 End of the Age of Thorns
Christian Ecology Link 2011 Annual Conference
Greening the church workshop
Led by Ruth Jarman
1. ecocell 1 - a toolkit to help you to live a more simple, more Christian lifestyle. Each module is complete in itself and can be studied in any order.
Each module contains a section on biblical and theological reflection, which makes it ideal for use with house groups and study groups.
Module 1 - Introductory Session Module 4 - Energy in the Home
Module 2 - Waste Module 5 - Water
Module 3 - Shopping & Food Module 6 - Travel & Transport
www.greenchristian.org.uk
2. Eco-congregation - for your church to sign up to doing something. Eco- congregation will walk you through the whole programme with a fabulous new web site, new material, sensitive to where your church is now, with the theology and activities to help you green your church step by step.
Module 01 - Church Check-up
Module 02 - Greening worship - prayers, reflections, drama sketches
Module 03 - Theology and Environment
Module 04 - Children and Creation Care
Module 05 - Young People and Environmental issues - surveys, quizzes, drama sketch and commitment
Module 06 - Resources for small groups
Module 07 - Greening the church building - environmental stewardship of church premises 
Module 08 - Greening church spending
Module 09 - Churchyard conservation
Module 10 - Lifestyle Issues - green choices, information and suggestions to green personal lifestyles
Module 11 - Community Matters
Module 12 - Global neighbours
Module 13 - Manage your carbon footprint (new)
www.ew.ecocongregation.org
3. Notes from discussion section
Question 1: What problems have you encountered greening your church?
- Culture of not practicing what we preach
- "not another group!" - everyone's too busy.
- Cynicism
- Engrained attitudes
- Maintaining commitment and enthusiasm
- Church building design
- Capital to fund projects
- Clergy leadership
- People overwhelmed by scale of problem
- Christian identity is not green
- Sceptical of environmental issues
- Land not available
- Environmental issues seen as too political/radical
- Regulations
Question 2: How have you/can we overcome these obstacles?
Shrinking the footprint
- Lobby opinion-formers
- Clergy training
- Agree an environmental policy
- Use LOAF principles
- Events
- Environmental prayer
- Reconfigure Christmas (see Reclaim Christmas at www.operationnoah.org )
- Small steps
- Guerrilla gardening
- Love and dialogue
- Work with and support youth
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