St. Andrews Methodist Church

Eco-Congregation: Award Application

As many of you will know, at St. Andrew’s we have now been following the Eco-congregation programme for a number of years, and were successful in gaining our Eco-congregation award towards the end of 2006. This award ran for three years from 2006-2008, so it is now time to re-apply for the award. At the next Church Council meeting, we will propose that we submit our application form describing the actions we have taken as a church in the last two years, including:

• The outcomes of the Pilgrim’s Way process
• The services we have held on environmental themes
• Special speakers on themes like ‘Islam and Environment’ and ‘Solar Energy’
• The coverage of environmental issues on our website
• The investment to improve the efficiency of the church heating
• Hosting the play ‘Another Kind of Silence’ about Rachel Carson
• Our links with One Planet Worcester.

Once the application is made, we hope then that an assessor will be appointed to come and meet with us. A copy of the application form is available here and will be available to view on our noticeboard and at the Church Council meeting.

Robert Lewin-Jones (February 2009) 

What follows is a transcript of the application that has been prepared.

On receipt of the completed form, arrangements will be made to visit the church and assess it for an Award.

If possible, it is also helpful to put together evidence of your activities such as orders of service, church magazine pieces, photographs, posters, notes/minutes of meetings, reflections from members, press articles etc. Please make these available to the assessors on the assessment day.

If you have any queries about applying for the award, please get in touch with one of the Eco-Congregation Coordinators, who will be happy to advise you.

Name, denomination and location of Church:

St. Andrews Methodist Church, Pump Street, Worcester (application for second award)

Name of Eco-Congregation Contact Person: Robert Lewin-Jones, e-mail: robert@lewin-jones.net

On completion of your application please return this form to:

Eco-congregation, The Arthur Rank Centre, Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, CV8 2LZ  
or email to:  ecocongregation@arocha.org

The Eco-Congregation Award is given to churches that have:

• Worked through the churches environmental check-up
• Helped the whole congregation to make the link between their Christian faith and environmental concerns (growing in faith and understanding)
• Taken practical action in the church and/or church grounds (putting God’s house in green order)
• Had a positive impact on and/or worked with their local or wider community (changing lives: changing communities)

Churches must have undertaken one reasonably substantive piece of work or a number of smaller projects in each area. When there is overlap, for example a church involving the local community in improvements to their grounds, the church will be given credit for taking action in both areas.

For their first Award, churches may submit information on projects undertaken both prior to and since registering with Eco-Congregation.

The Eco-Congregation Process

It is not necessary that a church has used the Eco-Congregation modules - the Award recognises appropriate activities initiated or inspired by any source.

However, it is important that the church is able to show that their environmental concern and activity is sustainable and ongoing. For this reason, the award is renewable every 3 years. The suggestions below are not absolute criteria for gaining the award, but credit could be given to a church that has:

• Involved a number of people from across the church community in working through Module 1 and in undertaking particular initiatives
• Formed links with/involved others in the local area
• Sought and gained support (time/money/advice) from another organisation
• Reviewed and monitored progress regularly

Important Note

Eco-Congregation aims to offer something to every church, regardless of size, location, denomination or circumstances. Hence, each church will be assessed according to its own circumstances and potential.

1 Eco-Congregation Award criteria:

Made the link between the Christian faith and our environmental concerns (growing in faith and understanding, e.g. modules 2 – 6)
 
List the activity(ies) undertaken in this area and try to assess whether they have helped the congregation understand environmental care as part of Christian discipleship:

Pilgrim’s Way: In the period since our first award we have continued to lead on faith and environment issues as a core group engaging others in the church. It has also been a time of reflection and change in our Church as we decided to undertake a ‘church review’ using the Pilgrims’ Way process.

At the start of the Pilgrim’s Way process, during our ‘Catch the Vision’ day, the church recognised that our identity as an Eco-congregation is one of the distinctive features of the church.  Two practical measures, which came out of the process, had specific environmental aspects:

• the amalgamation of the Finance and Property Committees – saving travel to church for separate meetings
• starting the morning service earlier to allow more people to walk to and from church, rather than having to rush off for lunch. It has also left more time for coffee and/or short meetings after the service to avoid extra evening journeys.

These decisions have been made with recognition that our choices have environmental impacts.

Worship: In terms of linking Christian Faith and our environmental concerns the means of reaching most of the congregation has been through worship, regularly remembering environmental issues in our prayers, and on specific special Sundays:

• One world week service: 29 October 2006 the worship was based on materials from the Operation Noah campaign. The theology of the service emphasised the need to keep our side of the covenant relationship with God’s creation. At the end of the service most of the congregation signed pledges to reduce their own carbon emissions and this was followed up by advice in our monthly newsletter to help members achieve this.
• Fluid worship 22 July 2007 – we led an intercessory prayer activity based around putting together a collage of images.
• Harvest Service 28 September 2008, we put together a service on the theme ‘God of abundance’ including a speaker from ‘One Planet Worcester’.
• Event: On 13 July 2008, we organised a bread and soup lunch after the morning service. This was followed by a speaker, Rianne C Ten Veen, from the Midlands Islamic Network for the Environment who spoke and answered questions on ‘Islam and Environment’. There was a lot of positive feedback from the event, which made us think about our beliefs as well as learning from the perspective of another faith. The lunch raised £90, which split between the MRDF Cameroon Appeal and the Islamic Centre for Environmental Service and Ecology.

Website: Eco-congregation has a range of articles and links on our church website (see www.standrewsworcester.org.uk click on ‘about us’ then ‘Eco-congregation’.) We also have a ‘virtual house-group’ in the form of a discussion forum online which reaches those who cannot make it to other house groups as well as saving on travel.

Newsletter: We continue to have a monthly page in the newsletter for Eco-congregation. The latest article is on ’Eco-driving’ written by a driving instructor who is a church steward.

Circuit Event: Peter Braithwaite, who is Director of Sustainability at Arup, and of Dorridge Methodist Church, came to speak on 27 November 2007 to a meeting of the circuit. The turn-out was disappointing. However, it was a good talk and was broader, though perhaps less deep, than anticipated.

Future plans: Developing our work on local resilience and reducing our dependency on the throw-away culture and fossil fuels. In the spring we want to launch food-planting in our congregation’s gardens, and to get people making and mending things rather than throwing away and buying new. The idea is to celebrate what we achieve at harvest-time in the autumn, with a service, home-made soup and bread lunch and an auction of home-grown food and crafts for charity.

2 Eco-Congregation Award criteria:

Taken practical action in the church and/or church grounds (putting God’s house in green order, e.g.  modules 7 – 9)

List the activities undertaken in this area and assess:

• What has been achieved
• How many people were/are involved
• If the projects are ongoing (and if so, how they are managed)
• Any impact on the church, community or wider environment.

A City Centre Church: It should be noted that we are a city centre church with no grounds, our only outdoor areas are a balcony terrace which is shared with the caretaker’s flat.

Recycling in Church: Audrey Watson did an update in the newsletter March 2007. We continue to collect foil, and paper left over from service sheets and newsletters. Stamps and bottle tops are collected for fund-raising causes. Milk containers too are taken home for recycling (there is no recycling collection provided by the council as we are in the city centre). Cardboard is recycled for us by the Cathedral Plaza shopping centre below the church.

Property matters: The review of the heating put forward measures to improve efficiency especially in the Sanctuary, and improved zoning throughout the building. The original 1967 system is being replaced by a much more efficient gas-condensing boiler, requiring a new gas supply. The work has now begun, but these measures have required a large funding raising effort to work towards the cost. This has naturally been the major focus towards improving the church building’s environmental performance, but has involved many people in fund raising. Throughout we have stressed to the congregation that the project is not just about improving the heating, but about energy efficiency and control. A broadband link means that the new heating system can be controlled from a steward’s home to change when different areas are heated.

Environmental Policy: Based on the Methodist Church Environmental Policy and the Environmental policy of Dorridge Methodist Church’s we have put together carefully our own for St Andrew’s. This has been publicised to the whole congregation through the church newsletter and the website for comment. The church stewards and other groups have also reviewed it. The policy has been received by the Church Council towards the end of 2008, and awaits formal adoption at its first meeting of 2009.

Future plans: The adoption of the Environmental Policy would require each group or committee within the church, e.g. Resources Committee, Midweek Fellowship or Junior Church, to review environmental issues at its AGM. Support to do this will be available through the Eco-congregation group. These reviews would be expected to create new opportunities for greening the life of the church, whilst making sure environmental thinking is systemic throughout the church.

It is an ongoing exercise practically and theologically to justify our mission through our outreach and social service whilst recognising that our congregation travels further because we are a city centre church. We provide variety in worship and distinctive features within our church, rather than being rooted in one local area.
 
3 Eco-Congregation Award criteria:

Had a positive impact on and/or worked with their local or the global community (changing lives: changing communities e.g. modules 10 – 12)
 
List the activities undertaken in this area and assess their impact on the local/global community.

For example, projects might include:

• Sharing information through local press and publicity, information on the church website
• Working in partnership with community groups (e.g. local authority, youth group, uniformed organisation, school, residential homes)
• Working towards a more sustainable global community e.g. supporting fair trade, a Christian environment/development agency or a twinning initiative

First Eco-congregation Award: Michael Foster MP for Worcester, presented the award at a special service on 4 March 2007. Robert Lewin-Jones and Rev Anne Smith were interviewed on the Sunday morning show on BBC Hereford and Worcester, as St. Andrew’s was the first Eco-congregation award winner in Worcester.

Electrisave Meter: Following a fundraising lunch, an Electrisave meter was purchased. This portable device, which shows current electricity use, cost and CO2 per hour of domestic electricity used, has been lent out to different members of the congregation for a few weeks at a time, with a questionnaire, to monitor their home electricity use, whilst trying to switch off items on stand by etc., which they normally leave on. One member committed to no longer overfill the kettle!

Alternative Energy Talk: On Sunday 29 April 2007 a bread and soup lunch was held after the morning service followed by a talk by Ben Whittle about solar panels and other alternative energy sources. This went very well, with a large group of people staying on after lunch to hear it. The lunch raised £140 - split between MRDF and the cost of the Electrisave meter. At least two church families had solar water heating panels installed following this presentation (Ben’s company had provided a special offer to members of the congregation).

"Another Kind of Silence": On Thursday 4 September 2008, St. Andrews hosted this touring play about pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson. We organised the publicity and ticket sales and were pleased that an audience of over 80 people from the churches, and also the wider population, saw a very moving and memorable production. The profits went to our energy efficiency measures for the heating system.

One Planet Worcester: We have been involved in ‘One Planet Worcester’ from the outset. This new organisation is a coalition of environmental, community and local authority organisations in the city, committed to making Worcester a ‘transition town’ reducing its carbon footprint to tackle the dual challenges of climate change and peak oil.

One Planet Worcester was launched with a Green Fair at the Guildhall on 30 March 2008, where St. Andrews organised an Eco-Congregation stall, which made more local churches and the wider public aware of the scheme.  At St. Andrew’s itself we hosted the showing that day of the DVD of the fair trade film ‘Black Gold’ about the coffee market.
 
Robert Lewin-Jones has been the churches’ representative on the One Planet Worcester steering group since the beginning, and spoke about Eco-congregation and One Planet Worcester at the re-launch of Churches Together in Worcester.

“Faith in a Greener Future” workshop day 8th November 2008: Robert Wilkins of One Planet Worcester and others led this awareness-raising session on the issues about Peak Oil and Climate Change. The day included lots of interactive sessions, DVDs and a choice of group discussion. Attended by a mix of twenty people from St Andrew’s and One Planet Worcester.

Traidcraft: We continue to serve Fairtrade tea, coffee and juice at all events; and to have occasional Traidcraft stall after the Sunday morning service, as well as sales of Christmas cards during Advent. We also held a stall at County hall, Worcester during Fairtrade fortnight.

Future plans: A ‘seconds sale’ fashion show to raise funds and encourage re-use.