit the John Ray Initiative web site www.jri.org.uk
Christian Aid (www.christianaid.org.uk) Christian Aid is involved in the runup to the Inter-Government Copenhagen Climate Change Conference inDecember through their 'Countdown to
District Environmental Advisor Mark Boulton is available to help Methodist churches in this District become actively involved in environmental issues and to provide practical advice on becoming an eco-congregation, energy conservation/micro-generation or any other environmental concerns. And If you are already involved please let me know so we can all share in what you are doing.
Feel free to contact him by phone (01242 674839) or by email (cec@brocklebank.plus.com)
NEWS - Bethesda Methodist Church gets power from on high
Work commenced on 1 September 2009 on the installation of a major photovoltaic array on the south facing roof of
Funds to cover the £39,000 installation cost, have come from the UK Government Low Carbon Building Fund, the local Methodist Church Circuit Advance Fund, Cheltenham Borough Council, The Summerfield Trust and members of the church congregation. The work is being carried out by SolarSense, the leading Bristol/South West suppliers and installers of solar PV systems, and any surplus electricity not used by the community church will be sold back to the national grid.
For more details visit BBC website:
READ latest PSEG newsletter from Rev Tim Harrison which reports on other Methodist climate change initiatives . . .
Updated 22 September 2009
Tuesday 22 September 2009
