_{Above Picture: Crediton Methodist Church getting their Eco-Congregation Award}

 

What is Eco-congregation?

Eco-congregation is a programme designed for church congregations, to help you get to grips with greening your gospel!
It begins with a church check-up (module 1), looking at different areas of church life: how are we doing already? What other ideas are there that we could look at?

Having worked your way through the check-up, draw up an action plan. This might have 3 main points:

• Something which will inspire the congregation through worship and teaching;

• Something practical which covers the church building, any land that the church owns, and practical considerations about how you "do" church;

• Something which encourages the congregation to reach out to the local and/or global community. This could be helping people in your neighbourhood to green up their lives, or making links between our lifestyles and the impact on those in poorer countries.

It would be great if at this stage you could take your action plan to the church decision-making body in order to get the whole church on board. And register with Eco-congregation at the same time!

The Eco-congregation resources are there to help you fulfil your action plan, and all can be downloaded free from their website. They relate to the different areas of church life covered in the church check-up.

Modules 2 - 6 cover the areas of worship and teaching:

• Module 2 - worship
• Module 3 - theology
• Module 4 - children's work
• Module 5 - working with young people
• Module 6 - home group suggestions

Modules 7 - 9 cover the practical areas:

• Module 7 - church buildings
• Module 8 - church management
• Module 9 - church land

Modules 10 - 11 cover the "reaching out" aspects:

• Module 10 - personal lifestyles
• Module 11 - community involvement
• Module 12 - global links

Of course, you don't have to use these resources, they are only a starting point. Each module area has its own page on the website, and listed there are all sorts of other resources which are posted up when folk suggest them.

Apply for the Eco-congregation Award

When you have made significant progress in those 3 main areas of church life:

• Worship and teaching
• Practical things
• Reaching out to the local/global community

...apply for the Eco-congregation Award! Just download the Application Form from the website, under "Getting Started". It is independently assessed by two local people, one with an understanding of the church context in which the work takes place, and another who is more of an environmental expert.
The Award lasts for 2-3 years, with an encouragement to keep going and re-apply! The reason for this is that the work of greening our congregations is an ongoing process, not something where you just tick a box and it's done. You can always go deeper!

Contact

If this doesn't quite make sense then contact Jo Rathbone:
Eco-congregation (England & Wales)
Arthur Rank Centre
Stoneleigh Park
Warwickshire CV8 2LZ
024 7669 2491
ecocongregation@arocha.org
www.ecocongregation.org/englandwales