More election prep (and wildlife)

 After a Godly Play session last Sunday on Jesus calming the storm, I took the children into the courtyard to a much tamer aspect of the natural world and encouraged some wildlife photography (BBOWT have a competition with categories for photos by children and of urban wildlife). I lent our youngest member my phone so his are the only photos I have at present:

There is a bee here if you can spot it.

Then we moved on to water-painting - the following was not prompted by any adults:

After the service it was part two of our hustings - this time with Reform Candidate Andy Williams and Labour Candidate Matt Rodda. Matt got held up so it was a two stage event asking each of them to answer questions on the climate, poverty etc as previously. Rosemary was able to take the opportunity to present Matt personally with the three page petition asking him to support the CAN bill which we had been promoting at the school fair.

Although the church is in Reading Central constituency, some of the congregation live in the new Earley and Woodley Constituency. Together with some fellow Reading Area Green Christians and CTEER members, we organised a hustings on Sunday evening at Trinity Church (the one behind Asda). It was chaired by the minister at Trinity - Jon Salmon.  The photos are courtesy of Phil Creighton who was also the star who managed to organise all of the main candidates to agree to come:

I think we were all a bit worried that barely anyone would turn up, but as 7pm approached we began to fear we were actually going to exceed our 200 capacity - in the end we counted in 182, so pretty perfect. We opened with a question on the climate - which was genuinely the topic we had received more questions on than any other - Mike B at Trinity asked this one. Two of us from St John & St Stephen's asked questions too - Alison on foodbanks/poverty, myself on biodiversity and the CAN bill. It was disappointing that two of the candidates hadn't heard of it, and indeed surprising after the publicity given it at the Restore Nature Now demo the day before. (Many of us couldn't attend that demo due to other inescapable commitments, although I happened to bump into Margaret at the station on her way there so can confirm that the church did get represented!). I have of course written to those candidates unaware of the bill since, pointing them to the zero hour website and their fellow party members who are supporting it.

An extra bonus of being at the hustings was catching up with Simon Batchelor OBE - the first time I had seen him since the honour was announced for his exceptional contributions to international development and innovation - see more here.

Before proceedings began, I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of Trinity Church's 'meadow'. (Impressive solar array too!)

Finally this week, I had a chance to share news of our gold award at Deanery Synod, starting a couple of potentially useful conversations with other churches.

Reaching Gold!

It has been another very busy month on the Eco Church front, leading up to a momentous milestone. 

On the later May Bank Holiday four of us escorted our duck down to the river again, this time with nine ducklings. We got it almost all on video too, but there are no stills - do watch the epic journey on our Facebook page (posted 3rd June)!

Even before the election was called, we had invited local parliamentary candidates to join us for an informal hustings and our monthly church lunch on Environment Sunday. The Lib Dem and Green candidates as well as a representative of the Conservatives all joined us for a very enlightening and positive discussion that included climate justice/the loss and damage fund, the Climate and Nature Bill, housing, food banks, 'in work' poverty and more.

We also got to do some harvesting in the courtyard:

On 8th June Rosemary & Richard C and I were at Oxford Diocese's Celebration of Creation Care at Wesley Memorial Church in Oxford, hearing inspirational stories from around the diocese and found ourselves nominated for the Church Times Green Award for Congregation and Community Action. Bishop Stephen used the parable of the sower in a wonderfully encouraging way to explore Eco Church journeys and Ruth Valerio was the keynote speaker:

Forest Church next day was at a new venue, beside the river, and that morning we began Great Big Green Week by using WWFs carbon calculator to measure our footprints over coffee. We've been combining the week with being voter champions and produced leaflets for the school with the key dates for voter registration, postal votes etc as well as a mention of Greenpeace's recommended topics to ask candidates. 

This week began with our Gold Eco Church assessment - Sara from Eco Church was joined by Don from Mortimer Methodist Church and Linda from St John's Moulsham, Chelmsford. We had a lovely day, learning lots from them as we went along (we have a long list of new suggestions for our next meeting) and next day came the very exciting news that we are the first parish church in Oxford diocese to have achieved the Gold Award, and the 50th in the country. Here we are with Don and Linda beside the old St Stephen's font in our courtyard:

To finish the week, we've been at the school fair, selling plants, getting signatures for a petition about the Climate and Nature bill, and supervising games about naming wildlife and discovering the hottest years on record. (The last was inspired by this website).

Our next meeting is on Monday - time to start planning for the next chapter! 

Creation Season 2021

This year we are following the official Season of Creation more closely - just the Sundays from 1st September until the Feast of St Francis on 4th October - and using resources from the ecumenical website. The first Sunday was the last of our open air services which we've held monthly over the summer, so we could enjoy the beautiful flowers in the courtyard this year.

Yesterday, the third Sunday in the season, Jeremy encouraged us all in his sermon to read the latest IPCC report, or at least one of the summaries of it. He included a few of their graphs of the range of possibilities we now face, emphasising the crucial importance decisions to be made at COP26.

Various congregation members were involved last month in supporting the YCCN pilgrimage residency at Reading, either joining the pilgrims on the routes into and out of Reading or taking part in events including a climate workshop with Reading University scientists and services of welcome and departure. Below are some of the photos Richard McKenzie took for us at the Minster Climate Service with which the residency ended (the weather soon cleared up and the walk to Twyford afterwards was gorgeous).

Meanwhile, over the summer exciting developments have been happening in the courtyard we share with the school:

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.

The Time is Now

How many St John's congregation members can you spot in the picture? The article is here. The photo was taken just after a long and positive discussion with local MP Matt Rhodda about action on climate change as part of the mass lobby last Wednesday.

In other updates - the Elements youth group appreciated an excellent and thought-provoking and inspiring talk from Sarah Thake on corporate social responsibility and what you can get business to do for the environment and social justice working from the inside.

And here is the evidence of what we did with the proceeds of our last church lunch!

Lenten Challenges - Engaging the Powers

As we arrived at church yesterday we were each given a copy of the St John's and St Stephen's Creation Care Challenge for Lent 2019. Adapted by Richard C from a challenge used at St Aldate's in Oxford, it is a mixture of daily challenges, meditations, prayers and talking points to help us tread more lightly on the earth. This week's tasks are a gentle preparation - I think week three is when I'm going to start really struggling: when we get to avoiding plastic wrappings on our food.

After the service, and before the monthly church lunch (in aid of Bed for the Night this month) Hamish P shared some of his wisdom on another challenging topic - engaging the powers that keep people across our world in poverty. He began with Desmond Tutu's point:

“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

Then he explained the importance of educating ourselves on how the system works that keeps the poor poor and enables a tiny minority to be phenomenally rich, drawing especially on Walter Wink and Joseph Stiglitz. He'd brought a number of briefing papers, summarising key books on topics of globalisation, inequality and the economy. There is lots more to read and inspire action at www.engagingthepowers.org.

Greenbelt - The Common Good

Just back from Greenbelt 2017 - I know at least 12 other St John's members were there since we bumped into each other but among the 11,000 on site this weekend there were probably others. It was a glorious weekend - apparently the hottest August bank holiday on record which made it beautiful but was also a stark reminder of our increasingly extreme weather. The environment was high on the agenda with Christian Aid's Big Shift campaign - my family plus godsons very much enjoyed their Escape the Vault (although if I'd been on my own I think I'd still be in there). As usual Green Christian and Operation Noah were among the stall holders as well as Hope for the Future who help people and churches lobby their MPs on climate change. Moreover, Natalie Bennett was in no fewer than five sessions and the Most Revd Dr Winston Halapua, archbishop of Aotearea, New Zealand and Polynesia made seven appearances (I am now hugely appreciating his beautiful and intriguing book  Waves of God's Embrace).

Reaching Bronze

Here's how our survey result looks right now. I'd like to say we've been working really hard since the initial survey to move so far forward, but in truth I completely misread it the first time round - what I thought was grey 'not quite there yet' is really silver, so (having no more land than a driveway and a walled bed) here we are at bronze and it's time to send off the application form. The announcement was made at our harvest service.

Meanwhile 26 letters have so far been despatched to MPs as part of the Week of Action on Climate Change, we're trialing the use of far more Traidcraft products in church (needing to work out how to make up the extra costs incurred), and we've been thinking lots about Creation in the last two Godly Play sessions (Creation Stories followed by Fall Stories) - as usual I forgot to take any photos of the wonderful art work which included some great models of the Garden of Eden (helped by all the foliage I'd brought in).

Climate Marches

I think there were about a dozen of us from St John's on the Reading Climate March last Saturday. The organizers decided there were 300+ in total whereas the press said 'dozens' which was clearly an understatement. There was a good atmosphere, despite the drizzly weather, many of us catching up with people we hadn't seen for years, but also getting to know new people.
Several others from St John's made it to London for the much larger rally there on Sunday.

Preparing for the climate talks - upcoming events

the events advertised at yesterday morning's service were: 

Reading People’s March - on Saturday 28th November – see ‘Route’ tab on website:http://readingpeoplesmarch.org – a march from Christchurch to a rally in the ‘3Bs’ in the Town Hall. 

They are also running a coach to London for the People's March for Climate, Justice and Jobs on Sunday 29th November – to book see http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2466956 or join Richard and Rosemary catching a train straight after our Advent Sunday Service.

Reading Climate Day on Saturday 5th December at Reading Minster

10 am - 2pm Green Christmas - ethical gift and food fair

4 pm 'Cafe Theologique' - Professor John Mitchell, Principal Research Fellow at the Met Office will talk about his work on climate change

7 pm - Climate Mass with the bishop presiding and Ruth Valerio preaching

All day - exhibitions and prayer stations

Also - Hamish invited us to contact Global Justice Now (who used to be the World Development Movement) about WTO plans to debar low-income countries from buying farmers' crops and distributing them to those too poor to afford food at market price. The email address to ask for a campaign card is offleyroad@globaljustice.org.uk.

Mass Lobby on Climate Change

Richard and Christine were among 10 members of the Reading East constituency to meet up with Rob Wilson for this - most of the others were from churches too apparently.

Time to Act on Climate Change

Abi succeeded in fill a bus with climate change campaigners from Reading for the Time to Act on Climate Change march. Quite a few of them were from St John's but I've still not got round to getting any of their photos. My family headed down by train earlier in the day so that we could fit in a trip to the Science Museum before joining the march near Charing Cross.

The idea of this march was to encourage politicians to put climate change on their election agenda. I'm not sure there were enough of us in the circumstances (many of the development agencies hadn't really advertised this one), but I'm hoping the National Trust's announcement this morning will help towards that.

IF

 Last June 8th many of the congregation joined the Enough Food for Everyone IF demonstration in London. It was an inspirational event and the sort of occasion, like Greenbelt, for bumping into lots of old friends too. I've been disorganised on my photos, hence the long delay in posting this. I did write more fully on the church facebook page at the time.

Enough Food for Everyone IF

Ahead of the IF event this coming Saturday, I used some of the IF schools materials with Exclaimers a couple of weeks ago. These include a slide show which starts with a question - Is there enough food for everyone in the world? Most of the kids assumed not. I was so struck by the response of one of them when I explained that actually there was: Gasp, 'But that's so NAUGHTY! Why don't the government do something about it?'

Enough Food for Everyone IF

A dozen of the St John's congregation turned up on Friday 25th January to be part of the launch of a major new campaign to reduce global poverty, along with local MPs and activists from other churches plus a fantastic band from Leighton Park School.

Rev Robert Weston, of Park United Reformed Church explained the reason for the IF campaign:

‘The world produces enough food for everyone, but not everyone has enough food.

Hunger is the greatest scandal of our age.

This year, with the G8 coming to Britain, we can make a real difference if we act together and act now.

The aim of the IF campaign is to tackle the scandal that sees 1 in 8 people in the world go to bed hungry. The food system is broken. There’s enough food, but it’s not going to hungry people who need it to live. We know we can change this. All this suffering and death is preventable IF we persuade our governments to act.

Nearly 100 leading charities have joined together to demand an end to hunger. In June the G8 Summit comes to Britain. This is our chance to end the scandal of hunger. Our leaders will listen IF we act together and act now.’

The Mayor of Reading, Councillor Jenny Rynn gave her support for the IF campaign saying that this could be a major help in achieving the UN’s Millennium Goal to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.

MP for Reading West, Alok Sharma, gave his full support to the IF campaign emphasising the importance of the government’s commitment to ensure that 0.7% of the United Kingdom’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is spent on international development and aid. This contribution helps to alleviate some of the worst poverty and hunger across the globe.

The Bishop of Reading, Bishop Andrew, reflected on his 9 years of ministry in Ethiopia, where he saw first-hand the impact of multinational companies on the lives of poor communities. The displacement of local farmers, to create vast fields of crops to produce biofuels is having a negative effect on the provision of locally grown food for people in Ethiopia, creating food shortages. Bishop Andrew encouraged the crowd outside St Lawrence Church, saying that together we can make a difference and build on the success of the ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign.

MP for Reading East, Rob Wilson, also gave his full backing to the project and drew attention to the scandal of food waste, a contributing factor to the global problem of food shortage. Rob has been involved in an innovative local project to use the fruit grown in local gardens, parks and allotments – which can be used to produce fruit juice, jams and other products.

The crowd of supporters were delighted to enjoy a piece of music written specially for the launch event and performed by students from Leighton Park School. The piece composed by Leighton Park music teacher Chris Mitchell is in a Latin American style, featuring brass and percussion, and the performance is named "Jubilee Shout".

Maranda St John Nicolle, co-ordinator of Christian Concern for One World was delighted with the level of support for the campaign in Reading; saying, ‘It is always encouraging to see such a vibrant community seeking to raise awareness of global issues. I hope others will want to get the message out there: the world produces enough food, but not everyone has enough food. IF we get together, we can make a difference and we can solve this problem.’

At the launch event were:

Mayor of Reading, Councillor Jenny Rynn

Bishop Andrew, Bishop of Reading

Rob Wilson MP

Alok Sharma MP

Rob White, Reading Borough Councillor

Rev Robert Weston, Minister, Park United Reformed Church, East Reading

Rev Neil Warwick, Vicar, St Nicolas Church, Earley

Rev Ali Marshall, Minister, St John and St Stephen Church, Newtown

Maranda St John Nicolle of Christian Concern for One World, Oxford

Hamish Preston of Reading Campaigning Network

There will be Enough Food for Everyone….

• IF we stop poor farmers being forced off their land, and use the available agricultural land to grow food for people, not biofuels for cars.
• IF governments keep their promises on aid, invest to stop children dying from malnutrition and help the poorest people feed themselves through investment in small farmers.
• If governments stop big companies dodging tax in poor countries, so that millions of people can free themselves from hunger.
• IF we force governments and investors to be honest and open about the deals they make in the poorest countries that stop people getting enough food.We want our leaders to act on the four big issues that stop everyone getting enough food.

To sign up to the campaign www.enoughfoodif.org

Speak

After this morning's Worship Together Service Fish and Helen gave a talk about their work with Speak which the church has been supporting for the last couple of years. Speak is a network of young adults and students, supported by Christian Aid and Tearfund, focussed on praying and campaigning for social justice. Their campaigns include climate change, the arms trade, corporate accountability and trade justice. The proceeds from the meal afterwards will be going to support Speak too. Meanwhile Rosemary was running a very tempting major Traidcraft stall with lots of extra crafts and new items such as Christmas tree decorations from the Meaningful Chocolate company.

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.

Greenbelt 2011

As usual a large group from St John and St Stephen's attended Greenbelt this year, many camping with members of our vicar's former church.

Last year I was disappointed by the sudden disappearance of the climate change issue. This year, as a CEL speaker noted, it was still scarcely on the speaker agenda. Nonetheless, perhaps still rubbing bruises after Copenhagen, it was very much an issue in the G-Source tent and similar spaces: Cafod are getting us to sign postcards to George Osborne, urging him 'Don't drop the ball on climate change' ahead of the talks in Durban later this year. Unicef are asking us to persuade the Chancellor and Climate Change Secretary to 'Get Children Climate Ready' by using a Robin Hood Tax and a tax on shipping and aviation fuels to provide the money that has been promised to help poor countries deal with the effects of climate change. The Salvation Army had a very family-friendly tent where they explained some of the actions their international development organisation are taking to help the most vulnerable to make responsible use of their resources and to adapt to climate change as well as urging people to make changes in their own lives and support Stop Climate Chaos. The Christian Aid tent was a fantastic rainforest venue with lots for the children to do and very much more high-tec cafe than the one I used to volunteer in! The picture of Richard and Rosemary above is taken from Christian Aid's website. There was a display (with accompanying excellent harvest festival materials) highlighting the development of saline resistant rice and crab farming that was being introduced to help Bangladeshi farmers cope with flooded fields and my seven-year-old was very enthusiastic to join in the photo petition to David Cameron asking for more action on climate change.

There were of course lots of specifically environmental groups in the G-Source tent too. Christian Ecology Link's session there was well attended and entertaining as well as inspiring. They suggested that our response to the catastrophe facing the planet might be charted according to the traditional graph of the grieving process - awareness, reaction, denial, frustration, letting go, testing, search for meaning, integration - and that a lot of us were at the lowest morale point 'letting go', needing to move forward. As well as being persuaded to take the plunge and look properly at their EcoCell scheme, the principal message I took home was the importance of working with others. There was also a useful workshop on Transition Towns which was attended by about a hundred people.