In the face of accelerating climate change and species loss, we need to protect and care for nature today.
We’ve drifted away from the connection between God and nature. Social justice has sometimes been sidelined for a focus on personal salvation rather than loving our neighbour. Many factors that create a lack of interest in God’s earth. Lives feel busy, with little space for contemplating big issues. It’s also daunting.
A Rocha UK is a Christian charity equipping Christians and churches to protect and restore the environment, for God, nature, and all people. We also build partnerships, and manage land for nature and people.
My post is funded by the Church of England to support dioceses in England to achieve their Eco Diocese awards.
The Eco Church programme helps churches of all shapes, sizes, and traditions to care for the environment — from making church land wildlife-friendly to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions; from integrating praise for creation into worship to speaking up for governments to act. The scheme’s growing rapidly, with over 7500 registered churches and over 3500 awarded churches to date.
Eco Church is a free online award scheme for churches of all denominations in England and Wales. It was launched by A Rocha UK in 2016. There are three levels of awards (bronze, silver, and gold), based on how the environment is addressed within five categories: worship and teaching, buildings and land, community and global engagement, and lifestyle.
Eco Diocese takes a holistic approach to tackling carbon reduction and addressing biodiversity loss. Each diocese is required to embed creation care into structure, mission, and policies, and take practical action to progress through bronze, silver, and gold awards. The scheme is underpinned by Eco Church, as the diocese is required to have increasing numbers of their churches registered and awarded as they progress through the awards. Dioceses are required to achieve awards as part of the Routemap to Net Zero 2030, the plan for how the Church of England can be net zero carbon by 2030, approved by the General Synod in July 2022; 32 out of the 42 dioceses have achieved a bronze award.
I liaise with diocesan environmental officers to support them with aspects of their work, share information, and develop resources, to help them implement aspects of Eco Diocese and grow Eco Church. I’m also involved with the wider Eco Church team, most recently supporting the Eco Church survey update and assessment of gold Eco Churches.
Gold church assessments include reviewing additional information and an in-person visit. These visits are always very inspiring, and give me a deeper understanding of how a church has applied Eco Church to their setting. Gold churches are a tremendous resource, as they can share their experience and support other churches.
I trained as an occupational therapist, specialising in mental health, and as a teacher. Following several years of clinical work, I’ve had administrative roles within the voluntary sector, schools, and Church, which intertwined my training and skills.
I had a personal “Aha!” moment when I lived in south-east Nigeria, working for a mental-health project. We were surrounded by villages where people grew cocoa to supplement their income. Each year, they would pick the cocoa and dry it and stand by the roadside with sacks of beans to sell. Each year, the price they received was lower. In the end, it wasn’t worth them picking the cocoa, as they could get far more money from felling the trees and selling the timber.
The landscape became scarred and bare. Without the trees, heavy rains meant flooding, soil erosion became an issue, and farms were often washed away. I was seeing first-hand the impact on biodiversity, communities, and livelihoods as a direct result of the prices we’re prepared to pay for things like chocolate.
When I returned to the UK after 13 years in West Africa, I worked as an administrator for a church where we gained an A Rocha gold Eco Church award. Then I joined the Eco Church team a year ago.
I was a Fairtrader for years, holding stalls and having a shop in my house. At the launch of Café Direct at Greenbelt, I saw how this was a game-changer for accessibility of Fairtrade and going mainstream.
I’ve also had an interest in bees, and was involved in getting my town awarded a “Bee Friendly Town” award. I love learning about intricate connections in nature, like the value of not mowing patches of grass all year round because invertebrates shelter within the hollow stems of plants during the winter.
I worry about a talk or event I’m giving, my children’s happiness, health issues for me or friends and family, deadlines — normal things.
Then there are the big things: war, suffering, exploitation, injustice, destruction of the natural environment. These are things that make me angry. I feel compelled to pray about them and do something in some small way. When I feel overwhelmed, I recall Philippians 4.6: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
Humans are responsible for climate change. Arrogance has led to this situation: greed, self-interest, and a lack of respect. These aren’t new human qualities — they’re what caused our separation from our Creator since the beginning. I’d point to the science if anyone suggests our actions are not the cause of the current crises.
Churches come to environmental care for different reasons: saving money, a social-justice stance, a heart for biodiversity. Some have a deep sense of God as Creator and us as an element of creation, designed to praise and worship with all creation. There isn’t one way to become an Eco Church.
We are meeting people in churches and helping the conversation and connections forward. We’re returning to fundamentals of scripture and reawakening what this means for our common home.
Age is no barrier to creation care. Yesterday, I attended a funeral of an 80-year-old family member. The coffin was made of cardboard, and the donations went to Amnesty International.
I admire those Christians mindfully and humbly just getting on with it — who refuse to fly, have a vegan diet, grow their own food, or regularly count insects for a citizen science project. Quietly, faithfully, getting on with caring for creation.
I’m continually revising and reflecting on my daily life, from swapping my toothpaste to looking at where my pension is, to taking a walk instead of scrolling through social media. We turn up to church every Sunday and hear sermons, but, if we don’t respond to what we hear, we’re not going to grow. We need to keep listening to what God’s saying about how we worship him or care for creation, whether we hear this message from the pulpit or by gazing at a flower.
I grew up in a village, and went to a local church primary school and the local comprehensive. I was given a lot of freedom as a child: my parents assumed I made reasonable choices. I had a bike, I could meet friends, take the dog out, explore.
I really enjoyed this freedom at sixth-form college, too, and consequently didn’t do very well academically. Cycling adventures turned into global adventures. I volunteered with church groups in Southern Africa, and did occupational therapy at university, using my travel rather than A levels to secure a place on the course.
I came to a personal faith at a Scripture Union camp. My understanding is continually deepening, but my faith remains very simple. I have an unshakeable sense that I’m where God wants me to be. I feel secure in my trust in God, and I can look back and see the nudges, learning, and opportunities that have helped me previously and how they relate to the present. I trust that God is in control, and peace comes from the Spirit. For this I am thankful daily.
Having to download an app when trying to pay for parking makes me angry.
My goats peeking through the fence when I get home makes me happy. I love the contented hum of a bee hive.
My job gives me hope. Conversations, reading about direct action by people passionate for change, seeing a bumblebee in early spring. . . I gathered with a raggle-taggle collection of people for the autumn equinox to acknowledge the changing season and reflect. These things refresh our souls.
I pray earnestly before talking to groups. I pray in the process of preparation and before speaking. It is a great privilege to speak about taking action for the climate and nature. I want God to give me the right words and be useful. I lean on him.
I’d choose to be locked in a church with botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer; Maria Merian, a 17th-century entomologist; and Wangari Maathai, a biologist and the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Polly Eaton was talking to Terence Handley MacMath.
arocha.org.uk