Greening St. Johns

Solar Clutter Sale

2012-01-22T15:34:00.003Z

Thank you to everyone who donated or spent this morning. Exclaimers are delighted to announce that we raised £155 at today's Clutter Sale. This will be split between New Town Primary School in our parish and New Christ Church Primary School which is attended by James and Matthew. If anyone would like to send in any more money to help raise funds for the schools' solar panels, please go to www.solarschools.org.uk and find the school you would like to donate to. Or speak to Hugh or myself about contributing to a church donation.

We had a fantastic spread of donations and I know Mark is very happy with the coffee maker he brought back and the boys have been having great fun with the remote control helicopter! All the non electrical goods that were not sold are now on their way to the Communicare shop. Helen is trying to find a charity shop that will take the electrical goods for us.

God's World: Why and How to Become an EcoCongregation

2012-01-12T22:54:00.006Z

With apologies for the very long delay in writing this up; the EcoCongregations event on 17th November was a fantastic evening with a real buzz of enthusiasm for greening our churches among the 80+ attendees. Thank you very much to everyone who came along and/or helped to make it happen!
Bishop Andrew gave a fascinating and moving talk about his experiences in Ethiopia; I tried to squeeze in reference to as many different environmental resources for churches as possible in a rather short space of time; and there followed really useful reports from the Society of Friends, All Saints Wokingham and Earley St Nicholas on their churches' experiences of greening their worship, practice and outreach.
Afterwards we enjoyed some seriously delicious food from Tutu's Ethiopian Table along with fair trade wine.
There were stalls to browse from several other churches including St Barnabas, Emmer Green displaying their beautiful new sensory garden; Park URC with information on pv panels and biomass boilers; St Paul's URC Bracknell; St Mary and St John Finchampstead; and St James Pangbourne/ Pangbourne and Whitchurch Sustainability Group; as well as A Rocha, CEL and Earthing Faith etc. I was especially pleased that Reading Friends of the Earth were able to come along and Transition Town Reading since it is so important for churches to be part of their wider community's response to the environmental crises. Greyfriars bookshop kindly provided a stall of appropriate books and I know John Madeley sold a good number of copies of his Let Live (a bike ride, climate change and the CIA)!

Speak

2011-11-06T22:35:00.006Z

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.

Unconsumption

2011-10-25T12:36:00.001+01:00

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

Forthcoming event reminder

2011-10-18T11:55:00.001+01:00

"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

2011-10-18T11:50:00.002+01:00

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

2011-10-05T14:11:00.002+01:00

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.

Introduction to EcoCongregation

2011-09-09T10:45:00.000+01:00

"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 the church's role in caring for the environment. There will be prayer, 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 in the face of Climate Change, Peak Oil and a growing world population.

Please e-mail j.laynesmith@gmail.com for further details and to confirm your attendance so that we can provide enough refreshments.

Creation Time

2011-09-09T10:29:00.004+01:00

Last Sunday we opened Creation Time with a worship together service inspired by an organisation we encountered at Greenbelt: Test of Faith. We had some reservations about the theology expressed but they do have a very useful service plan on their website encouraging people to think about science and religion and the astonishing immensity of the cosmos. We adapted these, including an interview with one of our congregation's many scientists, Rachel. She said that her work made her realise how much 'bigger' and beyond our comprehension God is and for her awe in Creation often came from the very tiny things. The Test of Faith website has videos accompanying scripture readings which had my children transfixed. It was a service which engaged all ages and provoked plenty of discussion afterwards.

We also handed out Cafod's Live Simply prayer cards.

Greenbelt 2011

2011-09-09T09:43:00.005+01:00

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.

Preparing for Creation Time

2011-08-10T21:53:00.005+01:00

As usual at St John and St Stephen's we plan to celebrate Creation Time from 1st September right through October too (rather than stopping at 4th October) so that it leads into Kingdom Season. The night before last we had a rather small planning meeting to make sure the theme is woven into some of our preaching, prayers, meals and actions. There are some really useful resources at the ctbi website but we'll probably also be drawing on CAFOD's Live Simply material.

We were also planning a meeting to be held on 17th November which will be an opportunity to introduce Reading's EcoCongregations to our new bishop, Andrew Proud, to hear his thoughts on the issues and to encourage people from other congregations to become part of the movement. It'll be at 7.30 pm at St John and St Stephen's church and will include prayer, talks and an opportunity for questions and talking with those on the EcoCongregation journey over fairtrade refreshments. If you'd like know more or book a place, please e-mail greeningstjohns@gmail.com. Reading Christian Ecology Link are also involved in this event which is open to members of all denominations.

Green wedding

2011-06-27T00:45:00.003+01:00

Jon and Rachel are back from honeymoon - they had a wonderful 'green' wedding (especially the cake, very green, decorated with wellies, chickens and other emblems of the Good Life) but I especially liked the idea of putting all our place names on plant labels in teeny pots of herbs to take home. I have photos but have lost my camera connector, hence failure to enter anything sooner.

The wonderful sunshine today meant it must have been a quarter of the congregation who arrived by bike (maybe not quite, but there were about 20 bikes).

I've been putting more general posts on the Reading CEL blogsite, having finally got round to setting it up, and am reserving this one specifically for St John's stuff.

Christian Aid Week and Sack Gardening

2011-05-22T21:31:00.005+01:00

Christian Aid week has just finished. This year we finally decided to abandon the house to house collections that have become increasingly unpopular (I confess I've not done these since I arrived in Reading six years ago). Instead a dinner and auction of promises at the church was organised on 14th May. I couldn't attend but it was a great success and raised about £2,300 for Christian Aid thanks to some very generous people.

Next morning when we arrived for the service, the church was still decked with Christian Aid bunting and the flowers were beautiful in the CA colours of red and white. We had a visitor who is a conceptual artist working on a project which is tied in with Send a Cow. She is encouraging schools and other community groups to grow gardens in sacks and to communicate with others in this country and abroad with such 'bag gardens'. So, after the service we started our church bag garden - most of the work was done by the Exclaimers, especially the older girls who all attend St John's school and will be able to look after it during the week along with the school's own bag garden. (The photo above is from the Send a Cow site - hopefully I'll have one of our own to put there soon).

Easter Egg Hunt

2011-05-09T00:39:00.003+01:00

On the Saturday before Easter we held an Easter Egg hunt for Scramblers/Climbers and Exclaimers in our garden followed by a picnic tea. It was so sunny I was worried the chocolate would have melted before they'd all arrived and decorated their egg boxes (we were using the Divine Dubble Easter Egg Hunt kits from Traidcraft). It was pretty chaotic and we were still finding missed eggs several days later in the garden but three of the Exclaimers reported this morning that it was the highlight of their Easter holiday.

1st May - Outdoor Communion and cycle ride

2011-05-08T23:55:00.004+01:00

For this year's 'green team' Worship Together service we decided to hold a traditional communion service but go outdoors. It must have been about the seventh gloriously sunny Sunday in a row and I couldn't quite believe we could be so lucky with the weather. We don't have a churchyard, just a courtyard at the front between the small garden and the church but this has low walls part way round mirroring the shape of the church itself and it worked really well with benches and a few chairs inside. We couldn't get the microphone system working but since we were much closer together than usual (and the double bank holiday had reduced numbers) it was fine. In fact it was rather nice to have a service not dependent upon technology (aside from the computer that prepared the service sheets initially).

We followed the usual Eastertide communion service with a couple of additions to keep the children's attention -
at the confession we asked the children to write 'sorry' in chalk on the ground and after the absolution we washed it away again, explaining that God had washed away our sins (many of the adults said they found that very powerful to witness)

while Richard was preaching - on the gardens that were the sites of fall and Resurrection - Emma painted a large picture of the garden with the tomb in (assisted by Ben the human easel). This kept my youngest son rapt, just as good as TV it turned out (for those more restless, chalk drawing kept them quiet still).

during the intercessions we gave them small flags to paint/draw what they wanted to pray for on and later stapled them to a string for waving at the end

during the offertory hymn (Thine be the Glory) I handed out bottles of bubbles - in my imagination these would be finished during the song but actually the bubbles kept coming right through the Communion prayer but this was fine

After coffee fifteen of us set out to cycle along the canal (including a couple of passengers). It was quite beautiful, all the leaves lush with the brightness of spring despite the very summery heat, damselflies flittering across the still waters etc. We arrived at the lock near 'The Cunning Man' just as the first of those who'd chosen to drive and walk did so - Dino on his crutches! Eventually our number was doubled and it was a lovely way to spend the afternoon, especially the sharing of homemade breads and cakes (plus homemade wine from Reading-grown grapes, albeit rather warm), while watching the orange-tip butterflies and the five-year-olds darting across the lock.

Easter approaching

2011-04-04T22:27:00.011+01:00

This month's green tip from A Rocha is:

Have you ever thought about the market in Easter Eggs at this time of the year? In the UK we buy more than 80 million eggs, generating sales of around £200 million. Supermarkets use them as a 'loss leader': selling them as cheaply as they can in order to get customers in.

At this time of year it's easy to be attracted by the cheap offers, but let's not forget that behind every Easter Egg stands a farmer and their cocoa farm. Buying an Easter Egg made from fairtrade chocolate is the only way we can be assured that the farmer hasn't been poorly treated. So this month, make sure all your Easter chocolate is fairly traded.

Rosemary still has plenty of fantastic 'Real Easter Eggs' for sale at the Traidcraft stall. Or you can buy a range of sumptuous fairly traded eggs in the RISC World Shop or in the Oxfam book shop.

The plastic milk bottle top collection which had stopped can now be resumed as we have found someone else who is collecting them for a wheelchair.

Hilfield Friary - baskets and desert fathers

2011-03-23T00:28:00.003Z

I've just enjoyed a wonderfully peaceful and inspiring weekend away and would recommend any worn out eco-worrier/warrior to check out Hilfield Friary - a community of Anglican Franciscans in Dorset. It is lovely to stay somewhere where care for Creation is taken for granted and is quietly obvious in many ways. I was attending a weekend to learn about the Desert Fathers and how to weave baskets. I was especially struck by the story of an elder who was asked by a certain soldier whether God would forgive sinners. 'If your cloak was torn, would you mend it?' came the reply, 'But of course', 'Well then, how much more will God care for that which is His image?' - in part it struck me because we don't tend to mend things any more.
On our final morning the leader talked of the legacy of the Desert Fathers and their relevance today, picking up on the challenge of their call to utter simplicity and pointing out politicians' fears that simpler living will attack the model of economic growth that they cannot see beyond. He mentioned a fascinating sounding book by Bruce Wilshire called Wild Hunger which traces our addictions (be it to drugs or shopping) to a void caused by our lack of connection with nature and other humans.

Reading Rescue

2011-03-13T22:48:00.005Z

Last week Suzanne announced that she'd arranged for litter picking grabbers, bags and gloves to be delivered to the church for this weekend so that we could take part in Reading Rescue's clean up event. Unfortunately there were very few takers for Saturday morning but after church this morning several families joined in, incluing boys from each of the children's groups who seem to have found it the highlight of their morning! Matthew has announced he intends to be a litter picker when he grows up and James wants to know when we can do this again and can he have a grabber for use around home.

Christian Ecology Link

2011-03-13T22:39:00.002Z

On 5th March Rosemary, Richard and I attended the Christian Ecology Link conference in London where there was a passionate call to Christian environmental action from Peter Owen Jones in the morning followed by sessions on practical actions and green economics. I've put a more detailed write-up of this event on a new site I've just started putting together for Reading Christian Ecology Link.

Fairtrade Fortnight

2011-03-01T10:01:00.008Z

Fairtrade fortnight began somewhat early at St John's with a Christian Aid Sacred Space service on the evening of 20th Feb - this was on their Trace the Tax campaign. I keep forgetting to ask how this went but hopefully I'll be able to report on it soon. In the meantime, this Sunday we handed out leaflets with a brief bit about Fairtrade (headed Fairtrade offers 7.5 million people in the developing world a more secure future) and then a collection of Fairtrade recipes to encourage people to bring Fairtrade puddings to next week's bring and share meal. I know Richard was planning to mention Fairtrade in the sermon (as usual I got to the file too late to pick up a copy so am waiting for it to appear on the church website). I was leading Exclaimers so we used the Fairtrade foundation's very useful downloads for a lesson about cotton and then made posters advertising our favourite Fairtrade products. These went up at the back of church afterwards to be admired by those queuing for coffee, surrounding an A4 sheet bearing John Sentamu's words "If you choose to buy the non-Fairtrade product, you are actively choosing to contribute to the poverty of others" which prompted some discussion in the queue. The children took various Fairtrade treats round to offer people afterwards and James was delighted when someone enjoyed the luscious Traidcraft yoghurt raisins he offered so much that they went over to the stall to buy some (thank you whoever that was!) Daniel meanwhile was encouraging people to sign a letter I'd downloaded from the Fairtrade foundation's website to Caroline Spelman regarding unfair cotton subsidies.
Also on the subject of Fairtrade, Reading University library has a display for Fairtrade Fortnight on its ground floor, organised by the chaplaincy with products from the World Shop and they will be hosting both a Fairtrade fashion show next Monday and, something I think looks especially interesting, an opportunity to hear from the Fairtrade Foundation and the Rainforest Alliance about their different approaches which is happening next Tuesday (8th) in Cafe Mondial from 7 til 9 (more info here).

Berkshire Save our Woods

2011-02-16T10:46:00.002Z

I've recently been contacted by Berkshire Save our Woods who are protesting against the government sell off of woodland and in particular Sulham Woods on the edge of Reading. They're holding a protest on 5th March. Unfortunately I'll be away at the Christian Ecology Link conference that day but if you'd like to help out there's more info at the link above. It's a gorgeous place adjoining one of my favourite BBOWT sites so a lovely place to have to go for a demo!

"God on the Box": Peter Owen Jones

2011-01-28T13:26:00.004Z

Last Wednesday Reading University Chaplaincy's New Year lecture, "God on the Box", was attended by a large number of St John's members, including two home groups who usually meet on Wednesdays. The speaker was Peter Owen Jones, presenter of Around the World in 80 Faiths, Extreme Pilgrim and How to Live a Simple Life. It was an inspirational and challenging evening with a lot that was relevant to the EcoCongregation journey. It will soon be possible to watch the lecture, although not the questions afterwards, on the university's tv website RU:ON.

Many of us were struck by his explanation that most television now is driven by 'jeopardy' - in order to keep viewers hooked they must be persuaded that the subjects they are watching face jeopardy. This means that many interesting and important subjects just don't make it into TV documentaries any more because there is no element of jeopardy. It also means that we have so much jeopardy thrown at us that it is hard to separate what really matters, eg climate change and 'the crime of extinction', from the fabricated jeopardy.

He also talked a lot about anti-consumerism - if you disagree with bankers' bonuses, take your money away from those banks! He said that his three months without money had 'de-toxed' him from the need to buy. He has enough possessions for the rest of his life. He will be talking more about this at the forthcoming Christian Ecology Link conference in London on 5 March which a couple of us plan to attend: End of the Age of Thorns-Surviving Consumerism.

Jesus, the Earthly Powers and Us

2011-01-24T10:26:00.004Z

On Sunday Hamish gave me a copy of a new Lent course that Reading Churches Campaiging Network have put together and it's really interesting stuff. It was Owen at Reading Christian Ecology Link who mentioned the course to me because he wrote much of the section on climate change. The course draws on the work of Rowan Williams, Steve Chalke, Walter Wink and Michael Northcott, looking at Jesus' political activity: how 'Jesus centred his ministry on subverting the "received wisdom" of his day and challenging the ruling upholders of the status quo. That is why, after a brief ministry, they had him killed'. The course is going to be used by several churches in Caversham but I don't think any decisions have been made about it at St John's yet.

On another note, I'd like to highlight the Church Urban Fund's Greening your church project which Paul at GREN has just drawn to my attention. Often it seems the 'green agenda' is seen as something of a distraction from the more immediately important church mission of ministering to those in need on our door stop. So, I was really pleased to find that the Church Urban Fund are encouraging people to see the crucial interconnections in these issues.

Reading Transport

2011-01-19T21:14:00.005Z

I've just got back from a good meeting with Reading's Lead Councillor for Strategic Planning and Transport, Richard Willis. I was part of a GREN delegation who had arranged to see him in the light of Reading's evolving Sustainable Community Strategy and Local Transport Plan (Reading Christian Ecology Link submitted a response to the draft of this plan which I put together, hence my involvement in this meeting). Within the confines of my hopes for the meeting it was a really positive experience - Cllr Willis was enthusiastic about promoting cycling, promising very positive developments in the near future and was able to assure us that the forthcoming 20 mph areas, while not as widespread as we would like, will be more significant than we were expecting. On the subject of buses he was able to tell us that the £1 to town scheme between some stops in Caversham and the centre of town has been a huge success (disappointingly I realise that the similar £1 to the hospital scheme has expired, but I can only hope that similar schemes might emerge for some of the poorer areas of Reading. This is a matter for the bus company rather than direct council intervention).

Community Buildings Event

2010-12-03T14:25:00.004Z

The Community Buildings event that I mentioned last month went really well. There were about 22 groups represented, of whom half were churches.

The evening opened with a presentation from a member of the United Sustainable Energy Agency who began by urging us all to REDUCE ENERGY CONSUMPTION FIRST before considering alternative methods of generation. He recommended checking the energy efficiency of boilers at www.sedbuk.com and replacing those over 15 years old. He gave a variety of tips including mentioning that foil behind radiators and energy saving light bulbs will usually be paid back in energy savings within a year. For those considering alternative energy schemes he urged us to ensure that the installer is MCS accredited and explained the various finanical benefits. In the discussion following it emerged that it is important to get advice on ensuring you have the best inverters available (generally European made ones since these companies are more established).

Then Rev Rob Weston of Park URC reported on their scheme for pv panels and a biomass boiler. On the latter subject the ethics of wood burning were discussed and one of those present explained that in Britain we have a problem of unmanaged woods at present so that, on a certain scale, demand for wood for such boilers will lead to better management and therefore better wildlife habitats.

Anne Wheldon of the Society of Friends explained how they'd made spectacular cuts in their emissions by a long list of measures, each of which alone often looked quite small. She also pointed out that it is a much cheaper way of cutting emissions than the initial outlay of microgeneration. She explained that the first step is to start reading meters at least once a month and make an audit, looking for opportunities that will tie in with routine maintenance, such as the thermal reflective blinds when their old blinds needed replacing.

Gabriel Berry briefly introduced Reading Energy Pioneers who are currently organising a bulk buy of pv panels to enable homeowners to buy them more cheaply.

Jane Wallis of LoCUS (Low Carbon Understanding for SMEs) explained how they could help negotiations between landlord and tenant businesses to arrange for energy saving measures to be installed in their buildings.

The event was primarily organised by RITE with help from GREN volunteers and those present have received copies of the slides presented so if anyone would like these forwarded to them, just let me know.

The Big Climate Connection

2010-11-18T21:24:00.001Z

LOBBY OF READING EAST MP ROB WILSON ON 5 NOVEMBER 2010

In the Reading East Constituency five people, including two from Reading’s Christian Ecology Link, lobbied Rob Wilson MP on 5 November as part of the Big Climate Connection Stop Climate Chaos Lobby. We were cordially received and given over half an hour of his time. We reminded him that in the hustings prior to the General Election the first two questions were concerned with climate change and environmental matters and that the lobbyists represented the tip of an iceberg of concern among his constituents.

We brought four local initiatives to his attention asking for his support where needed.

The initiative of Reading Energy Pioneers to promote renewable energy installations to home owners and support them to bulk buy as a group. An idea spawned from an event organised by the Greater Reading Environmental Network (GREN).
A new initiative suggested by GREN’s board member on the Reading Climate Change Partnership (RCCP), a sub group of the Local Strategic Partnership, proposes a new public/private/voluntary company to undertake a major local initiative on energy efficiency/renewables installations in homes across Reading, particularly in the lower income/private rented homes.
Neighbourhood groups are forming across Reading as part of the Transition Town movement. Also GREN is working on a vision for a truly sustainable Reading. These have obvious links with the Big Society agenda.
Action is being taken by the Faith Communities; in particular Park United Reformed Church plans to install photovoltaic panels on its roof and a wood pellet boiler for its heating system.

We drew to the attention of the MP policy demands on home energy efficiency, an emissions performance standard for fossil fuel power stations and international finance.

Nationally we asked for the following to be included in the Energy Security and Green Economy Bill:

A strong Green Deal to ensure that by 2020 7 million homes in the UK have had an energy efficiency makeover, reducing their emissions by at least 60 per cent.
Minimum energy efficiency standards for the private rented sector so that by 2016 the most unhealthy homes (below Band F and G) cannot be let.
Enabling legislation so that a strong Emissions Performance Standard (EPS) for fossil fuel power stations can be set to enable delivery of a decarbonised electricity supply by 2030.

Internationally we asked that at the Cancun International Climate talks in December the UK must:

Support the establishment of one common climate fund to help developing countries adapt to climate change, develop in a low carbon way and protect their forests.
Support and champion new and innovative sources of public climate finance, including revenue from measures to tackle aviation and shipping emissions, and a levy on financial transactions.
Guarantee that UK money for adaptation in developing countries will be provided as grants rather than loans, and push other donors to do likewise.

In particular we asked Rob Wilson to write to the Prime Minister and Secretary of State at DECC expressing support for these policies; we also asked him to work with us over the next year to ensure progress on this agenda and indicated that we wished to have further meetings to enquire about progress.

Rob Wilson spoke with confidence about the commitment of Mr Huhne, the DECC Secretary, enthused about the Green Deal and expressed his views on nuclear power which differed from those of most of the lobbyists. The MP did not know at what level the UK participation at Cancun would be.

Those present at the lobby were Paul Harper (GREN), Katherine Watts (WWF), Chris Burden (Friends of the Earth) and Rita Belletty and Owen Jewiss (Christian Ecology Link), each contributing to the exchanges.

Owen Jewiss

11 November 2010.

How to use your community building to generate clean energy

2010-11-02T11:28:00.000Z

An information evening for voluntary, faith and community organisations:

This event is for you if your community, faith or voluntary organisation owns or rents a building.
On the night there will be:

* Impartial advice from an Energy Savings Trust expert plus local project study from Park United Reform Church

* How to save money making your building more energy efficient; a case study from Friends Meeting House

* Don’t own your building? Expert advice on how to convince your landlord to help

Please book a place by emailing chair@gren.org.uk or call 07828 498 315

Time/venue:
Tue 23 November 2010 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Friends Meeting House, 2 Church Street, Reading, RG1 2SB

Bottle greenhouse

2010-11-01T13:11:00.004Z

Collette has now finished her mini-greenhouse made of plastic bottles, pictured here. The frame is a playpen. We've now moved into Kingdom Season, and the new service booklets celebrate some efforts at building the Kingdom with images of congregation members at the Putting People First march last year and this summer's cycle ride.

How to use your community building to generate clean energy

2010-10-28T21:33:00.005+01:00

Park URC are now well on the way to installing pv panels and a biomass boiler, having secured most of the funding needed. They hope to be installing the panels before the end of the year and the boiler next May. So, a speaker from there will be among those encouraging users of other community buildings in Reading to take advantage of the current very generous Feed in Tariff rate to help them produce green energy for themselves and the grid:

How to use your community building to generate clean energy and get paid for it

An information evening for voluntary, faith and community organisations:

This event is for you if your community, faith or voluntary organisation owns or rents a building.
On the night there will be:

* Impartial advice from an Energy Savings Trust expert plus local project study from Park United Reform Church

* How to save money making your building more energy efficient; a case study from Friends Meeting House

* Don’t own your building? Expert advice on how to convince your landlord to help

Please book a place by emailing chair@gren.org.uk or call 07828 498 315

Time/venue:
Tue 23 November 2010 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Friends Meeting House, 2 Church Street, Reading, RG1 2SB

20 10 2010

2010-10-28T21:22:00.003+01:00

On Wednesday of last week Rev Jesse Jackson addressed a Christian Aid supporters day at Central Methodist Hall, urging activists to 'Keep dreaming' of a world of justice, clean water, peace, more health care and education . . . ending poverty in the developing world. Three of our congregation were there for the event and afterwards lobbied our MP Rob Wilson about the government's role in responding to climate change and ending poverty.

Creation Flourishing?

2010-10-27T22:45:00.005+01:00

As we wait in hope and prayer for good news from the UN conference on biodiversity in Nagoya, St John's two months of Creation Season have almost finished. This year we were rather more low key - I asked intercessors to include environmental concerns and we included pictures of Creation Flourishing in the overhead images during the service. I didn't manage to provide examples from Reading for every week (not because there are insufficient examples, time failed me).

We also have a map of Reading on our Eco notice board on which I've asked people to mark their favourite green spaces in Reading. Today I decided to try out one suggested by Rosemary - High Wood on Church Road. It is indeed a treasure (pictured above). I'd been in town earlier so caught the number 17 bus (which passes very close to St John's) up to the Three Tuns and it's a short walk down Church Road from there. We did hear various birds and watched squirrels but what seemed to be flourishing most there were fungi in beautiful variety.

Visitors from Sweden

2010-10-15T23:09:00.003+01:00

This Wednesday some visitors from Oxford's twin diocese in Sweden were visiting to explore the outworking of Oxford's 'Living Faith for the Future' programme and wanting to see what environmental things were going on, so they were directed to St John's. We spent an hour or so in St John's cafe. In my enthusiasm to share all our experiences I unfortunately didn't get round to asking what their own experiences were - so if any of you are reading this blog, it would be lovely to know what the equivalent schemes in Sweden are? Luckily both Suzanne and Ali were able to be present to answer many of the questions, as well as Owen who is leading the EcoCongregation movement at St Barnabas, Emmer Green.

At the foot of Mount Sinai

2010-10-15T14:51:00.003+01:00

Last term my Sunday school group were working through Genesis with a particular eye to environmental themes - several weeks on Creation followed by the very obvious environmental parallels in stories including Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel and the famine in Egypt. The emphasis was on appreciating and caring for creation. This term we've moved on to Exodus which instantly struck me as book to help us 'Sustain the Sacred Centre' to use the Oxford Diocesan theme for this year, and prepare ourselves spiritually for building the kingdom. We began with Moses's mother who trusted in God but did not sit back and wait for her child to be rescued, she acted in that trust. Then we looked at the two different responses to injustice embodied in Moses' responses to witnessing his fellow countryman being beaten (murder and consequent exile) or women unfairly treated when waiting to water their sheep (standing up for them and consequent marriage to one) - ie espouse non-violent responses to injustice (climate or otherwise). This week we came to the burning bush at the foot of Mt Sinai and an opportunity to talk about prayer, finding quiet places to do this. The children were very keen to take their flame decorated bush outdoors and we found ourselves in the little garden at the heart of the church/school plant which was a great space. Contemplative prayer is not suited to all six-ten year olds but hopefully even those who fidgeted the whole way through might one day remember the techniques when it's helpful!

Meanwhile the harvest bounty continues - Hugh gave us a carrier full of grapes that my boys very much enjoyed pressing with bare feet for wine.

Reading's Local Travel Plan

2010-10-15T14:45:00.003+01:00

The council are currently developing a new local travel plan, encompassing a strategy plan for up until 2026 and an implementation plan for the next three years. I've been looking at it as part of my role on Reading Climate Change Partnership but anyone can comment on the current draft by going to the council's site. Please do - I was chatting with someone at the over-crowded bike racks on Broad Street and mentioned the plan: he assumed that it would not cover cyclists but it does. At first sight the 175 page document does look a bit daunting but actually it isn't that scary and you can skim through to the nitty gritty that affects the areas of Reading that matter to you.

Park URC - on the way to sustainable energy

2010-10-01T10:07:00.002+01:00

Below is an e-mail I've just received from the Minister at Park URC: exciting news that means Reading should have a church with PV panels on it very soon. They'll still need another £15,000 so if anyone would like to contribute do get in touch with the Minister, Rev Robert Weston. Hopefully this will be a very visual reminder to people at this busy spot on the outskirts of Reading of the importance of trying to limit climate change:

I’m delighted to let you all know that we have been given a ‘conditional offer’ of a grant of £39088 from the Community Sustainable Energy Programme – Capital Grants Scheme, towards the cost of PV solar panels to go on the church roof and a wood pellet boiler to provide heat to the church and church halls.

This is fantastic news for us and reflects the huge level of support given by members of the church and the local community. We will now be seeking to secure the remainder of the funding required for these two important eco-projects.

Please join us in giving thanks and praise to God for this wonderful news!

Churches responding to Climate Change

2010-09-27T12:49:00.003+01:00

The EcoCongregation journey has taken me, via co-ordinating Reading Christian Ecology Link, onto the Reading Climate Change Partnership (part of the LSP, involving reps from the council, business, university, NHS etc as well as voluntary sector) so I attended my first meeting of that earlier this month. It was very much a finding my bearings meeting for me, lots of acronyms and other stuff to learn although, as this week my family hand back the car we've been borrowing for holidays this summer, I did volunteer to join a sub-group responding to the Local Transport Plan.

The following week several of the same people were present for the Green City and Open Spaces Forum at which I gave a presentation on what churches in Reading are doing to respond to climate change. I'm hoping we'll have a RCEL website sorted by Christmas and I'll put the full report on there, but the highlights included Park URC's exciting plans for a biomass boiler and pv panels, the Quaker meeting's very impressive carbon emissions reductions and involvment with 10:10 (2008-9 emissions were 30% lower than 2004-5 and they expect to be down another 10% this year) and a growing number of churches involved in the EcoCongregation programme. I also mentioned Sir John Houghton's well-attended talk at Wargrave which can now be downloaded from their website.

Greenbelt 2010

2010-09-21T21:46:00.005+01:00

Greenbelt now seems rather a distant memory, but I mentioned it in the last post so might as well up date. This year did seem a bit disorganised compared with usual, plus I was probably more disorganised and somehow managed to miss most of the art on display. As for my hopes of being reinspired about tackling climate change - compared with last year it felt the subject was barely being whispered. Admittedly I still plan to download one talk on it that I couldn't make but it did feel a bit disappointingly as if we don't know what to do after Copenhagen's failure.

But on the good side, Rosemary reported how inspirational Bruce Kent was, still optimistic and persistent after all this time; I heard Clare Short urging action on Israel/Palestine; Earth Abbey were present foraging again; my youngest spent a long time making paper windmills for Christian Aid's wind of change harvest campaign (enjoying the story of the wind-powered well in Afghanistan) while my eldest struggled to comprehend the tax system in Christian Aid's maze, and we all appreciated the Mother's Union's free and fun games heralding their very important Bye Buy Childhood campaign. Their president, Reg Bailey, reported that each year £99bn are spent in the UK on child orientated products so that marketing aimed at children is big big business and consequently, as the MU website caption reads, 'our kids are growing up believing they are what they own'. Obviously this drive for consumption has serious environmental implications as well as causing damage to children including stifled mental development and poorer health as well as family conflict (sometimes deliberately and explicitly fostered by the marketers).

Harvest approaching

2010-08-25T00:11:00.005+01:00

Last Sunday there was a lovely foretaste of the approaching harvest season with a generous quantity of apples, plums and damsons donated by Hugh and Judy from their garden for anyone to share - we've just enjoyed a plum crumble and some damsons and apples went into my husband's latest homebrewed ale.

Harvest season is also Time for Creation, or Creation Season, which we will again be celebrating through September and October. This year's theme is 'Creation Flourishing'. As the prayer team have decided to set up some prayer stations, including one in the central garden that is shared with the school, this will be an appropriate time to set that up.

One of our congregation has been inspired to build a greenhouse of plastic bottles so now we can reuse our bottles instead of merely recycling them. Unfortunately some of the other recycling has got a bit out of hand lately with people being away too much to sort it. We're thinking of stopping the foil and plastic bags now that it's much easier to do those elsewhere and trying to encourage people to take their batteries elsewhere too. The principal kitchen recyling is a bit of a problem since those of us who most often used to take bits home are all now so rarely in cars that we cannot take it with us any more: a new strategy is needed.

This weekend many of us will be at Greenbelt, hopefully picking up ideas and inspiration for responding to the current rather unhopeful outlook on climate change.

Forbury Fever

2010-06-20T21:38:00.006+01:00

Reading Christian Ecology Link (Churches Together in Reading's Environment Group) again held a stall at Forbury Fever this year. FF is the council's environment day in Forbury Gardens. On previous years it has been held on the Saturday closest to World Environment Day but this year was held later in order to coincide with Reading Water Fest nearby. This seemed to attract more visitors or perhaps it was the addition of a stage in the gardens on which there were various displays of dancing etc. The weather was also much better than last year! At our stall we focussed on climate change and biodiversity. For the latter we had a large 'treasure island' map for people to hunt for wildlife treasure - they would often be told 'no treasure here' due to habitat loss (but everyone was allowed to keep trying until they'd won a fairtrade sweet). We also had a display based on Genesis 1 with observations on species loss and actions we might take to protect those surviving. For climate change we had literature from various development agencies and Operation Noah, campaign cards from Cafod and a display about some of the consequences for people in the developing world. As last year, we also displayed leaflets from Reading Islamic Trustees for the Environment and one of their members joined us for a while on the stall.
My sons considered the highlights of the event were the Heatseekers van (where they got to see the technology that measures homes that are wastefully losing heat) and handling slow worms and moths on the econet stall. I was certainly inspired to promise them we'd set up our own light trap for moths as soon as we have a free evening.

Sir John Houghton

2010-06-20T21:30:00.002+01:00

Last Thursday a handful of us from St John's attended Sir John Houghton's lecture on 'Global Warming and Climate Change: A Challenge to Scientists and Christians' at Wargrave church. Their website will soon have details of how to order a recording of the talk. The church was packed. We came away surprised at how upbeat he had been, rejecting the notion that we need to radically change our lifestyles, beyond reducing flying. He was emphatic that we have the technology to respond, we just need the political will. He observed that some people are now talking about the G2 - China and America who need to agree to reduce emissions so that the rest of the world falls in line. He highlighted some of China's efforts to address climate change, assuring us that they are taking it seriously, but quite reasonably expect action from the US. He emphasised our moral duty as humans and Christians to bring good news to the poor by bringing pressure on politicians to act and concluded with the story of Joseph, Pharoah's dream and the careful use of resources to survive climate disaster.

H2Oil

2010-06-14T21:36:00.003+01:00

I've just received the following post from Greater Reading Environmental Network. Liz mentioned the film to me at church on Sunday but I'd forgotten to put it on the previous blog entry:

On Tuesday June 15 there will be a screening of H2Oil, a new film highlighting the impact of oil at the Alberta tar sands. The film will be shown at Reading Vue Cinema at 6.30 pm.

A snail in the holy city . . .

2010-06-13T21:35:00.004+01:00

This morning Rosemary was distributing Tearfund's latest campaign cards, all of which had been signed before I'd finished clearing up after Exclaimers and helping with coffee duty. In Exclaimers we were looking at the Garden of Eden story, as in last week's service, but carrying that forward to the synoptic Gospel accounts of Jesus's own temptation (a redemptive mirror experience) and to the image of the Tree of Life in Revelation. The Garden of Eden story was the one that they reported back on in the service - perhaps if I'd had visuals for the others it would have helped, also I'd chosen Mark's sparse account of the temptation rather than the details of Matthew and Luke. But for their craft work they made trees out of twigs, modelling clay, paper etc: two said they were making the tree of knowledge while the other two opted for the tree of life. One called it "an 'ever-fruiting' tree instead of just 'evergreen'", and then beside it planted a 'tree of happiness' too. As we sat in church I noticed a snail shell among the drawings of fish in the river of the water of life 'I found it under the chair', my son explained. I naively imagined it was merely the shell, until they were stood at the front with their creations and a head popped out. There was much protesting when I insisted on taking it out to the garden.

RE-Inspired - ducks in Bangladesh

2010-06-11T11:38:00.008+01:00

A number of the St John's congregation help out with RE-Inspired - a project in Reading whereby people from local churches go into schools to help teach aspects of the national curriculum on RE. A few months back, with my Reading Christian Ecology Link hat on, I invited one of their co-ordinators to a RCEL meeting to discuss weaving more creation care into the events offered by RE-Inspired. Within weeks they'd received an invitation from Whiteknights Primary School to talk to year 4s on how Christians respond to global issues and so got back in touch with us. The curriculum explanation specifically refers to Christian Aid so I took this as my starting point for talking about climate change.

The session was yesterday and the children were in three groups of twenty. I began with a Christian Aid envelope (which the majority of them recognised) and explained how the organisation is motivated by the great commandment to Love God and to Love our Neighbours as ourselves. Then I showed them a wonderful video from the Christian Aid website in which a batch of ducks was helping a farmer in Bangladesh to cope despite the flooding. I quizzed them about the commentary on the video leading into finding out what they knew about climate change. Following a very simplified explanation of cause and effects I asked if they knew what things they could do to reduce it, and suggested some more. Then I put up a picture of Noah's ark for them to identify and gave a brief version of the story, emphasising Noah's role as a man who listened to God and therefore looked after God's world and suggesting that the dove be seen as a symbol of hope that we can protect people and animals from climate change. They then made paper doves to hang in their rooms and some wrote on them suggestions of actions to limit climate change.

Refugee Week 14-20 June - "In this World"

2010-06-09T21:02:00.003+01:00

As part of Refugee Week our church will be hosting a film night in partnership with Newtown Information and Reading Refugee Support Group:

"In this World"
6.30 pm Sunday 13th June

St John and St Stephen's Church, Orts Road

the story of two Afghan refugees in a camp in Peshawar, Pakistan in their attempt to reach their dream of a better life in Europe. It represents the hell experienced by hundreds of thousands of refugees every year.

Throughout the week there will be events celebrating the contribution refugees have made to life in Reading including an exhibition of photographs at Reading Central Library and a Cultural Evening at South Street - for more info see www.rrsg.org.uk.

Environment Sunday

2010-06-06T21:57:00.010+01:00

Today we marked Environment Sunday with a service celebrating biodiversity. The service began with an explanation of biodiversity. The theme was chosen because this is the UN International Year of Biodiversity – a crucial issue at a time when it is estimated that every six hours another species of plant, animal or micro-organism becomes extinct.

The first part of Adam and Eve’s story was read out from a beautifully illustrated children’s book by Jane Ray: The Garden of Eden. There followed reference to the valuable role of our own gardens in preserving biodiversity as well as bringing us closer to God. The congregation divided into groups to look at exhibits borrowed from Reading Museum – each was a case containing an animal that lives in an oak tree, ranging from squirrels and a jay to a stag beetle and many moths. The groups were invited to think about where their specimen belonged in the web of biodiversity and what it might reflect about its Creator.

At the confession the taking of forbidden fruit was compared with taking too much of the earth’s fruits today. Finally it was remembered that God has a habit of choosing those seemingly least fitted for God’s tasks, giving us hope that despite past form we humans can care for our planet: a meditation on Psalm 104 concluded with references to recent conservation successes. Meanwhile many of the children present had been fashioning wonderful creatures out of ‘magic maize’.

Only when I wrote out that summary did I realise I'd perhaps tried to cram a little too much in! The 'stuffed animals' caused concern among some of the adults, although they were happy to have moth boxes. The feedback afterwards was great as several had taken the accompanying museum notes to their groups and wanted to share some of the amazing facts they'd learnt. The children all sat around the storyteller as she read from Jane Ray's book (and images appeared on the screens for the adults), but otherwise most were very industriously colouring and making their own dragonflies, moths etc (I assume from the number of stag beetles that they were listening in with at least half an ear to the rest of the service), but we'd brought them right into the middle of the half circle in which we worship, beside the worship leader to make them feel more part of the service.

In case anyone would like to adapt prayers we used I'm copying the confession and intercessions at the foot of this post.

After coffee seventeen of the congregation set off on a gentle and sociable cycle ride concluding with a picnic beside the canal. A similar number joined them in shared cars for the picnic. I couldn't make this myself, hence the photo above is only of the departure, but apparently it was a 'really happy time' with two or three participants who hadn't cycled in years now considering more cycling. Below are a couple of photos taken after the service: people had a chance to look at the objects not shared in their group and these are a very small sample of the children's creativity.

Creator God we have not tended your garden as we should

We have let the rainforests be burnt down

We have used oil so fast that we are overheating our planet

Your poorest people and many of your creatures are suffering and will suffer more because we choose what is easy, what seems cheap, what we are told is fashionable

For all this we are sorry

Help us to find ways to live lightly

Teach us to look after your world

Amen

Creator God, we give thanks for your beautiful world. We thank you for the red kites flying in our skies where they did not fly thirty years ago. We thank you for the otters that have returned to the Thames and for the small blue butterflies returning to Warwickshire.

We lift up to you the wildlife trusts, Kew Gardens, the Natural History Museum and all those here and abroad who are working to protect the biodiversity of your planet, grant them inspiration, courage and strength.

We ask you to guide the leaders of our nation and of the world in all their responsibilities.

We lift into your loving arms all those who are weary and heavy laden – all those who need to feel the wind in their hair and the grass beneath their feet – lead them beside still waters metaphorical and real, we pray.

Exploring Genesis 1 and 'dominion'

2010-06-06T21:56:00.002+01:00

Over the past few weeks Exclaimers have been continuing to look at Genesis 1, considering issues such as protecting fish stocks or encouraging birds to the garden as we looked at the appropriate section as well as picking up on related Biblical stories such as Jonah or God valuing even the birds. The last session I did was the creation of mankind. I hadn't expected to find discussing 'dominion' so difficult. Of course we talked about responsibility and Christ's model of lordship but the translation we were using had the words 'rule over' and I found it hard not to see that as a dangerous position. Last night I was leading a homegroup at Greyfriars church, having been asked to come to talk about eco-theology and eco-congregation. I included the Genesis 1 passage I'd been struggling with but didn't mention my own response. I was struck by one of the group who said that, for the first time, he'd suddenly noticed how positive that section was because he was used always to thinking of human beings wrecking the planet yet here was the message that God believed we were up to the job of looking after His creation.

Fair Trade Worship Together

2010-05-03T23:45:00.004+01:00

This Sunday's Worship Together was led by our fair trade rep, Rosemary, and focussed on Traidcraft's campaign to get the big tea producers to go fair trade. My six-year-old was reluctant to help out with a game of hangman that eventually spelled 'Justice' but later decided that was the best bit. The teams called upon to build towers out of straws or newspaper admirably illustrated the importance of having decent materials to work with (amazingly the newspaper tower stayed up until the end of the service in spite of running pre-schoolers). At the end our signed campaign postcards went into the collection plate.

I was taking down the 'sharing board' postcards, prior to putting them into a booklet for people to refer to, and was asked if it had achieved anything. I've been asked for a DVD set, but I said my impression had been that it wasn't really working, despite the enthusiasm of some people for the ideal - delightfully I was proved wrong later that afternoon when John turned up on our doorstep asking to borrow our jam pan. So, I'm now going to try to put regular reminders in the news sheet (with examples of what's on offer) in the hope that this will help encourage more carbon-reducing sharing. Suzanne also suggested that sharing time/skills would be similarly valuable. Given that I've recently been too busy even to keep up with maintaining a weekly green tip slot I may be being over ambitious here, but this is the plan anyway.

Election Hustings - Reading East

2010-05-03T23:31:00.005+01:00

Having just read the Reading Post on-line article on the hustings held at the Hindu Temple for Reading East, I'm deeply disappointed to find the author made no mention of climate change. The first two questions were about climate change - what had the candidates done themselves and were their parties committed to 40% reductions by 2020. They all agreed that climate change is a very serious issue. The Conservative candidate, Rob Wilson, said he'd installed good insulation in his home, the Labour candidate, Anneliese Dodds, said she had given up her car and the Lib Dem candidate, Gareth Epps, recommended the green electricity company he uses (I'm afraid I forgot to take a notebook and cannot recall which it was). There were also several questions touching on international development which were again disappointingly ignored by the article.

Creation in plasticine

2010-04-18T22:54:00.005+01:00

For the first Sunday back after Easter we've lost a couple of our older Exclaimers to Pathfinders but gained a large contingent of six-year-olds. It seemed like a good opportunity for a term looking at the beginning of all things. So, for the next few weeks we'll be going very slowly through Genesis 1, weaving in some understanding of the marvels of Creation and thoughts on what we might learn about God from this (thinking Romans 1:20) as well as the importance of caring for it all, inevitably.

Today we looked at days 1 and 2 (plus nearly 10 billion years from the Big Bang to the formation of planet earth). To escape the building work in the school, we used picnic benches in the playground so we enjoyed the gorgeous sunshine and clear, clear blue skies. The sight of them all fashioning their plasticine planets was beautiful but I hadn't got my camera - this image is of my son's contribution, slightly squished on the way home. Several of the children did make mini earths, one even included a representation of the earth's atmosphere (we only mentioned the beneficial effects for today, although many of them are already familiar with the consequences of carbon emissions). I've never thought to thank God for gravity before, but one of them did in our final prayers, which struck me as important.

Vulture Funds Victory

2010-04-18T22:47:00.004+01:00

Last Sunday there was an opportunity for spontaneous applause when Hamish P stood up to announce the surprise victory in the vulture funds campaign that he has been encouraging us all to send postcards about.

According to the Jubilee Debt Campaign press release:

Landmark Law Passed to Tackle Vulture Funds

UK becomes first country to ban ‘Third World Debt’ profiteering in final hours of Parliamentary session

A landmark bill to protect the poorest countries in the world from profiteering by so-called vulture funds became law today after passing in the House of Lords during the ‘wash-up’ at the end of the Parliamentary session.

Jubilee Debt Campaign welcomed the successful passage of the Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Bill, which is the world’s first law to restrict the ability of Vulture Funds to sue some of the world’s poorest countries for full repayment of debts that they have bought up cheaply.

Last November two Vulture Funds were awarded $20 million in the High Court from Liberia – the second poorest country in the world - for a debt dating back to the 1970s. This law is expected to make that verdict unenforceable.

There was an outcry last month after the bill was blocked at third reading by an unidentified Conservative MP – thought to be backbencher Christopher Chope. But the Government made time for the Bill in the wash-up, after securing cross-party agreement with a sunset clause which will mean the law has to be reassessed to be made permanent in a year’s time.

International support for the bill has been expressed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, and President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana.

Nick Dearden, Director of Jubilee Debt Campaign, said:
“This is a landmark law. With this act, the UK has become the first country in the world to stop vulture funds using its courts to profiteer from poverty. It will mean the poorest countries in the world can no longer be attacked by these reprehensible investment funds who grow fat from the misery of others. We now call on other governments, particularly the US administration, to take similar steps to outlaw vulture practices.”

“We hope this is the first step towards creating a more just financial system, which operates for the great majority of people, not a tiny minority of unethical investors.”

Andrew Gwynne MP, Sponsor of the bill said:
“I am absolutely thrilled that my bill has been passed into law. It was completely unacceptable that a small number of companies were ever allowed in the UK courts to profiteer off the third world debt market. These “vulture funds” were completely unjust and it is to the credit of this parliament, and the efforts of the Jubilee Debt Campaign that we have finally managed to pass this law. I said I would put a stop to these vulture funds, and I did.”

Sally Keeble MP, who took the bill through the House of Commons, said:
“These vulture funds are international predators. Their victims are the poorest people in the world. It is excellent that at this stage it has been possible to get this piece of legislation on to the statute books to outlaw the activities of these vulture funds. This was a victory for a broad based campaign led by jubilee debt and other NGOs which brought this issue to public attention.”

Preparing for the Election

2010-03-31T23:45:00.004+01:00

Last week's notice sheet included the following announcements:

Reading East Election 2010

Quiz the Candidates on sustainability issues with

Professor Chris Garforth of Reading University on Tuesday 13th April, 8.00 pm, at The Warehouse.

Climate Change, a sustainable Reading, who gets your vote?

In 2010 Reading East will elect its MP for the next five years. Find out what your candidates would do to combat Climate Change and help build a more sustainable Reading

Do you have a burning question: Environment, Energy

Transport, Biodiversity, Sustainable Economy?

Submit it in advance at www.gren.org.uk

Question YOUR candidates
Reading East: Monday 19 April, 7.30pm, at

Reading Hindu Temple (car parking on local roads)
Reading West: Monday 26 April, 7.30pm, at

Tilehurst Methodist Church (parking at the local Co-Op)
Reading Faith Forum are giving you the opportunity to meet and question your candidates. We need your questions before the meeting, so please send them to Jan Hearn (jan@strongertogether.org.uk 35-39 London Street Reading RG1 4PS) by April 6.
Please indicate whether you will be at the East or West meeting to ask your question.

This is especially important in Reading East which is a marginal constituency. To prepare ourselves for this the Earthing Faith website has gathered a number of resources, some of which I've copied below, but do go to the site to find more:

Ask the climate question

Ask The Climate Question brings together a coalition of UK environmental and development charities and not-for-profits to put climate change firmly on the election agenda. Focusing on the marginal seats where the candidates and political parties are listening the hardest, they are calling on everyone to: Ask the Climate Question.

Further information and resources: Ask The Climate Questions main website | Tearfund (including a poster for your window: colour and black & white ) | Christian Aid | Friends of the Earth

Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) have produced material to help churches to prepare for a General Election: www.churcheselection.org.uk

On an entirely different subject: this year's church phone directory recently appeared, now with photos on the front and back, two of which effectively highlight the church's identity as a community concerned with the environment because they're of the Wave.

Living Hope

2010-03-09T23:24:00.008Z

We were blessed with gorgeous spring weather for the Living Hope conference at Great Missenden on Saturday, enabling us to enjoy the stroll between church and school for the various events of the day. The proceedings began with questions to Richard Weaver of Tearfund on the consequences of the disappointing results at Copenhagen. He encouraged us all to keep campaigning, especially in the run up to the general election and the UN climate talks this year.

There were then speeches on the theme of Living Hope from a panel: Paula Clifford (Christian Aid), Chris Sunderland (Earth Abbey) and Dave Bookless (A Rocha).

Paula Clifford argued that Living Hope begins with being thoroughly informed in the face of increasing climate change denial, living a low carbon lifestyle is not enough because we must also be prophetic. 'Climate change kills' - committing ourselves to act is to give hope to people in the global south. In the run up to the general election she reminded us 'politicians are a renewable resource'. She suggested three ways to live hope:
1. Re-establishing the importance of community. Church, as the body of Christ described by Paul, is the community par excellence but it is also an elusive ideal. Locally, nationally and internationally we need to re-establish community.
2. Recognising interdependence, which enables us to relate to those outside our community.
3. Seeking new ways of doing mission: what does mission look like in a carbon neutral world?

Chris Sunderland argued that climate change is a symptom of a wider malaise that cannot be cured with technical fixes. With half of the easily available oil having been used in his lifetime and the world population having grown from 2.5 billion to 6.7 billion in that time, we need to re-imagine human culture in a radical way, a way that is inevitably spiritual. He pointed out that the Biblical narratives come out of an agrarian community and that only 200 years ago most of our ancestors were agricultural labourers, whereas now 80% of the UK population live in towns and cities, as do 50% of the world's population. Without romanticising the harshness of rural life in past centuries, we need to recognise that something about humanity resonates with the land. Professor Edward Wilson has used the term biophilia to describe the human propensity to love the natural world. Chris pointed out that there exists a radical lifestyle movement today in which people are opting to work fewer days in order to be active in their community but that much of this is outside church community. Earth Abbey sees itself as part of this radical lifestyle movement. Working together is hugely important because it rejects the enlightenment idealisation of the individual.

Dave Bookless began by saying that the context of hope has never looked worse, in the light of the failure at Copenhagen, concern about climate change slipping down the political agenda and the huge missed opportunity of the financial crisis when the world community could have radically rethought the system. He too sees climate change as a symptom of the real crisis: a crisis of consumption and population 'we are the virus species on planet earth . . . the environment has a human problem'. He referred to Lord May's suggestion that we need to call on the fear of a divine punisher to make people act on climate change - a suggestion he recoils from. Rather Dave argued that, like St Francis, we need to undergo a triple conversion, to
1. God
2. Earth
3. Other
1. In conversion to God we recognise our fallenness in our idolatrous attitude to possessions (and remember that Jesus said more about money than anything else). The first great commission in scripture was to look after the earth and its creatures.
2. We need a Copernican revolution in understanding that the earth does not revolve around us - the earth was made for and by Christ. We need to reconnect with the earth, take up Rowan Williams' challenge to go for a walk, get wet, dig the earth.
3. As climate change causes millions of would-be migrants to our shores we need to put ourselves in their shoes and work out how to respond.

In the questions afterwards people queried the practicality of such radical vision and suggested that we needed to be 'green without being mean', to which both Dave and Chris were able to assure them that their greener lifestyle was much more fulfilling and stress-free than their previous habits.

Then Paul Chandler of Traidcraft officially opened the Big Brew with very heartening statistics on the rate at which fair trade is still growing: up 12% to £800 million in sales this year despite the ecomonic climate. He pointed out that Cadbury and Nestle in changing their flagship bars to fair trade are responding to consumer demand, we need to keep at it.

After our fairtrade tea and coffees the first workshops took place in the school.

I was leading one on how to become an Eco-congregation - thank you to everyone who turned up! As part of this I used items from our Sacred Space service back in November 07 - some of the resources can be found on that posting (click on the 'worship resources' tab if it's easier), others I'll put in at the bottom of this post. I mentioned our fairtrade communion wine but couldn't remember the source - it is Poterion.

Through the window into the next classroom I could see what looked to be a really interesting presentation from St George's Wash Common about their wonderful plans to become carbon neutral.

Lunch was an opportunity to catch up with friends in the sunshine and browse the various stalls (we had one for Reading Christian Ecology Link). Then there was another round of workshops at which I learnt a great deal about eco-schools. Back in the church the local MP emphasised the value of personal handwritten letters and face to face contact for lobbying, describing petitions as a devalued currency. The day ended with an act of worship prepared in one of the morning workshops - the creation story was humorously and imaginatively presented, as was the subsequent mess. Unfortunately technology let them down at the prayers (inevitably prompting comments on bearing that in mind on the larger scale) but it was a positive end to the event, including an invitation to decorate a tree in the chancel with a leaf (while praying) and a blossom (to indicate a commitment to act on something more).

Resources:
alongside the bar of chocolate I put poems from the Divine website (which also has lots of useful info including teachers' resources), information on child slavery and cocoa farmers.

'And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these . . .' What strings are attached to the clothes we wear today?

Labels on strings pegged to clothing read:

Conventional cotton production accounts for 25% of global pesticide use. Some pesticides contribute to global warming and depletion of the ozone layer.

20,000 litres of water are required to produce one T-shirt

Uzbekistan's $1 billion government controlled cotton industry has taken so much water from the Aral Sea that onl 15% of it now remains and its 24 native species of fish are now extinct. Tens of thousands of children are taken out of school and forced to pick cotton during the harvest months. Some of these kids go temporarily blind due to the harsh pesticides used on the crop.
If any UK shopper bought cotton items from ten different shops or market stalls, chances are several would be from Uzbekistani cotton.

About 50% of all emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide are derived from nylon production.

Only 10-20% of cast offs in clothes banks make it to UK charity shops. The rest are sold off in the developing world, undercutting local textile manufacturers: in 1991 there were 140 textile manufacturers in Zambia, by 2002 there were only eight.

Some of these statistics came from Leo Hickman's A Good Life, a very useful resource!

Fairtrade Fortnight

2010-03-02T10:39:00.007Z

It's Fairtrade Fortnight and Fairtrade tea producer Vinay Devaiah was talking at the university last night about how fair Fairtrade really is - when the video is up on the website I'll add a link, although apparently it was the unfilmed question session afterwards that was really inspiring. He's staying over at our house for the next two nights although he has such a busy schedule I'm not sure how much I'll get to speak to him!

At Exclaimers as the fortnight opened we were using Traidcraft's resources for kids and their excellent short video about the impact of Fairtrade on people's lives - things we take for granted like education or a pension are dependent upon that Fairtrade premium. I'd brought along lots of different varieties of tea to talk about origins (the historian in me can never resist a quick lesson on such things) and for sampling. The overwhelming favourite among the children was, I'm afraid, not actually Fairtrade Foundation certified but it is from a small scale company that do do Fairtrade - vanilla rooibos. The Traidcraft campaign this year is to make the major tea sellers in this country turn truly fair trade, and the Exclaimers were enthusiastic at taking petitions around the congregation afterwards to achieve this.

I'm looking forward to celebrating Traidcraft's Big Brew myself this Saturday at the Living Hope: Green Churches, Green Schools event at Great Missenden. I'm leading a workshop there on how to become an Eco-congregation.

2010-03-02T10:39:00.001Z

A channel of God's Peace: anti-nuclear campaigning and Franciscan poetry

2010-03-02T10:09:00.002Z

On 14 February the Exclaimers were looking at St Francis (not with me). Together three of them wrote this poem:

Windows seven
Nothing like Heaven

X box Elite
too lazy to eat

our brains are dead
our books aren't read

games consoles
suck out our souls

use our visa
day trip to Pisa.

DSI in the sky
PSP or nintendo wii

Trainers from Nike
to ride my bike

Stop a shooting star
with a chocolate bar.

Take ur valentine
out 2 dine

Raban shades
Night club raids

Super Mario Brothers
No kisses for mothers

That evening the church was filled with campaigners from across the country and abroad for the demonstration against the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston on Monday. Some 300 of them were fed vegan meals in the church on the Monday and many slept on the floor in the church itself and in the school hall on Sunday and Monday nights. Some were from Christian CND, some were not Christians. Ali, one of our Ministers who was present at the demonstration too, reported the very special atmosphere in the church over that time and the awe many felt at sleeping in a religious building.

The demonstration itself was a peaceful occasion with some 800 people present, including our bishop, Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell. According to the Church Times, he said that the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system was “a matter of principle from a Christian point of view”, and there were “no circumstances you could imagine using these weapons; therefore there is no justification for owning them”. He also questioned whether the UK was in breach of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, as, although there would not be an increase in the number of weapons, their overall capacity would be much larger. “The real needs of security of a nation are not serviced by nuclear weapons, and I don’t think ever have been. People are really questioning whether they are the right solution for the 21st century. What right do we have to say to other countries they can’t have them when we are busy investing in them ourselves?”
(The picture above is from the Church Times Website)

Chasing the Moneylenders from the Temple of our Democracy

2010-02-05T21:18:00.003Z

Back last October I advertised Ann Pettifor's talk at the University. It is now possible to view this (and other chaplaincy lectures) here.

Enough - Poverty and Homelessness Action Week

2010-01-31T21:22:00.006Z

Today is Homelessness Sunday, the start of Poverty and Homelessness Action Week.

The theme for this year is Enough, quoting Gandhi's statement'
'There is enough for everybody's need, but not enough for anybody's greed'.
The website's resources include a couple of powerpoint presentations, one of which we played before the service began this morning.

In Exclaimers we've been looking at a range of famous people this term so we began with Dr Barnardo but then moved on to homelessness today. The children were already pretty clued up about child homelessness here and abroad, although most were less conscious of adult homelessness here in Reading.

Picking up on the PHAW theme of finding ways to share the resources we have, I thought it might be time to resurrect the idea of a sharing book. This was first initated after our very first Eco Worship Together service. The idea is to help us consume less and use our resources more effectively by offering to share possessions that we don't need on a daily basis - paint strippers, jam pans, DVDs etc. While many people put generous offers in the initial book, few seemed to look through it or be aware of what was in there and somewhere during the upheaval of rebuilding the refectory it disappeared. So, we began today with a little washing line of postcards to demonstrate to the congregation (one Exclaimer offered to share 'cudderly toys') but the cards have now been transferred to the Eco-congregation board. For the next few weeks the board will be devoted to these cards in the hope that people will notice and remember potentially useful items. Then I'll punch holes in them and hang them all together from the board, with still a small space reserved for 'new offers'. It may also function as an in-church freecycle as we've already got an offer of lots of glass jars up there.

My decision to illustrate this with a squirrel was inspired by a guest who overstayed his welcome this afternoon. I had advertised the RSPB's great garden birdwatch at church and this afternoon was trying to make my contribution. Normally I am very happy to support squirrels as well as birds. However, our resident squirrel hogged the bird table for so much of today that I'm sure he contributed to my disappointing count.

New Year plans

2010-01-20T00:04:00.003Z

We've just had the first Green Team meeting of the year, and the first since we officially set up our Eco-congregation plaque. So, a time for thinking where we're heading next.

The emphasis has been on opportunities to enjoy Creation together: plans include a church cycle ride along the canal and digging up the vicarage front garden to grow vegetables together. Hopefully we'll get some sort of veggie recipe book off the ground before Lent - maybe on the church website.

Making bird feeders (and hospitality for a heron)

2010-01-17T20:21:00.004Z

The snow has all but gone and happily all the bike racks were full again this sunny morning.

This term at Exclaimers we're looking at some very different Christian figures from the past. I'd volunteered to do St Columba this week. Looking through his story I was struck by the tale in which he prophesied the arrival of a 'guest': a storm tossed heron which would need care and feeding for three days. Among today's other activities, consequently, we made bird feeders - not that herons will be interested in these, but we've been encouraged on Radio 4 to help the birds through the cold and at the end of the month it will be the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch.

I've usually read that the lard in bird cakes needs to be heated but actually mashing with your hands works fine and avoids all the health and safety concerns of heating it. We stirred in a seed mix with meal worms plus some raisins and filled old yoghurt and cream cheese pots (we put plasticine under them and then pierced a hole through so we could poke in string to hang them from). These will need to go in the fridge for a while to set. Then we made strings of monkey nuts too. With my own, younger, kids later we made some more and found for them it made sense to pierce holes through the shells and then let them use plastic tapestry needles to pull the string through. We also made feeders with pine cones - squashing lard in and then rolling them in the seed (in the past I've done a veggie version of this with peanut butter but it isn't easy to track down unsalted peanut butter at short notice).

Since I stopped going to Oasis during the week I've been lousy at keeping an eye on the bird feeder at church. It appeared to be in the office one week and I don't know where it is now - an instance where I need to get round to delegating. The recycling seems to be happening most of the time which is great. I've stopped taking coffee grounds home due to spillages and disorganisation but these are now going into the green cone (although I think I need to put up some guidance on using the green cone as many people do not realise that the waste should only fill the sunken basket, not the cone itself).

Copenhagen consequences

2010-01-08T10:17:00.003Z

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.

Bishop dedicates Eco-congregation plaque

2009-12-14T14:06:00.004Z

Last Thursday the Bishop of Reading, the Right Reverend Stephen Cottrell, visited the church to dedicate our Eco-congregation plaque. He also got to see the beautiful sacramental furniture which local craftsmen and congregation members Mark Ripley and Andrew Boddington have designed and made for the church.

Many of those present had been at the Thursday morning communion and the cafe. I was delighted that our Eco-congregation assessors Rob White and John Madeley were both able to be there too. Proceedings began in the main church when the bishop congratulated us on the award, appropriately in the week that the Copenhagen Climate Change summit began. The St John's school Eco-team were present too and he talked with them. We showed the Pathfinders' Christian Aid video about climate change and then I talked briefly about some of the things we've done at church. Afterwards most of us managed to squeeze into the foyer where bishop Stephen encouraged us to keep up the work (the award only lasts into 2011) and led us in prayer.

After photos with the school children and an opportunity to look at the sacramental furniture it was time for lunch. Ali and the cafe members had made fresh bread and a gorgeous soup. We talked over lunch about the Wave (at which many of the congregation had met bishop Stephen) and then he got some tougher questions on theology.

The photo above shows the Eco-congregation plaque in situ (with the vicar, Rev Vincent Gardner, plus Rosemary and I).

Advent - Why We Are Waiting

2009-12-06T20:17:00.002Z

Some months back I signed up to receive the Church of England's Advent e-mails at www.whywearewaiting.com. With my typical lack of organisation I've just sat down to go through a week's worth - they're really worth seeing. Dec 4 is about solar power on a church roof, many are similarly about 'green issues' or about the importance of taking Sabbath moments, reconnecting with God's earth - all very Eco-congregation.

The Wave

2009-12-05T21:40:00.013Z

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).

Changing our bank

2009-12-05T21:39:00.004Z

Many months ago I mentioned discussion about banking. The Eco-congregation materials encourage churches to ensure they are investing ethically. Our bank was Nat West, well known for its investment in oil, gas and coal projects as part of the Royal Bank of Scotland group. Since many of the congregation bank with the Co-operative Bank some suggested we should change to this. Others thought it might be worth while supporting People and Planet’s Ditch the Dirty Development campaign – asking RBS-NatWest to change to funding renewable energy and threatening to boycott if they don’t. This latter option seemed more likely to work if other churches were on board so we were awaiting advice from the diocese on this.

However, the credit crunch has forced our hand – as interest charges drop while banking charges remain, it is no longer economically sensible to bank with Nat West. Consequently at the last PCC we chose to move our money into accounts that won’t be funding oil, gas and coal production. Other churches may be interested to know that for our current account we have chosen the Charities Aid Foundation bank because they provide an online banking system which allows charities and churches to sanction transactions with two e-mail accounts, like the two signatures on their cheque books. They also have far fewer bank charges than NatWest.

The Age of Stupid

2009-11-22T23:32:00.003Z

The Age of Stupid showing went off without a hitch on Thursday. With my usual failure to think numbers I forgot to count the audience but we think it was about fifty which is fantastic. Probably two thirds were congregation members.

I'd picked up lots of cakes at the Early St Peter's Toddler service the day before so they went down very well and I'd also put up a display of a few facts/figures/graphs about climate change and possible responses - I have to admit I didn't expect it to be read as much as it was (I even had to photocopy a piece for one attendee) so I've left it all up there for the week.

On second viewing (as Matt Freer said) it didn't feel so angry and I think I got more out of it. Afterwards I advertised the Eco-veggie fayre which will be held at Reading Town Hall on 19th December and includes a showing of the film. We also encouraged people to join The Wave climate change march on 5th December. Then I encouraged people to talk it over with their neighbours rather than going bleakly out into the night, and they did talk for a long time! All the feedback I got was very positive (albeit with some despair about how to respond). John Madeley said he'd like us to try to get every church in Reading to show it. Next up will be Tilehurst Methodists who are showing it on 9 December.

The Age of Stupid - advertising showing

2009-11-10T20:34:00.004Z

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

Thursday 19th November 7.30 for 8 pm start

Free entry (retiring collection to cover costs)

It's certificate 12A. I'm hoping to be showing it with subtitles on.
Please join us and bring a friend.

GREN

2009-10-28T23:51:00.003Z

Just back from the GREN AGM. One of the first external events I attended as an Eco-congregation co-ordinator was the meeting which launched GREN - the Greater Reading Environmental Network. It's a network of the very many groups in the Reading area with concerns about the environment, be that urban wildlife, veganism or climate change. As a yahoo group it's proved a very useful way of keeping in touch with the variety of things happening, as well as a source of local information (in my case including the greenest way to dispose of my car). But it also organises events and the next focusses on Copenhagen:

CALLING COPENHAGEN
READING DEMANDS GLOBAL ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Thursday 12 November 7.30 pm
RISC, 35-39 London Street, Reading, RG1 4PS

The Science:
Professor Jonathan Gregory, Climate Scientist, University of Reading

The Campaign:
Phil Thornhill, Campaign against Climate Change

The Politics:
Martin Salter MP, Reading West

An opportunity to learn more and to send your message to the UK government.

Other Reading Christian Ecology Link members have been part of organising this, one of whom will be chairing the evening - please come along!

Reading International Festival

2009-10-27T23:37:00.006Z

We're currently in the middle of the Reading International Festival. The day that the programme for this was handed out with our service sheets in church it so happened that three of us were standing up to advertise events in it anyway (including last week's Tearfund Climate Change Evening). Inevitably we've found ourselves bumping into other congregation members at these events, particularly at Ann Pettifor's talk at the university last week "Chasing the Moneylenders from the Temple of our Democracy: Credit, usury, political power and the Millenium Development Goals" - since my husband was organising this I was at home with the boys but it will eventually be possible to watch a video of it on the university website so I'll put a link up when that's possible. I've heard a lot about how impressive this was.

This evening Hamish and I were both at RISC where one of our Eco-congregation assessors, John Madeley, was launching his first novel after many years of writing factually on development issues: Beyond Reach?. It's set in the Make Poverty History campaign of 2005 and he explained that he'd turned to fiction in the hope of spreading his message to a wider audience, emphasising that if ordinary people really understood what poverty means they would find a way to stop it, despite the apathy of governments. He encouraged us to buy a second copy at half price to give to a friend who was not involved in the campaign - good Christmas present potential. It so happens that one of the endorsements on the back is from Ann Pettifor: 'Be warned, this book could change your life'. Carl Rayer wrote: 'In the tradition of Saturday, this outstanding novel weaves together the world of public events with the private world of individual lives'.

I took the opportunity to hand out posters for our forthcoming showing of Age of Stupid - yes, despite my reservations about its angry tone there has been such interest in the congregation that I have decided to organise a proper public showing. It'll be at the church on Thursday 19 November, doors open 7.30, show starts 8pm. Entrance will be free but with a retiring collection in the hope of recouping some of the licence fee. Hopefully there'll be plenty of info there for people to be inspired to go out and act upon afterwards.

Reading Churches Campaigning Network

2009-10-25T23:57:00.007Z

This morning we concluded St John's Season of Creation. The sermon came in two parts - our vicar began with the Gospel reading and Jesus' entirely practical response to blind Bartimaeus's need. Then Hamish introduced us to Reading Churches Campaigning Network: fighting against world poverty and economic injustice (formerly the Reading Jubilee Debt Campaign). He explained the great need for Christians to try to get to grips with some of the complexities of the issues that need campaigning on in order to make an effective difference. He and others often hand out campaign postcards that we take away and sign, but more is needed. He invited us to do some 'sacrificial reading' - giving up time to work through a dossier that would help us better understand the economic situation that keeps 800 million people at near starvation level. He observed that these issues are not getting anything like as much attention as they ought to because of the focus on climate change, but really it's part of the same battle for a fair world.

All today's songs and hymns reinforced this 'kingdom building' message, powerfully. Afterwards a number of us collected sample papers from the dossier to explore. Mine is onTNCs, water and mining.

We've decided to keep on using the fairtrade wine which everyone is happy with. The home made communion bread needs a bit of working on - I'd forgotten to specify milk free bread (many bread makers have milk in the recipe) for vegans and dairy intolerant folk, plus too much consecrated bread can be a bit of an embarassment so we need to specify a smaller size or just a few slices. Probably a few of us will fill the freezer up on a regular basis but hopefully others will contribute on a more casual basis.

Tearfund Climate Justice Evening

2009-10-25T23:30:00.003Z

Last Thursday's climate justice evening was attended by over fifty people, making it quite a squeeze in our church refectory. I think just over half were not from the congregation. The evening began very hospitably with coffee and cakes before we sat down for a general introduction to the issues. They particularly focussed on cases in Malawi (a video many will have seen at the Hope for Planet Earth evenings) and Nepal, where climate change is already destroying livelihoods and community.

They explained that there are three 'legs' to Tearfund's campaign -
speaking/writing to those in power
changing our own lifestyles
prayer

It was when we broke into two groups (on each of the first two subjects) that I found I learnt more stuff that I didn't already know. I chose the campaigning group. They explained that Tearfund are campaigning specifically on the reduction of carbon emissions and an adaptation fund for developing countries but there are other big issues up for discussion at Copenhagen too, notably deforestation (my note - you can sign up to the Prince's Rainforest Project to contribute to campaigning on this) and technology transfer (issues of who has the rights to use/benefit financially from newly invented green technologies).

Our carbon dioxide emissions so far mean that a rise of 1.5 degrees is inevitable. Some islands won't survive this. For the Maldives 2 degrees will be too much. Tearfund's campaign is for a commitment from developing countries to reduce emissions to 40% of 1990 levels by 2020 (ie in the eight years after the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012). For developing countries a $150 billion adaptation fund is needed (not from other development budgets).

Much discussion followed, including concerns at how the adaptation fund would be used to benefit the poorest and fears that our little efforts cannot make a difference. I entirely agreed with the speaker's point that we need to do the 'right' thing even if we're the only one since it is about our relationship with God and our neighbours, but also that lots of tiny drops together do make a difference.

At the end we had a chance to flag up things that our churches were doing, Rita advertised the coach she's organising to The Wave on 5 December and I mentioned the Ecclesiastical Electricity plan to get solar panels on a church roof in Reading by encouraging Christians from across the town to contribute rather than one church trying to do it alone (the idea being that their profits from selling back to the grid would help to get more panels on more churches).

Stand Up Take Action Against Poverty and Inequality

2009-10-25T23:20:00.004Z

Last Sunday's service was a Stand Up service. It began with an introduction to the Millenium Development Goals and the concept of Stand Up. These then featured in a short video and the subsequent intercessions. Once all the children had rejoined the service we all (just over 80 of us) stood up to read the pledge together. I'd been leading Exclaimers so we had been looking at the Millenium Development Goals too and the children then wrote letters or produced art work which I took home with the order of service and pledge script to send off to our MP.

Reuse, Recycle - clothes swap and tip visit

2009-10-25T23:07:00.003Z

A couple of weeks back there were two green events I've been meaning to record. Suzanne took a group from Oasis and the cafe to the Civic Amenity Site to witness the recycling process there and apparently it was quite an eye-opener. Last Sunday Alison stood up to talk about it briefly and advised us to talk to her, Monika, Bridget or Suzanne if we want any more information. The amount of contaminated stuff going into the recycling is absurd (duvets very common, but also a deer and a goat in the past year!). Apparently the biggest headache is the plastic bags that get put in, especially full of cans, hence all cans have to go through the sorting process twice to give the poor sorters a chance to grab all the bags going through.

Then Anne and Helen organised a clothes swap party at which 15 folk turned up with clothes they no longer wanted to exchange for someone else's. This was a fun evening and the left overs went to a charity shop.

The Truth About Climate Change

2009-10-07T20:36:00.004+01:00

Last night was the second of our 'Creation Time' film evenings. I was not very optimistic that anyone would want to venture out on such a soggy October evening, but to my surprise seven folk turned up, most of them walking. David Attenborough has been a hero of mine since childhood and this kind of down to earth BBC documentary is something I feel much more comfortable with than the dramatic films probably. We just watched the second episode because there is a certain amount of repetition and it seemed an appropriate follow on to our last film. This also meant there was plenty of time for discussion afterwards, and there was certainly plenty of inspiration for discussion in the programme.

Its main focus is the predicted consequences of the rising temperatures, primarily using modelling fom the Met Office's Hadley Centre, and this makes pretty bleak viewing: 'somewhere between severe and catastrophic'. I was surprised, however, by the exent of the optimism that we can at least stop carbon emissions at 2006 levels (it was made three years ago).

Home, update

2009-10-05T23:15:00.005+01:00

We welcomed two home groups to our front room a couple of weeks back to watch the film Home (lucky we live in a clergy house). It is a very powerful film and does offer a bit more hope than Age of Stupid towards the end. As long as 'we still have half the world's forests' counts as hope? For me its greatest strength is that it makes it more obvious what it is we're fighting to protect because it is stunningly beautiful (in its shots of people as well as, primarily, landscapes). As far as I noticed there were no shots of British countryside, so since I happened to be on the Cornish coast a couple of days later, that's what this picture is of.

October is a busy month in the run up to Copenhagen - upcoming events in Reading include an event at Caversham Heights Methodist Church at which CAFOD's head of policy will be talking about the importance of acting to avert climate change at 7.30 on Friday 16th. This will be one of a number of Stand Up aganist Poverty events that weekend. Then on Thursday 22 there will be a Tearfund Climate Justice Evening to equip people to respond to the crisis.

Rubbish Art

2009-10-05T23:04:00.007+01:00

Last October our Eco-congregation assessor, Rob White, finished a challenge to fill only one bin bag of rubbish in a whole year. He subsequently took his bag of rubbish to various school assemblies to talk about recycling. Once that was done he was looking for an alternative to simply throwing it away so a member of our home group, Sue Batchelor, turned some of it into a work of art. She chose to make a vase of flowers because of Rob's job as a gardener. These tiny photos don't really do the art justice so if you can enlarge them to admire them please do. On the single flower you can see some of the writing on the plastic still.

Home

2009-09-22T14:38:00.008+01:00

This week's communion bread was made with Oxfordshire wheat ground in the last working watermill on the River Thames (Mapledurham) and olive oil from Palestine. Just as we began to gather to receive, so a delicious smell of cakes baking wafted in from the kitchen where the Exclaimers were baking in preparation for our harvest service in a fortnight (the cake will be frozen in the meantime!).

I announced that I will be hosting some films over the next few weeks appropriate to the Season of Creation. We're starting this Thursday with Home, a film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand (who produced the book Earth from the Air). This was recommended to me by Matt Freer when I mentioned that I found Age of Stupid too angry. I've not watched much of it myself but what I have seen is a stunning celebration of the variety and beauty of our planet.

St Barnabas, Emmer Green

2009-09-22T14:27:00.003+01:00

Last Thursday evening I was invited to share some of our experience of Eco-congregation with members of St Barnabas, Emmer Green. We watched the Operation Noah film, God is Green first. This proved an excellent starting point for discussing Christians' roles in the climate crisis which led into deciding what the congregation of St Barnabas should do. It felt a very productive discussion at the end of which they had decided to start putting green tips in their newsletter and to bring the Eco-congregation environmental check up before the next PCC.

Living in a Fragile World

2009-09-14T16:21:00.006+01:00

For this first Sunday in our Season of Creation I rashly promised to lead the Exclaimers on the same theme as the sermon without having first looked at the sermon notes on the ctbi website. I was consequently rather challenged to realise that the reading was Proverbs 1:20-33 in which Wisdom chastises foolish men for not listening to her and says she'll mock them when disasters strike. I decided to begin with an adaptation of the first Godly Play session from Living in a Fragile World. This is a wonderful resource which I'd highly recommend using, but I discovered that it really needs to be used properly with all the Godly Play trappings of a carefully laid out room, children filing in slowly with shoes off and sitting at a distance from the objects with which the story is told etc. My version descended into chaos as the kids, hyper for the first session of term, could lean over and move the pieces to set up satellites, space hotels etc. It was interesting and depressing to see their lack of faith in humankind's ability to sort out the mess we've created. Hopefully we can make the next few sessions more optimistic in this respect.

We were back in the church for communion, the first with home made bread. When full-flavoured focaccia represents the body of Christ it is thought-provokingly different from a bland white slice. It feels like real nourishment.

The sermon, which I missed, apparently drew on the connection between Jesus and Wisdom in creating the world, on the importance of recognising that the world was created 'through Wisdom' (there is reason . . . a science to it) and concluded that Christians can respond to the negativity of the new 'grand narrative' of climate change with wisdom drawn from the Sermon on the Mount: that to 'travel light' is a joyful experience.

Season of Creation

2009-09-06T22:30:00.006+01:00

Summer holidays are over and Time for Creation is here again. Our church has decided to extend the Season of Creation over the next two months, in part because it begins so soon after the holidays that no one is quite ready for it until it's half over, in part because that avoids having to go back to Pentecost Season for a month before Kingdom Season begins.

Today's service was looking at our relationship with the much wider community - our church's connections with Nepal and in particular the INF. For the meal after the service we tried to use stuff from our own gardens - this led to many very delicious puddings (the golden plums in the crumble I ate were apparently picked only yesterday afternoon) - and a good quantity of courgettes/marrows in the ratatouille.

We've decided to use Fair Trade wine for our communions this season. We may well continue with this afterwards, or experiment with local/organic options. We've also asked people to sign up on a rota to bring home made bread for communion and I was delighted at how quickly this started filling up. Again, we hope this might end up extending beyond this season.

We've decided to use the Churches Together in Britain and Ireland Time for Creation resources for our sermons for the early part of the season when they tie into the lectionary.

On October 22nd there will be a Tearfund Climate Justice evening at St John's to which all are welcome.

Hopefully there will be few other events through the season, including a clothes swap evening and perhaps a couple of film showings.

Greenbelt

2009-09-01T20:48:00.005+01:00

We're just back from Greenbelt Christian Arts Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse. A large number of our congregation are now Greenbelt regulars and there was certainly plenty of environmental stuff at Greenbelt this year. For me the green highlights included wild food foraging with Earth Abbey before the Sunday service (see picture), an enlightening workshop with one of the makers of the Age of Stupid and Tamsin Omond's passionate call to non violent protest (and John Bell as always - this time regarding Sabbath for people and planet). I also made my contribution to Christian Aid's mass visual trespass (a video petition to be projected onto a public space), calling on Gordon Brown to get his priorities right and be present at Copenhagen this December. However, as I began my ambitious plea about halting the melting of the Arctic sea ice I found my words stumbling in recollection of Alistair McIntosh's lectures. These were profound, heartbreaking and hugely important - he talked of the inevitable burn out of activists as we see most of the world failing to respond and crucially of the need to recognise that too little is happening too late so that, whilst still doing absolutely everything we practically can to halt climate change, we also need to prepare ourselves spiritually for the catastrophe.

Tax dodging

2009-08-12T20:53:00.006+01:00

A few weeks back two of our congregation joined other campaigners from Christian Aid for an award ceremony with a difference. Dressed in evening wear, they walked from Reading station to the offices of Price Waterhouse to present employees with an award for being a company in the best position to do something about the scandal of tax dodging that is keeping poor countries poor.

Apparently the employees, having been warned in advance, were all carrying something in each hand so that they could not accept the proffered leaflets, but the mood of the event was very positive.

Banking and the legend of Canute

2009-07-13T22:33:00.002+01:00

I've recently been in e-mail contact with Matt Freer who works for Oxford Diocese on environmental aspects of social responsibility and have learnt that the ethics of the diocese's banking are under discussion. No decisions yet, but we await conclusions with interest.

On a quite different note, having just got back off holiday I learnt that 'King Canute' was due to cycle into Oxford last week as part of a climate change demonstration. I've not been able to find what he did yet, but being a medieval historian, I'd just like to mention
1. the story of Canute and the waves is probably the invention of a twelfth-century cleric
2. the story was intended to indicate Canute's wisdom and piety. His shouts to the incoming waves (or the tide on the Thames, depending on your source) were a stunt which he followed by declaring 'Let all the world know that the power of kings is empty and worthless, and there is no king worthy of the name save Him by whose will heaven, earth and sea obey eternal laws'.

East Reading Festival - Noah's flowers

2009-07-03T10:04:00.006+01:00

It's the East Reading Festival this week, including an art exhibition and flower festival in St John's Church. So, I volunteered to do an EcoCongregation flower display (perhaps not wise for someone whose rare attempts to arrange bouquets in vases tend to be comic rather than attractive). I borrowed one of my sons' several arks as the basis and filled it with plants from our garden. Unfortunately I had no idea how long oasis should be soaked for and transporting the entire arrangement by bike was a little tricky. The image above bears only a passing resemblance to the arrangement now in the church (on arrival I abandoned the fennel that was already wilting and yesterday morning I had to pluck out the soggy roses and dried up strawberry runner, substituting flowers from the church forecourt garden, so that there are now no food plants in it, unless you count lavender, but based on the lavender cake I once I ate, I don't count it!). The accompanying text reads:

The plants in this display were all organically grown in Reading and transported by bike. Some are wild flowers and some are cultivated. Some are for healing, some for eating and some are simply beautiful. They represent the bounty and generosity of God’s created world.This ark is a fairly traded toy from Sri Lanka belonging to a five-year-old in our congregation.

The windmill represents St John’s PCC’s recent decision to change our electricity supplier to Ecotricity renewable energy.

Christian Ecology Link have launched the Operation Noah campaign to protect our rich wildlife and the world’s poorest people from climate change. If greenhouse gas emissions are not curtailed soon there will be no summer sea ice at the Arctic before this ark’s owner is eighteen and before he is fifty the number of climate change refugees, some arriving here, will exceed the combined populations of England, Germany and Italy (at the most conservative estimate).

In a time of climate crisis, Noah was ‘a man who walked with God’, listened to the warnings and acted. Today we are all called to act as Noah did.

On my arrival with the display Oasis (which I'd missed due to a dental appointment) were finishing off their contribution and my youngest son helped to add the 'desert' sand around it - their's was all taken from the forecourt garden which they'd just been tidying for the festival (I did try photographing it but it's a lousy picture).

Not Stupid?

2009-06-30T22:46:00.006+01:00

Just back from a showing of The Age of Stupid - I'd been thinking of arranging a showing fo our congregation and community, but have not been persuaded. It starts very powerfully so I had almost immediately stopped noticing the oppressive heat in the room and probably cried the first time about ten minutes in - over a glacier.

But eventually I realised I was feeling bombarded with anger. I suppose the title should have been a warning of the anger behind it. It was at about this point that several folk walked out. It did then calm down somewhat but I ended up disappointed. By saying that 2055 would see humans on the verge of extinction I felt they were being unhelpfully extreme. It gave too much scope for people to refuse to believe.

There was lots of good stuff in it (I'd have been happy just to watch the wonderful French mountain guide) and lots of heart breaking stuff, especially the Iraqi kids. I had hoped for a more coherent exploration of what climate change would mean for the world. Certainly it is powerful and if some people find themselves inspired to radical action by it then that's fantastic, but I don't think I'd be happy to see it shown in all schools as some have suggested.

On the subject of climate change and coherent explanations, Jo Jamison at Operation Noah has made a very helpful five minute radio piece on the refugee crisis that will result, here.

Wind Power

2009-06-30T22:32:00.002+01:00

I've had a more detailed reply back from Ecotricity about their electricity generation. Unfortunately my efforts to copy across extracts therefrom have failed due to text incompatibilities it seems (or my ineptitude). Apparently a wind turbine is likely to be saving 35,000 tonnes of CO2 in its lifetime. It is expected to save between 40 and 70 times as much fossil fuel as it took to construct. If anyone reading this wants more detail I'm happy to forward them the e-mail.

Stillness (and food ethics)

2009-06-21T23:45:00.009+01:00

Contrary to the impression this blog may give, I don't spend quite every waking moment thinking about climate change. This morning I was leading Exclaimers (8-11s) on the calming of the storm and intended to avoid any reference to real weather crises. Instead I wanted to use the reading as an opportunity to give the children an experience of contemplative prayer, a way to find a calm space within themselves for God's presence to respond to storms.

However, as I was preparing I realised that this is very much what Maggie Ross keeps advising us as a response to the climate crisis: to get in touch with our core silence (I've just found her piece for the Tilehurst Greening Faith day on her blog). The exercise was not a total success, but not a complete disaster either! We concluded by making boat church together.

The image above is of a reconstruction of a first century boat found in the Sea of Galilee.

On another note, new service booklets have been issued which include, on the inside cover, the photo of our Operation Noah service and reference to our new status as an Eco-congregation so that anyone attending our services will know.

Over coffee I was talking with Rachel about food again. She told me that for Lent her sister only ate food produced within ten miles of her home in Devon: no grain (bread/pasta) all Lent and she was sick of rhubarb by the end! Rachel suggested that interested families in the church might opt to monitor all their food for a week, trying to make 'ethical' choices wherever possible, and then discuss together the complexities raised. This was prompted by a green tip I'd included in this week's notices suggesting that we reduce packaging by shopping at the market (among other places) since there are of course various down sides to shopping there in terms of pesticide use and fair trade.

Midsummer Party

2009-06-21T23:22:00.005+01:00

Yesterday the Churches Together in Reading Midsummer Party was blessed with much better weather than Forbury Fever had been in the same location two weeks ago. Reading Christian Ecology Link were running much the same stall as on that occasion, but inevitably we had rather different conversations since people had not arrived at the event expecting to be challenged about the environment. As well as the Operation Noah petition we were also promoting Thames Valley Vegans and Vegetarians' petition to make one day a week meat free in Reading. The number of vegetarians who visited the stall seemed out of proportion to that in the population as a whole - does this mean vegetarians were more likely to visit a Christian Ecology Link stall? Certainly a meat free day was a popular idea among those who came to the stall, even among the omnivores.

There was lots more enthusiasm for colouring in animal masks than for making origami boats so I think in future we might want to make the boats up ready for signing if we want to be able to post these off. Those who did make boats only wanted to do the ones with scrap paper to see them float, not to post to Gordon Brown. We did, however, fill two pages of Operation Noah's petition and get lots of interest in the Ecclesiastical Electricity plan to put solar panels on a church roof in Reading (including encouragement from Bishop Stephen). A few people also took Eco-congregation leaflets with a view to exploring the possibilities at their churches.

Our display of eco-friendly household items proved a good starting point for conversations too (green washing liquid, wash balls, a pump for grey water [from the renewable energy UK shop], an OWL electricity monitor [apparently now available in John Lewis among many other places and possibly free to British Gas customers], solar powered lamp from Ikea, wind up radio etc). The display of books, on the other hand, was only browsed by other people on the stall!

Loving your neighbour in an age of climate crisis

2009-06-16T23:34:00.004+01:00

I recently put together a sort of beginner's guide to green living for Christians in Reading for use at some of the Christian Ecology Link stalls we've been holding. I'll be taking some paper copies to St John's on Sunday (recycled paper of course!) but thought it would be useful to put a version up here too:

Activism: the Copenhagen climate change summit this December is the crucial opportunity for politicians to commit to sustainable stewardship of our planet. Join other Christians in campaigning to make sure this happens: www.operationnoah.org; www.tearfund.org; www.christianaid.org.uk; www.cafod.org.uk.

Animals: meat and dairy production contribute more to climate change than the entire global transport sector. Most of the recent destruction of the irreplaceably diverse and beautiful Amazon rainforest has been for beef farming (the UK is a major consumer of this beef), some has been for soya chicken feed. Intensive farming is not just an abuse of God’s creatures (cf Proverbs 12:10) but a breeding ground for disease, including swine flu. For animal welfare, look for RSPB Freedom Food labels or Soil Association ratification. Better still find locally reared organic meat and milk (www.sheepdrove.com, for Reading Farmers’ Market, True Food Co-op and Riverford see below Food) and cut down consumption so you can afford and enjoy meat as the luxury it should be in a fairer world. Try going veggie for Lent or Advent and see what happens.

Banking: our money is powerful. We can make sure it is not used to invest in destroying Indonesian rainforests for paper or mining operations that devastate local eco-systems. The Co-operative bank (and insurance companies) have an impressive ethical policy that serves its customers well too (see www.goodwithmoney.co.uk) Their Reading branch is on St Mary’s Butts. For a bank with real ‘kingdom ethics’, see Triodos Bank who only finance positive social, environmental and cultural projects (www.triodos.co.uk). At present they only do savings accounts (by post or online).

Books: Greyfriars’ Bookshop and St Andrew’s, London Street each have a small but very useful range of green Christian books. Ruth Valerio, ‘L’ is for Lifestyle is a great starting point for greening your life; J Matthew Sleeth, Serve God Save the Planet is compelling easy reading; C. Foster and D. Shreeve, How Many Lightbulbs does it take to change a Christian? is full of green tips.

Cars: transport accounts for about one quarter of the UK’s carbon emissions, mostly from road traffic. Leaving your mobile phone charging all day uses as much energy as driving your car for one second. The RAC and AA campaign for more roads, so change to the Environmental Transport Association (www.eta.co.uk) and see their website for advice on greener driving. Try giving up the car for a week and see what happens. It can prove surprisingly liberating. If you want to scrap a car, offer it to Reading Skidz to help kids learn useful skills: 0118 987118. www.commonwheels.org.uk provide a fantastic car share scheme based at Cemetery Junction and Kennet Island.

Church: ‘The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it’ (Psalm 24:1) – what is your church doing about it? See www.ecocongregation.org.uk, www.arocha.org, www.ctbi.org.uk/375, www.ccow.org.uk, www.greeningstjohns.blogspot.com (as well as those cited under activism), for ideas and resources to help your church respond.

Compost: plants, food waste and paper in landfill produce methane (which is 20 times worse than CO² as a greenhouse gas). See Reading Borough Council’s website for advice on composting and for special offers for residents on compost bins and green cones (the latter are for cooked food waste that might otherwise attract rats).

Dirt: conventional cleaning products for our bodies, homes and clothes are, or have recently been, commonly tested on animals. They contain various substances that damage water eco-systems and are hard to process at water treatment works (requiring greater energy and water input). All you really need can be bought at RISC, London Street, or the True Food Co-op (see below, Food). For household cleaning they sell Bio-D, probably the greenest household cleaner. Ecover come a close second and with (slightly less green but award-winning) Fresh and Green or Simply Active Eco-smart can be purchased at Robert Dyas. The Co-operative sell a similar ‘own brand’.

Electricity: the single biggest thing you can do to reduce your individual direct carbon emissions is change to a genuinely green electricity supplier (don’t be fooled by the ‘greenwash’ of the major energy companies and their ‘green tariffs’). Ecotricity guarantee to charge the same as the Big Six local electricity suppliers but invest over £400 per customer in wind generation (www.ecotricity.co.uk, mention Christian Aid when you switch and they’ll get £25 too. Check the website to decide if you want their 100% green tariff)

Food: Half of all the food produced on British farms is thrown away. At least 1 in 8 people on the planet are undernourished. A similar number are obese. Yet simple, home-cooked food can be one of the deep pleasures of life, echoing sacred meals under the oaks of Mamre or in a house at Bethany.

Use your LOAF: Locally produced, Organically grown, Animal Friendly, Fairly traded .

Where to buy it?

Reading Farmers’ Market: every 1^st and 3^rd Saturday, 8.30-12, The Cattle Market, Gt Knollys Street for local food and a chance to meet the growers themselves

The True Food Co-op: every 2^nd and 4^th Saturday 1-4, RISC, London Street and venues throughout Reading the rest of the week (see www.truefood.coop) for organic (often fairtrade or vegan) wholefoods, fruit and veg, green cleaning etc at low prices with minimal packaging in a relaxed atmosphere

RISC, London Street and Oxfam Books, 8 High Street, sell fair trade foods and other goods. County Delicacies on St Mary’s Butts sell local cheeses and many types of flour (making bread can be a wonderful space to de-stress in, even to pray. See also www.sustainweb.org/realbread).

Veg boxes are local and guarantee our farmers a fair price. For very local, see www.tolhurstorganic.co.uk, or (if you want to be able to choose what arrives and have a wider variety, never air-freighted and 22% cheaper than supermarket organics) www.riverfordnorton.co.uk.

These are all also much more enjoyable ways to shop than supermarkets.

Support your local Co-operative shops too: they’re officially the ‘greenest supermarket’.

If your church does not have a Traidcraft stall, it’s time to set one up (www.traidcraft.co.uk).

Grow your own: whether it’s sprouting seeds on the kitchen window or working a whole allotment, most people find such creative acts good for their relationship with the Creator. They can also reduce food miles and make for a better understanding of the planet. Caversham, Tilehurst, Woodley and Earley/East Reading all have horticultural associations that give support (talks, visits etc) and have trading sheds for competitively priced essentials. (See Reading library website for details of the first three, ring 0118 9861909 for the last). B&Q sell peat free organic compost and growbags.

Heating: a typical home wastes one third of the heat produced by its central heating system through the roof and walls. Reading’s Heatseekers will advise on what insulation you need and how to get substantial discounts: 0845 3909390. (See also www.readingenergypioneers.info). Wokingham residents can get discounts through www.markgroup.co.uk.

Living Lightly: Inspired by Psalm 24, A Rocha have set up an online community to encourage Christians to live more sustainably by committing to make one lifestyle change every three months. Even if you don’t join them, the website is full of useful tips: www.livinglightly24-1.org.uk.

Paper: forest loss caused by paper production is a bigger cause of climate change than flying (it’s also driving the orang-utan to extinction). The True Food Co-op (see above, Food) sell recycled printer paper. Along with RISC and the Co-operative they also sell recycled paper goods like toilet rolls. To cancel unaddressed mail, write to Door to Door Opt Out, Royal Mail, Kingsmead House, Oxpens Road, Oxford, OX1 1RX; to cancel addressed junk mail, ring the Mailing Preference Service on 0845 7034599; to cancel free papers, find their phone numbers inside; put up a note for the menu deliverers. Re-think your buying of magazines etc. Re-use as much as possible, then compost.

Travel: join Reading Cycle Campaign to help make cycling safer and for discounts at cycle shops (www.readingcyclecampaign.org.uk). www.seat61.com gives advice on alternative travel arrangements to avoid flying to many destinations. Network or Family&Friends Railcards make for significantly cheaper train travel (as does booking in advance). The Travel Office in Broad Street Mall sells smartcards for cheaper travel on Reading Buses (see www.reading-buses.co.uk/smartcard).

Deanery Synod

2009-06-16T23:24:00.007+01:00

This evening was an opportunity for churches in our deanery to 'show off' good practice/interesting initiatives to neighbouring churches who might like to do similar things. So we at St John's had our nifty Traidcraft cupboard on display - it's on wheels and opens out with all the goods ready on the shelves so makes organising the stall so much easier than laying out a table every week. Richard made it and is happy to send the plans to anyone who wants them. We leave an honesty box on the top and in 2008 sold £4800 of goods. Next to that was a display about Eco-congregation, including Operation Noah arks and petition. We had some really good chats, although I was also surprised by some folk's reluctance to sign the Operation Noah petition to reduce power station emissions ('What do we use instead?' being the response). The evening included a barbecue - for some reason folk just looked at me and said 'you're a vegetarian' - luckily there were plenty of veggie burgers and I was promised that all the left over food was destined for a good home with the scouts.

Carbon footprint 2

2009-06-16T10:20:00.004+01:00

Last night I reported back to the PCC on the Eco-congregation assessment. It emerged that one of the other home groups had already discussed measuring their footprints and buying a communal OWL (at home we've just borrowed one of these devices for measuring electricity use and it is a real eye-opener - for me the biggest surprise has been how much difference a single notch up on a hotplate control will make. I've always wondered whether boiling a kettle was just faster or really more efficient than boiling water on the hob prior to cooking veg and now I know the kettle is more efficient).

Measuring our carbon footprint is going to be difficult since we pay a set percentage of the gas bill for the whole school/church plant (as well as a small extra bill for the refectory over which we have more control). This however is a good incentive to work more closely with the school, and probably the council too since they have the basic controls for the heating.

I've been in touch with Ecotricity this morning who were very helpful in discussing the 'carbon footprint' question. Unsurprisingly they don't have specific figures to calculate the amount of carbon input that should be taken into account in individual bills (I wonder if a meaningful statistic could even be reached on that?), but they have promised to e-mail me details about the construction of their wind turbines which currently account for 53.6% of the power they supply.
Please see the comments on the previous 'carbon footprint' post for their replies.

Last Sunday (we were away) after the service the congregation went to Mark's workshop for a picnic in the gorgeous sunshine and to see the progress on the new sacramental furniture. Apparently this project will be appearing in a future edition of Furniture and Cabinet Maker.

The Carbon Footprint

2009-06-15T18:45:00.004+01:00

Well we've had another report back from the Eco-congregation assessors. The commendations are for both the garden and for the large number of people involved in the process. The recommendation is that we should measure our carbon footprint and aim to reduce it. At Forbury Fever I picked up a personal carbon footprint calculator and then remembered why I'd never set very much store by them - I can easily cut my footprint in half depending on which calculator I'm using! The Church of England's calculator is just about direct power consumption which is obviously less subject to different interpretations so probably where we'll start.

I did e-mail Ecotricity to ask how we should calculate emissions from them and the initial e-mail said there are no emissions. I'd love to calculate it this way, but surely this can't quite be true since the windmills etc require building: I'll be on the phone to them soon. I find myself wondering how many organisations claim to be 'carbon neutral' without taking into account the original inputs?

I'd be very grateful for any suggestions anyone has on effective ways to calculate a church's carbon footprint.

Brother Sun, Sister Moon

2009-06-15T18:34:00.007+01:00

For this half term, our home group leader decided to focus on themes inspired by the life of St Francis of Assisi. We began by watching Franco Zeffirelli's 1972 'biopic'. These days it does feel very dated; my hippy side loved it while the medieval historian in me was becoming increasingly frustrated, especially by the depiction of Clare, and had to exclaim in annoyance when it ended so soon in the saint's life. But it certainly provided much food for discussion. Last week we drew out some themes to follow up, including one very pertinent to the eco-congregation journey: simplicity. Hopefully we'll weave in learning a bit more about the history of Francis along the way.

Spreading the word: Forbury Fever and Woodford Park

2009-06-15T14:36:00.003+01:00

On Saturday 6 June Reading Borough Council held their annual environment festival in Forbury Gardens: Forbury Fever. As part of the newly formed Reading Christian Ecology Link I was there on a stall in the drizzling rain - more of a cold than a fever, my husband remarked.

We were trying to get more origami arks and petition signatures for Operation Noah and promoting the Ecclesiastical Electricity plan to get solar panels on a church roof in Reading. On display panels at the back there was various information, including advertising the forthcoming showing of Age of Stupid at the Town Hall on 30th June. We also had displays on Caversham Heights Methodist, Tilehurst Methodist and St John and St Stephen's Eco-congregations.

There seemed to be fewer things going on in the gardens than previous years and the rain certainly kept the visitors away. Nonetheless our puppet show which some girls from Reading Community Church put on every fifteen minutes was very popular, telling the story of Noah's Ark. We did get a few colourful origami arks to float in our paddling pool (before rain sank them) as well as some signatures and good conversations.

The following day my family cycled in brilliant sunshine to the Woodley Churches Together open air service marking the start of Woodley carnival in Woodford park. My husband had been asked to preach. He focussed on the Trinity Sunday reading of Jesus's baptism but wove in a message for Environment Sunday (both 7 June): lots of Biblical stories of God leading God's people into new lives through breaking waters and the opportunity for that now, including the new lives we need to lead in the face of the current climate crisis (sorry to paraphrase so brutally). So I had the posters of our Eco-congregation from the previous day up on display again, plus inviting more petition signing and lots of general info on greener lifestyles. Unfortunately the very moment the service ended, the rain began, luckily only briefly but enough to send some running for cover. I did have some good conversations with members of Woodley churches thinking of trying to follow the eco-congregation route. As so often, there was much bemoaning the seeming apathy among most of their congregation for such matters.

Eco-congregation Assessment

2009-05-25T09:38:00.005+01:00

Yesterday was the day of our Eco-congregation Assessment and we were granted the award 'with commendations and recommendations'. One congregation member said 'it's like being Ofsteded', according to which comparison I suppose we've come out satisfactory but not outstanding. This is what I'd have said was appropriate. We've been at this for over two years and have a congregation who see themselves as a community for whom green issues matter, but there is still a lot we'd like to do. The assessors' particular commendation was the front garden - on a fabulously sunny Sunday it did look wonderfully colourful and was alive with bees and butterflies so it was seen to best advantage! The principal recommendation (apparently others will follow) was that we should work out our carbon footprint and then set ourselves targets for reduction. It is typical of my chaotic, fluffy approach to such things that I hadn't given much thought to such an ordered approach.

Our assessors were John Madeley, an author and journalist who specialises in development/social justice issues and is aiming to make St Peter's Caversham carbon neutral, and Rob White of Newtown GLOBE (and a local Green Party candidate). They attended the service and then got to talk with some of the congregation over coffee (pleased that it was real coffee - which reminds me, I've been trying to collect the coffee grounds for composting but probably need to draw more attention to the collecting pot and plead with those who do use it to drain them thoroughly first to avoid yukky spillages). Then they walked round the church asking Ali, Rosemary and I questions (and Andrew the churchwarden too initially - one reason it was very good to have the assessment on a Sunday was that people with answers we didn't have were around). Then we went through more questions over lunch in the refectory which was very pleasant and an opportunity for us to learn a lot from them too.

Given John's own interests it was not surprising that he focussed particularly on our energy use. He was more optimistic than we have been about the potential for solar panels on our roof and even suggested that the nearby canal might be used as a heat source (apparently they're looking into using the river in Caversham). Rob promised to put us in touch with a friend who could help us work out a sensible way to carry out the carbon footprint measuring. I have since found that the Church of England's website already has information designed for churches to check their footprint which I'll be downloading in the near future. (On that note, it was good to see that the Church of England has now set the more ambitious target of becoming a 20% church - using 20% of current energy levels by 2050 - perhaps not quite quick enough still, nor as ambitious as Operation Noah).

On the subject of towels Rob pointed out that a large pull down towel that could be washed would be more ecological than the paper towels and electric dryer - I doubt that now these have been installed we could have a third option and of course those huge towels probably don't just go in domestic washing machines. Nonetheless, it would be good to find a way to reduce this waste.

The assessment was an opportunity to remind ourselves of things we'd been meaning to do eg improve the bread used for communion by drawing up a rota for people to supply home made loaves. Apparently Ali hasn't bought a single loaf of bread since she did the research for the Sacred Space on bread and discovered what goes into them - her bread maker has been very busy. Looking around the school garden, which is due to be redeveloped, was the first time it had occurred to us that we ought to be suggesting waterbutts be installed. Talking about the very large number of people who are interested in greening the church compared with the very small number who actually manage to make it to meetings set me thinking about trying to arrange our meetings after church instead - although given how long it has taken to get me, Ali and Rosemary in church on one Sunday this may be tricky too.

John and Rob encouraged us to make much of the receipt of the award and both said they'd like to attend the service in which it is presented which is great. I hope it doesn't take quite so long to co-ordinate that as it did the assessment itself.

Witnesses to the Resurrection

2009-05-25T09:25:00.003+01:00

Leading Exclaimers yesterday I decided it was time to link our sessions in with the lectionary - in this case Jesus's prayer for the disciples at the last supper and the choosing of Matthias to replace Judas among the apostles, to be with them a 'witness to the resurrection'. Accordingly I checked up the Bath and Wells development matters linked lectionary that I mentioned a few months back. This suggested that today's witnesses to the resurrection are those who act in hope of a just world, a world in which God's kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven. They had a great piece from Christian Aid about a girl from the Democratic Republic of Congo who avoided resorting to prostitution to help feed her five siblings after her father's death because of a CA partner's sewing school. I felt more than a twinge of guilt at the girl's mother's plea to CA collectors not to be put off when they are turned away from houses because of the importance of their work. I edited out references to prostitution in the version I wrote for the Exclaimers but it was great to be able to encourage them that through their clutter sale they're 'witnesses to the resurrection', like Matthias - it's not just the church leaders/preachers that they suggested when first asked.

I've finally found a 'green' anti-bacterial cleaner suitable for the kitchen - it's one of Anthony Worral Thompson's Fresh and Green range on sale in Robert Dyas, so easier than mail order options. We still haven't sorted out a sustainable method of purchasing our cleaning materials though. A couple of the notices have also disappeared from the toilets - they were explaining why we have recycled toilet paper and paper towels and why we've switched to Ecotricity.

MEP Hustings

2009-05-23T00:16:00.003+01:00

Last night there was a hustings for our MEP candidates on issues of trade justice and the environment, organised by Oxford World Development Movement. Our home group normally meets on a Thursday so we decided to attend the hustings instead and ten of us made it. The largest room at the Reading International Solidarity Centre was packed and there was some heated debate at times (especially regarding Israel). There were representatives from UKIP, Green Party, LibDems and Labour (the Conservative rep was unable to attend). I was especially surprised by how many of the candidates opposed agricultural GMOs and also nuclear power (on the grounds that it cannot be brought on stream in time to make the difference needed, is too much of a security risk and is not that efficient) and was interested to learn about the possibility of micro nuclear power stations (enough for a village, buried so deep underground that there is little security risk [too little there anway] and decomissioning problems are apparently avoided). I was also interested to learn of concerns among MEPs about a lack of transparency about lobbying from religious groups (specifically the Vatican) and encouraged by reference to the importance of aid channelled through civil society, specifically church groups (this from a candidate I would not be supporting).

The above image is copied from a Green Party member's blog on the evening.

Christian Aid Week

2009-05-23T00:09:00.007+01:00

I am a complete coward when it comes to house to house collections - I did them for some years when I lived in Yorkshire but it seems to have got harder and harder - so as Christian Aid week approached I ducked all requests to do this duty and promised to ask Exclaimers to help organise another clutter sale. This happened on the first Sunday of Christian Aid week, everyone seemed to enjoy it, I have bought all sorts of clutter, and we raised just over £100. I don't yet know what the total raised by all those braver souls than I has reached.

Between the Flood and the Rainbow at Oasis

2009-05-22T23:54:00.003+01:00

On the Wednesday after our Operation Noah service we used their study guide at Oasis. It is entitled 'Between the Flood and the Rainbow' and has a great deal of thought-provoking material in it which does need working through before leading a session. We just looked at the first reflection and action sheet. We found ourselves uncomfortable with attempts to apply the Old Testament passages to today's climate crisis. In part this is because Christ showed us a God who would die for us rather than kill us for our sins. In part it is inappropriate to see natural disasters as God's punishment when it is clearly the poorest, those least responsible for the greed precipitating the crisis, who are suffering for it. Nonetheless there was much food for thought in the texts.

The reflection highlights the 'everlasting covenant' that Isaiah declares to have been broken in 24:5 and which is usually deemed to refer to the covenant made after the flood (Genesis 9:8-11). We found ourselves wanting to picture a rather broader concept of such a covenant embracing especially the Jubilee laws. In a world in which possessions could only be held on a short term basis and the land itself was given rest, things would be very different.

Bird feeding

2009-05-05T14:16:00.002+01:00

On Sunday I noticed the birds have at last started using the seed feeder. Yesterday I happened to be passing and actually saw a great tit on it which was lovely. Sadly the peanut feeder has disappeared. I'll look out for one of the slightly less 'green' meshes of peanuts to replace it.