Environment
The environmental crisis is the biggest challenge facing humanity today and poses a huge challenge to our faith, theology and lifestyles. At St John's we are engaging with this challenge in a number of ways, co-ordinated by our Green Ginger Group.
Green Ginger
Since St John's became an award-winning Eco-Congregation, the Green Ginger group has co-ordinated a wide range of environmental activities at St John's, amongst others:
- bell ringing outside St John's during the Copenhagen climate summit, as part of the international initiative Bellringing350.org, and participation in The Wave
- making origami arks to send to Gordon Brown during a joint service with Together churches, as part of a campaign by Operation Noah
- a letter to the Prime Minister signed by x members of the congregation asking for a strong deal at Copenhagen
- film shows of An Inconvenient Truth and Age of Stupid
- a visit to an urban wildlife garden, which you can read about in this article [PDF file]
- a member of our congregation, Eleanor Harris, is web editor for European Christian Environmental Network, which links environmental initiatives in churches all around Europe.
Two bigger projects of the Green Ginger group are described below:
'Let the Earth be Glad'
The Earth be Glad project has been funded by the Scottish Climate Challenge Fund to measure and reduce the carbon emissions of the congregation.
Acting together
Sometimes environmentalists make us compare our lifestyles to each other and make us feel guilty or hypocritical - an ecology of judgment. But this initiative is about acting prophetically together as a Christian community to 'let the earth be glad' - an ecology of grace.
How does Earth be Glad work?
Earth be Glad involves measuring the average carbon emissions of the congregation in our homes and transport. By measuring the average, every individual act of insulating a window, filling the kettle carefully, leaving the car at home, even getting a solar panel, will contribute to reducing it. It doesn't matter if, individually, you use more or less for whatever reason. The aim of the project is, together, to work towards the Scottish climate change targets of a 42% reduction by 2020 and an 80% reduction by 2050.
Log into the Choose Life web interface
Want to join in?
Find out more on the Earth be Glad website.
An award-winning Eco-congregation
The Eco-Congregation programme brings together all our activities and links us to churches around Scotland. St John's was the 29th Scottish church to receive an Eco-Congregation award. This is given to churches who have taken action in spiritual, practical and community environmental initiatives.
Eco-Congregation is a free ecumenical programme to help congregations consider environmental issues and make appropriate practical and spiritual responses. It is adaptable to all kinds of church and over 100 are involved - urban, rural, rich, poor, large, small, high and low! Churches can also link with other churches participating in the scheme through Eco-Congregation networks. St John's has hosted the first two meetings of the Edinburgh network.
Find out more on the Eco-Congregation Scotland website