Unconsumption

Laura just emailed me the link to a fun site on reducing and limiting consumption: http://unconsumption.tumblr.com/

Forthcoming event reminder

"God's World": an evening with the Bishop of Reading exploring why and how to become an EcoCongregation.

At St John and St Stephen's Church, 121-147 Orts Road, Reading, RG1 3JN

Thursday 17th November, 7.30 - 9.30 pm.

Free entry, open to all denominations.

Bishop Andrew Proud will be speaking about his experience of the impact of climate change in Ethiopia.
There will be resources and stories from Berkshire EcoCongregations shared over fair trade refreshments.

Discover simple ways to help your church address the third and fifth marks of mission:

Responding to human need and safeguarding the integrity of Creation
Please e-mail j.laynesmith@gmail.com for further details and to confirm your attendance so that we can provide enough refreshments.

Living Faith

Last Saturday St John's hosted the Oxford diocese Living Faith conference which was a really interesting day with speakers from Oxford's link dioceses and many organisations. I'm told the Christian Aid speaker mentioned in her workshop that it was good to see the notes inside our toilet doors explaining why we have recycled toilet paper! It's lucky the Co-op round the corner sells fairtrade filter coffee as it was so popular that we run out of our own supplies. The overrall message of the day was very much that social justice is an integral part of our mission as Anglicans.

Harvest

Last Sunday was our harvest service. The food collected will be going to the Women's Centre and to Readifood. Vince reminded us that despite our apparent distance from food production in our town centre church, there are connections we often forget, be that meteorologists in the congregation or the network of shops that provide us with food at all hours that we were asked to give thanks for (I did feel challenged at the thought of 'giving thanks' for Tescos!).

The previous day a working party of three had made wonderful progress on tackling the garden ready for winter and liberating the bike racks from encroaching bushes - thank you.