St Marys bug church was filled up with twigs, leaves and other materials at our outdoor Simply Worship service. We found some caterpillars, and moved one into the bug church complete with his favourite leaves!
We added the Please and Thank you prayers to the prayer board in church. We are proud to have received our Eco Church silver award.
The Church of England wants churches to take a stand on the ecological challenges we face. The diocese is encouraging all of us to better support our church as stewards of God’s creation.
We can do this by participating in Ecochurch, which is an award scheme that recognises the work done by churches to care for the Earth. Churches complete a survey covering a wide range of questions such as how well they are caring for the wildlife in their churchyards or how environmentally friendly their church buildings are. Depending on the answers given by each church, they can work towards an award, and All Saints Church and St. Mary’s Churches already have Bronze Awards. We are not doing this just as a box-ticking exercise to get an award. The award scheme is a means of motivating us as a church to bring about ecological change in our daily lives.
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All Saints’ church hall was a hive of activity last Saturday when the church hosted the first Repair Fair organised by the recently formed St Albans District Fixers. Some 40 attendees brought all manner of electrical and electronic goods including toasters, lamps, audio equipment, kitchen items and laptops for a skilled band of 8 amateur fixers to work their magic on. Bike repairs and servicing, and clothing and fabric repairs were also undertaken by other volunteers, skilled in their own fields. Meanwhile two members of the All Saints’ Catering Committee plied fixers and those awaiting a fix with teas, coffees and delicious home-made cakes.
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Sermon – St Marys – Harvest
Readings: Joel 2:21-27, Matthew 6:25-33
Have you noticed this wonderful water pump? Restored and renovated by Rob Hemmin to be part of our display today, it represents clean water for all and enough rain to water our crops; as we explore the theme of water. Our superb flower arranging team have put lots of thought into all of these windowsills to reflect our focus on Eco church: the areas where wild flowers were planted or encouraged to grow, to help our wildlife; the pollution of our seas, oceans and rivers; and the importance of our trees and woodlands.
I want to talk about our own use of water, and to take us beyond ourselves to the Bishops Harvest appeal “Water is Life”.
Unless they’ve been living under a rock, it can hardly have escaped anyone’s notice that the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 is happening in Glascow in November. Locally, Sustainable St Albans is running a series of blog postings entitled “Countdown to COP” to raise awareness of how we can all do our bit to counter perhaps the greatest challenge humankind has ever faced.
Electricals and electronics constitute the fastest growing waste stream, and the carbon footprint of manufacturing replacements for all those gadgets is horrendous. Surely this isn’t good stewardship of this beautiful planet God has entrusted to us.
In the Sustainable St Albans blog this week, Philip Le Riche (All Saints’) shares his passion for fixing things, so avoiding or delaying throwing them away. You can read all about it on the Sustainable St Albans website, and maybe even get inspired to fix one or two things yourself! (Philip also gave an interview on Radio Verulam but unfortunately the link to the recording is no longer available as of Aug ’22.)
