On Tuesday 24th February, several representatives from North Monmouthshire attended the Eco Church Celebration Day at Llandaff Cathedral. It was a wonderful day and much was learnt about the Eco Church Survey and its Awards.
The day began with worship led by Canon Chancellor, Revd. Kate Harrison from Llandaff Cathedral. Revd. Mark Clavier from Swansea Diocese then opened the discussion by giving us a theological grounding to better understand our roles as Stewards of the Earth. He explained it is in fact every Christians’ vocation to be good stewards of Creation. However, there has often been great misunderstanding of the ‘dominion’ given to us by God. This has led to the exploitative nature of society that has caused so much damage to our world. Mark explained our dominion is only based on sharing in the care of creation given by God, not dominating it.
We then heard from Andy Atkins, CEO of A Rocha UK, which is the company driving the Eco Church Campaign. He spoke of the current challenges we face as consumerism has become the new religion, but also spoke of the positives he has seen, e.g. 637 churches in Wales have now registered for the survey, up from 132 in 2020.
He spoke of several ways we as a Church can address the issue of climate change, from treatment of our churchyards, to our energy providers, to even campaigning for ethical investments that do not support the use of fossil fuels.
We then heard from several successful projects from across the Diocese such as St Cadoc’s in Caerleon finishing their sustainable redevelopment project and also St Mary’s in Usk who have recently achieved their Gold Eco Church Award.
The day ended with an opportunity for group discussion where we had the opportunity to talk with other churches in our area about the ways they’ve managed to achieve their Bronze, Silver and even Gold Eco Church Awards.
There are lots of ways to find out more about the Eco Church Awards on their website, including a monthly newsletter: