Environment

Turning St Paul’s Cathedral Green

February 1, 2016

It’s been an ambition of mine to turn St Paul’s Cathedral green. What better way could there be for us at A Rocha UK to launch our new Eco Church scheme?

Last Tuesday, January 26th (with the use of some clever uplighting and green filters), my dream became reality when we held our launch event in The Crypt. Doesn’t it look beautiful?!

Ruth Valerio

We had a wonderful evening. Fully booked quite some time before the event, and with a waiting list of people wanting to attend, 300 people filled St Faith’s Chapel and listened to a variety of speakers (Canon Philippa Boardman from the Cathdral, myself, Nigel Hopper from A Rocha UK, Martin Pett from a church that has already won awards through Eco Church’s predecessor – Eco-Congregation – and former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams).

rowanawardThe highlight was seeing Rowan Williams present St Paul’s Cathedral with a Bronze award: the first ever Eco Church award, given to the most famous church in the country. Now I knew that we had indeed turned St Paul’s green, both literally and metaphorically!
After the formal bit, we went through into Nelson’s Chamber for a drinks reception where there were a variety of stands for people to look at and get resources from, and the Eco Church site now live and available for people to look at on ipads.

As I said at the launch, Eco Church carries a very simple vision: to be part of seeing the culture of the Church change so that it is as common place for a church to be engaged in caring for God’s earth as it is for the church to be engaged in community action, social outreach and so on.

ipads

With its unique online survey and state-of-the-art resources, and working in partnership with Christian Aid, the Church of England, the Methodist Church and Tearfund (and a host of other supporters), I am excited about the potential for Eco Church to play a significant role in the life of the Church.

Eco Church is there to help your church be good news for God’s earth, so take a look and see what you think, and let’s turn more than just St Paul’s Cathedral green!

SEE THE VIDEO FROM THE LAUNCH

PICTURES FROM THE LAUNCH AVAILABLE HERE

(Thank you to Graham Lacdau and Clive Price for the amazing pics.)

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