Looking back over the five years of our “Green Group”, is to understand just how much the world has changed in that time.  At first, ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ had to be spelled out and carefully explained; now they are in everyday usage.  Five years ago, collections of things to be recycled were non-existent in our area: now we have regular collections of paper, glass, cans, plastic, and garden waste – leaving us to publicise outlets for things like glasses, computers, and so on.   The slogan about using our L.O.A.F. (buying Local, Animal friendly, Organic and Fairly traded produce) has also been accepted, even if the finer details are complex.  Yes, the world has moved on…

So what have we done that was important?  I think perhaps top of my list, is to constantly make the link between God, the Creator of our world, and our stewardship of that world.  I do remember someone saying quite seriously at the beginning, “But what has ecology got to do with the church?”  I don’t think that would happen any more. 

Alongside a mixture of public meetings and green tips in the church newsletter for adults (with an especially animated discussion about composting!), we set out to ‘spread the message’ through children and young people – especially at ‘all-age services’, where the uniformed groups bring non-church families into worship.  Through ‘Green Services’ and ‘Green Days’, we have built on children’s sense of wonder, by all kinds of fun activities: bug hunting, pond dipping, making kites out of rubbish and ‘homes’ for insects.  We even had small cuddly animals and snakes visit us in our Toddlers Group (one of my proudest moments being that I dared to hold a snake!)  We have encouraged the uniformed groups to do their environment badges, and to do bird watching and feeding.  We have produced fun quizzes on everything from spiders to rubbish!  And perhaps the most satisfying thing now, is that the local schools are up and running their own environmental work.

Perhaps we didn’t change the world; perhaps the time was ripe for all these things to happen.  But we certainly learned a lot ourselves (‘real’ nappies, eco balls…) and we did surprise a lot of non-church people, who didn’t think the church was interested in ‘things like that’!

Meriel Chippindale