Eco Church

St Christopher’s is an Eco Church and we are registered with the Christian environmental scheme for churches run by A Rocha UK. Eco Church provides tools to help churches and their parishioners weave their response to environmental issues into all they do. We were awarded a Bronze Level Certificate at the end of 2019 and in September 2021 we were awarded the Silver Level Certificate.
In a time of unprecedented environmental stresses, Eco Church enables us to respond to God’s mandate to human beings to care for His creation, by integrating environmental care throughout our church’s life and mission.
The Diocese of Guildford encourages churches to join Eco Church and, together with other churches in our diocese and in the UK as a whole, really make a difference.
Bronze, silver and gold awards are presented to churches for environmental attainment across a wide range of areas, including care of buildings and churchyards, energy-saving, recycling, food and lifestyle, worship, preaching and teaching, engagement in communities and the wider world.
We are now ready to “Aim for Gold”. We have to reach a number of goals in five different categories:
- Worship and Teaching
- Management of Church Buildings
- Management of Church Land
- Community and Global Engagement
- Lifestyle
Climate Sunday 2023
Our annual Climate Sunday service was held on 3rd September 2023. To find out how each group is working towards a Gold Award click here
What’s new at St Christopher’s?
We have built a composter! The first area is to use in year one and then the following year we will move onto the next area. We have also installed a bug hotel.
More Recycling
Most of us have a recycling wheelie bin where we can place lots of paper, cardboard, some plastic items and glass. We now have a box at church where you can deposit many other items to be recycled. Click here to see the full list of items that we can recycle for you.
Praying for The Great Green Wall Project
At St Christopher’s we pray regularly for The Great Green Wall Project. This is an African-led movement with an epic ambition to grow an 8,000km natural wonder of the world across the entire width of Africa. A decade in and roughly 15% underway, the initiative is already bringing life back to Africa’s degraded landscapes at an unprecedented scale, providing food security, jobs and a reason to stay for the millions who live along its path.
The Wall promises to be a compelling solution to the many urgent threats not only facing the African Continent, but the global community as a whole – notably climate change, drought, famine, conflict and migration. Once complete, the Great Green Wall will be the largest living structure on the planet, 3 times the size of the Great Barrier Reef.