Campaigns, Courtyard Garden and Collecting Litter

The Climate and Ecology Bill was reintroduced to Parliament earlier this month, so a couple of weeks ago we sent postcards to our MPs encouraging them to support the bill. We used cards with images from the Lost Words, which seemed appropriate.

Last week I welcomed the St John's School Eco Club and Gardening Club members to do some planting - tomatoes, strawberries, peas and salad. Hopefully the former two will be ripe before they break up for the summer while the latter should be ready for a church lunch eventually. The children were hugely enthusiastic and the courtyard was a whirl of industry - when the dust settled not all the plants were quite where I was expecting them and there weren't enough pots left over for the rocket (which is why it's still by the back door), but it was great fun and they're keen to come back and keep watering when they get the chance after their half term break.

Last Sunday I used resources from Tearfund's Rubbish Campaign to frame our Godly Play session on the Good Samaritan. I was hoping to get the older children to write some campaign letters afterwards but a couple of them were certain there was no point because the government never listen - that led to other discussions, but sadly no letters. More positively, they were very keen to help clear up the rubbish in the local park, with the litter pickers borrowed from a Green Party councillor in the parish. 

The Big One

Over the weekend thousands of campaigners, including several of our congregation, joined a protest in London, calling for meaningful action to tackle the Climate and Biodiversity Crises. Although national news gave the impression that all those present belonged to Extinction Rebellion, the reality was that lots of other organisations including Christian Aid, Tearfund and A Rocha were present too. On every day there were services led by different church groups in addition to daily Franciscan prayer walks. Former archbishop of York, Lord Sentamu, tried to deliver a letter of protest to Shell headquarters - you can see what happened here.

Campaigning for action at COP27 and in the Lords

Representatives from St John's have been at demonstrations calling for real action at COP27: this is Richard B on yesterday's march. Christine was in London at the prayer vigil on Wednesday. The conference has been in our prayers at our midweek services too.

After church today we were looking at the Community and Global Engagement section of the EcoChurch survey and realised that quite a few of us are involved in the local Newtown Community Garden. Several of us also committed to take up Zero Hour's request to write to peers this week to encourage them to support the Climate and Ecology Bill when it comes to its first reading in the House of Lords on Friday.

 

Harvest Festival

 Yesterday's service was our Harvest Festival, followed by a shared lunch to raise money for Christian Aid's Harvest Appeal for the East Africa Hunger Crisis. As the final service in Creation Season it was the appropriate time to mention TakeTheJump's biggest challenge:

The suggestions they offer include:

Changing to a green energy supplier 

Changing your pension to a green investor

Using ethical and green banks 

Using your energy at home efficiently, or install energy efficiency measures (this can be expensive so not everyone is able to do so easily).

If you feel comfortable and able to, you could consider pushing for change through activism or peaceful protest. For example, write to your political representative with the change you want to see.

A good place to start with campaigning is Christian Aid's own new Loss and Damage campaign to help vulnerable communities already damaged by Climate Change despite being those who contribute least to the greenhouse gas emissions.

Several of our congregation were also in a meeting last week to build support for the Climate and Ecology Bill. This would bring in legislation to stop and try to reverse both elements of the environmental crisis while engaging a people's assembly to help ensure fair action. If you'd like to know more - do ask Jo Laynesmith.

Registering the Climate Emergency

Six months on from our first Climate Sunday service on 6 September 2020, we held another one in Lent - 7 March 2021 - and this time we read together a statement recognising the Climate Emergency and commiting ourselves to act accordingly. We included three reflections in the service - the first inviting people to think about why the climate and ecological emergency matters to them; the second outlining recent actions we've done as a church, including investing in Reading Hydro and donations to the World Land Trust as well as practical carbon reductions and parliamentary lobbying. The third was a call to action by the congregation - it's in the new page "Climate Sunday reflection" on this blog.

Following encouragement at a seminar from the Climate Emergency Toolkit, I've just registered that acknowledgement for inclusion on their map. We've also signed up more locally with the Reading CAN pledge. to join with the town's commitment to reach net zero by 2030.

What are we doing about it ourselves? Most recently - we're trying to make it as easy as possible for everyone in the congregation and parish to change to a green electricity tariff, using the resources of the Fair Energy Campaign.; we've checked on the environmental credentials of all our investments and ensured they're as green as can be; and we've applied for a faculty for the cavity wall insulation.

On the church's behalf, Rosemary has been attending monthly meetings with Make COP26 Count, reporting back on the heartbreaking news of climate impact around the world.  Our top campaigning priority at the moment is the CEE Bill - Christian Climate Action are running seminars to help churches understand and support this, starting this Saturday.

Climate Sunday

 Last Sunday's service was our Climate Sunday - for the first Sunday in Creationtide. This is part of an initiative organised by CTBI's Environmental Issues Network supported by Operation Noah, Green Christian, Christian Aid, A Rocha, Tearfund and many others. The idea is to explore the theological and scientific basis for action on climate change; to commit to action and to join in campaigning on this ahead of COP-26.  The commitments will be shared as part of an event in a year's time in Glasgow to add pressure for meaningful action from the UK government. The Climate Sunday website has lots of resources and these are being updated throughout the year. We actually put our own together, in part so that it would fit with the structure of our Zoom services.

Our service was quite brief on the science/theology since we have covered it so often before and instead we focussed more on connecting with God through Creation. Our readings were Isiah 58: 6-8 and John 1 and we used Romans 1:20 to inspire discussion in breakout rooms. We're already committed as a church to achieving whatever energy reductions we can as part of our EcoChurch journey so we focussed on ways to ensure every congregation member could find a way to take part - we offered a choice of four suggestions and someone to contact to follow these up and used a Zoom poll to see which was the most popular choice. The service concluded with Rosemary reporting back on joining Christian Climate Action's prayer vigil at the September Rebellion.

Climate Emergency

This blog has been silent since the Lockdown began but there's been quite a bit going on in our electronically connected world. Just days before the order came to stay at home, four of us from St John's were on the team leading worship for the Diocesan Synod ahead of their debate on a motion to declare a climate emergency and commit to becoming carbon neutral by 2035. Along with scripture readings we included Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem "God's Grandeur" and a quote widely attributed to Gus Speth (in fact slightly paraphrased from a report by someone who attended his talk at a retreat), and the songs "God of the Poor" and "I the Lord of Sea and Sky". The motion passed and you can read more here.

In May Rosemary spent a long time working on the Climate Stewards' 360 degree carbon calculator. Because much of our heating and electricity is from Ecotricity this significantly reduces our total, although we are aware that cutting our energy use is still needed. Our annual total came in at 16.32 tonnes.

We've also managed to find two churches to partner with us for the diocese's energy audit, as soon as it is practical to carry that out - this should help us find ways of directly cutting our energy use.

Many of us lobbied our MPs by Zoom on 30 June as part of the Climate Coalition's: The Time is Now campaign. 14,000 others across the country joined us.

Very recently several of the congregation have supported Christian Climate Action at the Extinction Rebellion September Uprising with Dr Rowan Williams, Bishop Olivia and others

Citizens UK

Jessica Maddocks of Citizens UK has been exploring the possibility of a Reading branch of this community activism organisation. Several of our congregation have been on her list of interviewees so far and apparently a desire for political action on climate change is a particularly high priority in Reading.

Last night I joined a Citizens UK delegates' meeting (along with Jessica and members of the University of Reading's sustainability team) in a skype link to the Milton Keynes Citizens UK meeting. We were considering priorities in lobbying during the Police and Crime Commissioner election. The proposals under discussion included asking for a commitment from the Thames Valley police to set an ambitious target for the force to be carbon neutral; building stronger links between schools and police with named police contacts for every school; and a commitment that all those employed by the force (including contractors) should be paid a real living wage. Oxford diocese were also represented through a remote link and many community groups at Milton Keynes were in the room.

Despite some technological hitches with our sound link, it was an invigorating and interesting experience of democracy in action. Hopefully some of us will make it in person to the next event.

Big Shift Campaign

On April 1st about 20 members of Reading churches (many from St John's) gathered in town to hand in requests to the big banks to divest from fossil fuels. (I was organising a birthday party so didn't make it, but this is the photo Rosemary put up on facebook). Next day in church we were all encouraged to sign letters to the banks on the same theme.

For the Common Good

Today Hamish shared in church copies of his latest briefing paper - a summary of Herman Daly and B Cobb Jnr's For the Common Good: Redirecting the economy towards community, the environment and a sustainable future. It is not yet up on his Engaging the Powers website but anyone interested will find papers on similar themes here.

After a particularly tough week I very much appreciated Gary's sermon on moments of mountain-top wonder - plenty of food for thought about our experience of God through Creation. I've not read The Solace of  Fierce Landscapes, although it rang a bell when he said it, and I'm thinking this 'explanation of apophatic mysticism' might prove good Lent reading.

Season of Creation 2016

Today, on the first Sunday of Creation tide, we were invited to remember God creating us out of clay, with our Old Testament reading from Jeremiah. When the meditation instructed us to break apart the pots we had made it felt a bit of a shock, but these were the eventual creations.

Over coffee afterwards many of us signed Traidcraft's Justice Matters petition. If you missed that, you can sign up online.

Engaging the Powers

Last Sunday, over coffee after the service, the congregation were invited to listen to a debate of the sort that regularly happens in the church cafe between Fr Vince and Hamish about theology and social justice. It was fascinating and thought-provoking stuff. The occasion was to launch Hamish's new website  which Dominic has put together for him to make accessible various user-friendly digests of important books about the Powers which affect our world, to arm ourselves to respond intelligently to major issues that organisations like Christian Aid respond to. The website explains:

‘The Powers’ today are the big international corporations, the international financial institutions like the IMF and the World Bank and also the governments of the rich Western powers, particularly those of the US and the EU which includes the UK. 

Churchgoers and those of Christian sympathies are all too familiar with the devastating effects of famines, wars, floods and other natural disasters around the world, and they commit themselves to offering support in the form of cash, practical help and in many cases personal work at disaster sites.

The activities of ‘the Powers’ are less well understood. Campaigning charities like Christian Aid and Global Justice Now draw our attention, fairly forcibly, to their more direct depredations such as the ruthless exploitation of indigenous people in areas where gold and other mineral mining take or to the exorbitant and unfair demands that big corporations make on poorer countries as the price for bringing them foreign investment.There is today a growing body of literature which sheds light on the activities of ‘the Powers’ not only in more detail than media headlines can convey but also revealing the enormous increase in their activities and influence over the past 30 years, much of it hidden from public view.

The website gives us the opportunity to understand the arguments without having to find time to read all the books.

Bread, mustard seeds and rendering unto Caesar

It was a nice surprise to see this blog advertised on the overhead projector notices on Sunday morning and so a reminder to put something in this week! Some of the congregation may have noticed the link between the different parables the children were looking at this week - they were all meant to be on a theme of growing crops and harvest. For pathfinders that included baking bread - for anyone wondering where the bread was afterwards, it turned out that the church oven is in serious need of attention so the children took their part baked creations home with instructions for finishing them.
Meanwhile in the course of his sermon Richard mentioned Christian Aid's tax justice campaign, more details of which can be found here.
 

Church Check-up

Seven of us met up last Wednesday to begin work on a new action plan. We decided to make it manageable by setting ourselves an hour and half of working through the church audit from the EcoCongregation website and we made it through to module 9 (with a few gaps to be returned to). Now I need to reshape all my notes from there into the first stage of an action plan. We'll be meeting again on 22nd October (when the weekly sessions on Theresa of Avila have finished).
In the meantime three of us who were at the meeting are hoping to make it to the Climate March tomorrow, taking sandwiches to eat on the train en route after church. But at least one other congregation member will be heading there at a more sensible hour with the Greenpeace contingent so there'll definitely be one St John's rep there.

Food Matters

On Thursday of last week I attended the inspiring launch of Oxford diocese's Food Matters project for 2013 so some of the material I picked up there is now up on the EcoCongregation notice board. Audio recordings of the talks given can be heard on the Food Matters website and the project's winter resources have been uploaded too. Food was the focus of this Sunday's intercessions at St John's which Pete led, inspired by the Enough Food for Everyone IF launch.

Copenhagen consequences

Outside the snow lies too deep for school for a third day, making it hard to contemplate rising global temperatures. As the dust settled after the Copenhagen Climate Change summit last month so life became rather busy with pre-Christmas events and I didn't get round to blogging. The mood at church on the Sunday after the Copenhagen Accord was announced was 'better no deal than a stitch up'. By the time the conference happened I think we were all resigned to not expecting great things, but still feeling we needed to stand up for what we believe in, for the integrity of our relationship with God and our neighbours.

Now the development agencies are focussing on what can be achieved in 2010. At first I found my heart sinking - I can't keep thinking 'everything hangs on . . .' every year, in the way we initially did about Copenhagen. The way campaigning works is to have short term goals to work for, but the response to the threat of climate change is going to be 'an issue' for the rest of my life and beyond. While still engaging in the short term campaigning as much as possible; for sanity's sake, we need to find a framework for acting and thinking that isn't 'we have x months to save the planet'. I've been wrestling with Alistair McIntosh's concept of 'living in a dying time' (Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and the Human Condition) which is very persuasive but isn't a space I can think in yet. I do want to hang onto something our vicar mentioned in a sermon just before Christmas - apparently Martin Luther said that even if he knew Christ would come tomorrow he would still plant an apple tree.

Meanwhile, the robin pictured above is giving me accusing looks from the bird table because we've run out of bird food, so it's time for an expedition through the snow to the greengrocer's for more seed.

The Wave

It feels like we've been talking about this all year - the day of The Wave finally arrived. This was the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition demonstration in London just ahead of the Copenhagen Climate Summit.

Preparations at St John's began a few weeks back when the Pathfinders made their splendid banner. Then this Friday sixty cyclists turned up at the cafe - they'd come from Bristol and had stayed the night at St George's, Wash Common in Newbury en route to the Wave. They'd asked for a stopover for toilet and coffee but they got bacon butties for breakfast too courtesy of the Friday cafe.

Today about 25 of us headed down to London by less strenuous means - coach and train. When last I looked the BBC were reporting 20,000 marchers, Sky News said 40,000 but SCCC and Christian Aid said 50,000. Some of us arrived early enough for the service in Westminster Central Hall. The key phrase one of them reported from the service was that God told us to preach good news to all the world - not merely all people, but the cosmos.

By the time our family turned up there was a capacity 3,000 people inside and still an optimistic queue, but we headed downstairs for the Cafod children's activities, bumped into several old friends and the St John's Pathfinders, played climate change games, made banners and got blue hands painted on our faces (plus a good cup of coffee). Making a three-year-old walk the full route seemed a bit optimistic so while most people headed off to Grosvenor Square for the rallying talks and march start, we had a picnic and then visited Westminster Abbey. By the time we came out marchers were passing Parliament. The highlights for the boys were a wonderful blue dragon, meeting Tearfund's Super Badger and the cycle-powered music.

The rest of the congregation did walk the full route. The Pathfinders met our bishop, Stephen Cottrell, on the march (a photo of that should be appearing soon on the church's new website: http://stjohnandstephen.co.uk). There was more a storm of noise than a wave of hands at 3pm and the marching continued long after (we were on the platform at Waterloo when a friend rang to say they'd reached Parliament Square).