4.10.24 St Peter's Church is very pleased to announce that they have been given a
Gold Eco Church Award by A Rocha UK.
Eco Church is a scheme for churches of all denominations in England and Wales. Churches can show that they care for creation as an integral part of loving their neighbours and following God.
The beauty of the A Rocha Eco Church surveys are that they help a congregation work through different areas of church life and look at how the decisions made and actions taken, effect the environment and their local community.
The survey looks at five areas, worship and teaching, buildings, land, engagement with the local community/global campaigns and the personal lifestyles of the congregation.
To find out more about Eco Church https://ecochurch.arocha.org.uk
We are proud to say St Peter’s was given a Silver Eco Award in 2018 and a Gold Award in 2024
Here are some examples of what we have done in five areas of church life.
Worship
- Worship leaders are very aware that we are stewards of God’s world and taking care of and being aware of the beautiful world we inhabit is often mentioned in sermons.
- We pray regularly for environmental issues in church services.
- Bible study groups all followed the Lent Course on the environment God Creation and Us.
- Church members were involved with World Day of Prayer 2018 when the theme was ,All God’s Creation is very Good.
- The Relaxed Worship team often include eco awareness in their services.
- Our young people had a visit from Kids Against Plastic and are helped to understand our responsibility to care for our environment.
- We have had a muddy church outdoor service
The Church Building
1) The electricity and gas used by the church is generated by renewable resources.
2) Most of our light bulbs are LED and when bulbs need renewing they are replaced with LED bulbs.
3) The main part of the church building is only used and heated when there is a large congregation.
4) All our toilets are twinned, this is a way of raising funds to enable people in the poorest nations to have clean water and a proper toilet, and to learn about hygiene.
5) We have a recycling centre for the church and community to use.
6) We have an area within the church building where we can display information and leaflets for people to take.
The Churchyard
1) We have built raised beds to grow fruit, vegetables and herbs, free for the local community to pick.
2) We have allowed several areas of the churchyard to be managed for growing wild flowers.
3) We have erected bird boxes, hedgehog homes and a bug hotel.
4) A group of people not all church members meet regularly once a week to look after the churchyard.
5) We compost our church garden rubbish to make the compost needed and have experimented with constructing Hugelkultur beds.
Lifestyle
1) Our magazine regularly has articles to help people consider their lifestyle and how it is effecting the planet.
2) We had a community showing of the film Tomorrow, an award winning documentary that travels the world discovering people seeking solutions to the ecological crisis.
3) We also hosted a showing of the film A Plastic Ocean for the Belper community.
4) We organise monthly parish walks.
5) We run events such as clothes swaps, Fashion Revolution, A Show the Love Eco Fair.
Community and Global Engagement.
1) Our church works closely with the local Transition group and as part of Churches Together in Belper has a presence at the local eco festival Belper Goes Green.
2) Members of our church have run workshops at Belper Goes Green.
3) We work with local groups to knit angels to be given away at Christmas as a sign of hope and a gift of love.
4) We regularly use our churchyard as a community space where displays are put up, such as Woollen Woods, Poetry Trees, photography and much more.
4) We use fair-trade, tea, coffee and sugar for refreshments and have yearly fairtrade stalls for the congregation to buy gifts. We run cafes where we encourage homemade cakes/biscuits to cut down on packaging.
5) In February we encourage our community to make green hearts to hang in the churchyard to show how important it is that we care for our planet and look after the natural world.
Kids Against Plastic visited our Young People's Group. https://www.kidsagainstplastic.co.uk/
Three raised
beds constructed by the Community Payback Team for fruit and vegetable growing. The Community Garden was opened by the Mayor of Belper in June 2018.
Areas of the churchyard started being managed for wildlife with advice being given by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and Miriam McDonald, https://www.holisticrestoration.co.uk/
We have regularly worked with Belper Town Council for Belper in Bloom and in a small way have helped the town achieve Gold Awards. We are part of Belper Open Gardens and an also regularly take part in Churches Count on Nature.
Our Community Garden group continues to manage areas of the churchyard for people and wildlife.
