Eco Church and Caring for God's Creation
What is Eco Church?
Eco Church is a programme working with A Rocha UK to help churches in England and Wales protect and restore the environment around them. The programme provides a framework to support churches of all denominations in taking practical action to care for God's earth. There is a survey, which has 5 categories that measure how the church is progressing in their Eco journey:
1. Worship and Teaching
2. Buildings and Energy
3. Land and Nature
4.Community and Global Engagement
5. Lifestyle
As part of the Lifestyle category we have a Lifestyle questionnaire for everyone one in the church family to complete. It can be found here.
Please can it be returned to Mth Lynn by the 15th November who will collate all the responses.
Eco Church Team here at All Saints':
Mother Lynn
Fr David
Ceridwen
Click this photo to take you to their website.
Caring For God's Creation
Christians believe that God created all things. In the book of Genesis we read that God says to humankind “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Genesis 1:28 (NRSV)
The stewardship and care of the natural world is an important part of the Church’s Mission.
In 1996 The Church of England adopted a statement of Five Marks of Mission created by the Anglican Consultative Council:
The mission of the Church is the mission of Christ
1. To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
2. To teach, baptise and nurture new believers
3. To respond to human need by loving service
4. To transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and
pursue peace and reconciliation
5. To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of
the earth
The 5th Mark of Mission is now widely regarded as important in underpinning the other four Marks of Mission.
Helpful Resources:
The House of Bishops have this year (2026) published a report
‘Hope for All Creation’. It provides a theological reflection on God’s concern for
Creation as we experience it here on planet earth. It also provides information
on what we can do. It can be bought in book form or downloaded free from this link here.
Eco Church
All Saints is an Eco Church and is working towards achieving a Bronze Award. Eco Church is run by A Rocha UK https://ecochurch.arocha.org.uk/
Please see above for information on Eco Church and how you can get involved by completing the Lifestyle Questionnaire!
Fair Trade
“Fairtrade is about better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world.” Please find the link to the FairTrade website here.
Modern Slavery & Ethical Consumer Choices:
Anti-Slavery.org is an organisation which raises awareness of modern slavery and is actively working towards eliminating it.
The Safe Car Wash app allows drivers to respond to a check list of key factors that may suggest modern slavery or labour exploitation in hand car washes.
There are a number of organisations which focus on monitoring organisations to ensure they are treating their employees fairly and also their impact on the environment. For example:
The Problem of Plastic
The BBC series Blue Planet 2 has been very influential in raising awareness of the problem of plastic. The Church of England has produced a flyer on Plastic-less living. You can find the flyer here.
Reducing our carbon footprint
Shrinking the footprint is the Church of England’s National Environmental Campaign. You can find more information here.
How big is your environmental footprint? You can now check it using the WWF Footprint Calculator which can be found here.
