God's Green Fingers Environment E-news
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Welcome to God’s Green Fingers, a resource for you and your church - packed with news, events, training opportunities and resources.
As always, there is the ever popular Magazine Magic section with a ready to print article for your parish magazine and eco tips. Now we have book reviews too. Don’t forget to scroll down to the bottom to find our Comedy Corner, helping to bring a smile as we respond to the call to care for Christ’s creation in difficult times.
God bless
Jemima Parker,
Diocesan Environment Officer
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Five very different churches in rural Yorkshire have been researching how to achieve the Church of England's target to be net carbon zero by 2030, and will be sharing their findings at an upcoming webinar. The webinar will offer the opportunity for members of other churches to learn more about how these churches set about the project and to ask questions of the TCNCC team and their consultant engineers from Locogen.
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During his time as Bishop of Kirkstall, Bishop Paul Slater, who retires at the end of the month, has been the episcopal lead for environmental matters. In this role he has chaired the Diocesan Environment with “calm leadership and good listening”. Heartfelt thanks and gifts were shared at his last meeting this week.
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To help parishes respond to the urgent call to care for God’s creation, the Diocesan Environment Group have reformed as a team of volunteer and staff advisors. Offering assistance on matters such as community engagement, funding, biodiversity and buildings, the group are keen to signpost and support parishes as they get started in this area of mission.
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The Diocese of Leeds Diocesan Advisory Committee has adopted environmental policies to help PCCs improve the sustainability of church buildings and churchyards, as part of this commitment. The guidance aims to support churches in finding ways to address these and covers a wide range of topics including building materials, heating, lighting, renewable energy generation and biodiversity.
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Church Schools Encouraged to Take Action on Climate |
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The Diocesan Education Team are producing a Carbon Net Zero Toolkit for Schools, designed to be a practical resource, full of ideas supporting schools. It consists of a series of Action Sheets for church (or any other) schools across the diocese to assist them in reducing their carbon footprint. The resources available so far are an introduction to Saving Creation and the toolkit, collective worship resources looking at the Christian motivation for taking environmental action, and Action Sheets 1 to 3 [1: Getting Started, 2: Action on Energy, 3: Action on Food]. Further areas that will be covered as the year progresses are transport and consumption. School governors and parents are encouraged to support their schools as they seek to make these helpful changes.
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Church’s investing bodies separate greener wheat from oily tares |
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The Church of England’s national investing bodies (NIBs) are disinvesting from 28 high-carbon companies such as BP and placing them on a restricted list, preventing future investment. The move is in line with a commitment made in 2018 to disengaging from companies that are not aligning with the Paris Agreement on reducing emissions by 2023.
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All 42 dioceses in the Church of England have now registered to become an “eco diocese” as part of their commitment to reach carbon net zero by 2030. The Eco Dioceses scheme, developed by the charity A Rocha UK, sees churches and dioceses awarded bronze, silver, or gold status depending on actions taken to improve their environmental footprint. The Diocese of Leeds achieved a Bronze award in 2020 and is working towards Silver.
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A Routemap for how the Church can achieve the 2030 net zero ambition has been drafted to invite conversation and consultation. Your response to this will help shape the actions the Church of England will commit to take this decade. While primarily aimed at national Church bodies, diocesan structures (including DBFs and DBEs), and cathedrals, responses from parishes, schools, and individuals are welcome.
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Events and Webinars - Local |
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Don't worry about climate change. Come and pray instead! 7.30 - 8.30pm on Zoom. Join others from across the diocese in this engaging prayer meeting hosted by ReCreation, a group at St Mark's Church, Harrogate.
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5-6pm. Five very different churches in rural Yorkshire have been researching how to achieve the Church of England's target to be carbon net zero by 2030. This webinar is hosted by the Diocese of Leeds and will offer the opportunity for members of other churches to learn more about how these churches set about the project and to ask questions of the Towards Carbon Neutral Churches Craven team and their consultant engineers from Locogen.
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How can my church get to net zero? A webinar from the Diocese of Leeds Environment Team introducing the Saving Creation church toolkit to enable your church to start the journey to carbon neutrality.
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Join a group in Settle, North Yorkshire to pray for climate issues.
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This Book Club chooses both fiction and non-fiction books, both accounts and personal stories, and touches on themes of wide concern: air pollution, over-population, deforestation, sustainable green cities, organic farming, rural life and isolation and coastal erosion; our programmes gradually offer a fuller picture, problems fall into place and a sense of fellowship emerges.
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Don't worry about climate change. Come and pray instead! 7.30 - 8.30pm on Zoom. Join others from across the diocese in this engaging prayer meeting hosted by ReCreation, a group at St Mark's Church, Harrogate.
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An opportunity to be equipped to deliver an effective creation care ministry in your parish. Seven session online course run by the diocesan Environment Team. Register your interest now.
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Events and Webinars - National |
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Green Christian Joy in Enough monthly talk. 7pm. Paul Ashford will explore the potential for the corporate world to impact the achievement of environmental goals.
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A global network of people whose prayers are as real and urgent as the climate crisis.
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Find resources for schools, videos and images and much more on the Fairtrade website
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The results of the Wayfinders Project. 12-1pm. Detailed studies of twelve Church of England buildings (4 busy churches, 3 secondary schools, 3 primary schools, a diocesan office, and a Theological Education Institution) are taking place during winter 2021/22. For each building, a Net Zero Carbon Action Plan is being created, and costed, which sets out what action would be needed - in practice - to get to net zero.
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Online 10am-4.30pm. An inspiring day discovering how to transform burial grounds into havens for people, wildlife and heritage.
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Online webinar hosted by the Church of England and open to all.
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Join the global action and switch off for an hour. How can your church take part? Find resources and how you can take part in this annual event.
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Online webinar hosted by the Church of England and open to all.
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Online webinar hosted by the Church of England and open to all.
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How will your church celebrate this annual United Nation Day?
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Join in the carbon net zero church journey using this new toolkit for churches and read about churches who are already working to be carbon net zero.
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Small Group Bible Study Guides for Lent |
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There are a range of study resources to help you and your small groups at church explore the Christian response to ecological matters.
Download a list of resources to choose from here
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A new guide from the Church of England entitled ‘Climate resilient church’, provides resources, advice and support to help churches adapted to changing and more extreme weather conditions brought on by climate change.
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Need funding for an environmental/renewables project? Visit the Diocese of Leeds Environment Funding webpage to find a list of potential grant funders, hear about the Diocese Church Buildings Fund and link to the C of E webinars on environmental fundraising.
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A wide range of topics are covered by the Net Zero Carbon webinars, the Biodiversity webinars, Funding Eco Projects and the Eco Church webinars. Great advice for your church from a range of experts for your church.
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A ready to print magazine article for your Parish Magazine! |
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"Don’t Look Up” – Or perhaps we should: A film review
What can this recent blockbuster tell us about a Christian response to the climate crisis. Jan Goodair reflects.
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More magazine articles?
All our eco magazine articles are archived on the Diocese of Leeds Environment Magazine Magic webpage.
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Eco Top Tips
Find a weekly top tip here for your parish newsletter:
Or watch the 10 Pledges carbon reduction video here.
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Why not include a review from our Eco Book Club in your parish magazine? Seven reviews are waiting for you, just click on Book Reviews half way down the page here.
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Parish Environment Reps
Are you the environmental enthusiast in your church or do you know the person who is? We are seeking a Rep in each parish to receive information and take up training opportunities.
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Area Environment Champions
Seeking enthusiastic volunteers for Bradford and Wakefield Areas to support local churches in their care for creation.
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Are you preaching on the environment or creative at writing liturgy, or songs for worship? The Diocesan Environmental Group has a Worship Subgroup who would welcome new members to help create new liturgical, hymnal and preaching resources.
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If we don’t laugh we’ll cry: helping you through the grief of ecocide...
Don’t Look Up is a disaster movie spoof, which mirrors the response to climate change. It’s not going to win any Oscars for film quality, but there are a few laughs along the way and the irony of our lack of planetary response to climate change may raise awareness. Perhaps we should all be routinely using the prayer in the closing sequence?
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Please join our discussion group on Facebook by following the below link! |
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