Greening St. Johns

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Fairtrade Fortnight

On Sunday we celebrated Fairtrade Fortnight in Exclaimers, watching Christian Aid's fairtrade assembly slide show, sharing Divine chocolate and building a farm out of fairtrade packaging. (I'm not sure where the other half of Exclaimers were when Laura took this photo).

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Christianity, Capitalism and the Poor: Where's the Good News

At the Christian Aid Week planning meeting this morning before lunch a couple of people mentioned how inspirational Loretta Minghella, Chief Executive of Christian Aid, was at this year's University of Reading Chaplaincy New Year lecture. It was televised by students so I finally got round to watching it this evening - yes, hugely moving and inspiring. You can watch it on line here.

INF meal at Candlemas

After today's excellent Candlemas Worship Together we had a delicious vegetarian meal. Following the Food Matters meeting, I was determined not to end up buying a pudding from the Co-op on the way to church but I think I'll need to practice the Chocolate and Pear Tatin I made (Green & Black's Ultimate Chocolate Recipe Book) to improve the appearance (although it tasted much as one would hope with that much Divine chocolate in it). The money raised from the meal will be given to INF and so Ali (back from Nepal but returning shortly) showed us a very moving film about their work after the meal.
Less positively from a green perspective, it was again really warm in church today and the figures for the end of year confirm that our gas use (school and church combined) has actually gone up signficantly this year.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

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.

About this blog

We started this blog in November 2007 as a resource and a record of our church's journey towards becoming an EcoCongregation.

We had been inspired to act because members of the congregation were increasingly concerned about the impact of Climate Change on the developing world. Some of us were trying to make changes at home, but working together as a church meant we could achieve so much more.

In May 2009 we were assessed for the award and passed. The scheme was later re-launched as EcoChurch, so we got round to applying for their Bronze award in 2016. In 2019 we made it to silver. And in June 2024 became Oxford Diocese's first Gold Eco Church (the 50th church in the country to receive the award). Our next challenge is to bring to fruition our plans for solar panels and a heat pump, and to make this a greener and more wildlife-friendly space.

The church of St John and St Stephen in Newtown, Reading, is attached to St John's School who use our church space during the week. The Sunday morning congregation (about 65 with an electoral roll of just over 90) includes a wide range of ages and backgrounds, some from the local parish and others from further afield. You can find out more about the church by clicking on the photo of the church above.

The views expressed in this blog are not necessarily shared by all of the congregation. Until June 2025 the posts were written by Joanna Laynesmith.

Greening St. Johns

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