This is the go-to page for all things ‘eco’ at STC Sheffield. Bookmark this: come back regularly for updates, ideas, events, information…
What has ‘eco’ got to do with church? I thought it was people protesting, or electric cars and stuff.
In the beginning, God tells humans to guard and care for creation: the very first chapters of the Bible tell us this as the first commandment. We are part of that creation, but have a special role, bearing God’s image.
So it’s not simply because it’s a ‘good idea’ or because it’ll ‘save the planet’ to give us and future generations a decent place to live.
As Christians, we want to do God’s will and see the Kingdom come. Caring for creation is part of our mission, to glorify our Creator and Redeemer.
As a community of faith, we’ve made a commitment to Creation Care and set it out in a Declaration about the climate and ecological emergency that the world is now facing.
This catastrophic crisis of environmental degradation and climate change affects the future of human civilisation – and the main cause of the crisis is human activity: we’ve failed to follow God’s direction. And it’s linked to injustice and inequality, globally.
We need to tell the truth – to ourselves and to others: understanding and speaking out, encouraging each other. We need to take practical action – as individuals, families, households and as a church family.
You can read our Climate Emergency Declaration in detail here.
One of our commitments as a church family is to track our progress towards a ‘new normal’; and Eco-church, from Christian charity A Rocha, is a way to do this. We achieved a Bronze award in July 2022, a Silver award in August 2023 and are now working towards Gold – but this will require undertaking a number of physical changes to the builiding e.g. thermal insulation, some more double glazing, changing even more of our lights to LED, etc. – and we’re also investigating installing solar panels with battery storage for 2024.
We are networking with other local churches to organise joint Eco events and/or join existing community ones to engage people further. We did a survey of church members’ thoughts, feelings and activities in 2022 – here is a summary of the results – and now need to revisit this to see how things have moved on and how people have engaged with Creation Care so far.
If you’d like to join the Eco Church group, please contact the church office.
Stories
| August 2023 – We received our Silver Eco Church Award from A Rocha. |
| May 2023 – Churchyard ‘re-wilding’: we have been leaving the grass in the churchyard to grow long in the hope of encouraging insects and wildflowers to flourish in this space. |
| February 2023 – Caring for Creation in Lent – we included some tips in our weekly church emails throughout Lent encouraging our church family to ‘give up’ or ‘take up’ various things throughout the season of Lent. |
| October 2022 – We held an ‘Eco Church Sunday’ with encouraging messages shared at all three church gatherings on our responsibility to care for the world and the people in it! |
| July 2022 – We received our Bronze Eco Church Award from A Rocha.
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 May 2022 – We installed two bird boxes for Swifts on the church building. They are located under the roofline on the north side of the main church opposite the Prayer Shed. |
Links
Crookes Litter Pickers https://www.facebook.com/groups/272397670041521rp
(meet on the last Saturday of the month outside The Ball Inn at 9.45 for a 10 am start. Equipment is provided)