At Woodies, we are keen love God's creation and our People + Planet group is key in helping us to reduce our impact on the environment as a church. For the year ahead, we want to challenge everyone in church to do the same - so each month we’ll be having an EcoChallenge.
The Thinking behind EcoChallenges
At Woodies People and Planet, we have been thinking for a while about how we should, as Christians (and as a church) respond to the global environmental crisis we are facing. If you have started thinking about this too, like us you may well have found it rather overwhelming! The scale of the problems we face seem to be far bigger than us, yet at the same time we are so often contributing to the problems by our own lifestyles in many different ways. It can be hard to know where to start.
We are aiming to pitch the challenges so that whether you are a card-carrying environmentalist, or a pretty average member of the public, they will be achievable and relevant. Some will be focussed on personal actions to take: our actions do make a difference, and moreover we are all influenced by what we see our friends and neighbours do - so individual changes we make can be part of a wider change in culture in our church, our city and our country. Of course, a lot of the things which need to happen go far beyond what we can do as individuals, so some months we will be asking you to call on large corporations or on our government to take action. Please do have a go at them; we hope that you will find them useful.
January 2020: EcoChallege - “How Big is Your Carbon Footprint?”
For January’s challenge, it seems appropriate that we begin by having a look at the impact we make and measuring our own carbon footprints. We’d recommend the World Wildlife Fund’s Carbon Footprint calculator as it is very quick and easy to use and also can give you helpful tips on some things to focus on if you want to take steps to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions.
There are so many ways you can reduce your carbon footprint, but first you can measure your Carbon Footprint with this simple online questionnaire:
Then take some time to think about the results:
Was your impact about what you expected?
What are the things you do which make the biggest contribution to your carbon footprint?
Were there any surprises?
Personally I was surprised by how much impact my car-use was/is having. We believe that the Earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, and that ultimately He is in charge. As January is a month where as a church we seek to refocus on prayer, let’s also take this opportunity to pray - pray for leaders and those in responsibility that they have the wisdom and courage to take significant action against climate change. Let’s pray too for ourselves that we can learn to treat our world in a way that honours its creator.
If you’d be interested in finding out more about our group, or have some feedback about the challenges, connect with us:
