Caring for God's Creation

At The Church of Ascension, Stirchley, we include caring for God's creation as an integral part of our mission in Stirchley and beyond.

We are seeking to live out the 5th Anglican mark of mission:

"To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth "

We are an "Eco Church"

Eco Church is a program run by A Rocha UK, that provides a comprehensive structure to help churches and church communities express their care for God’s world, in our worship and teaching, in how we look after our buildings and land, in how we engage with our local community and in global campaigns, and in the personal lifestyles of our congregation.

There are three levels —Bronze, Silver, and Gold —for both individual churches and dioceses. You can find out more on their website, ecochurch.arocha.org.uk

We registered with the Eco Church program and obtained our first award, Bronze, in 2021.

Our Eco Church journey at the Ascension started in earnest during Lent 2020. As a church, we began studying the Archbishop’s Lent book, ‘Saying Yes to Life’ by Ruth Valerio. Several individuals in our community were already engaged in environmental matters. Still, it was during this Lent Course that we as a whole church community committed ourselves to try to live out the Fifth Mark of Mission more consistently in our life as a church, endeavouring to consider our responsibility to care for creation in all our decisions, including a land management plan which started our conversations about how we use our land and our buildings. We have achieved our Bronze Eco Church Award and have been working steadily towards our Silver Eco Church Award. Our actions to date include writing to our MP, meeting our MP together with other churches in B30, putting on an Eco Christmas Fair, building a bug house with Youth Zone, taking part in the Churches Count on Nature, planting daffodils during Big Green week with Little Pineapples, joining with other churches to make a Climate Change Blanket in the run up to COP 26, taking part in Climate Change Rally, Youth Zone taking part in a litter pick with our local councillor, changing to LED lighting in church and the church hall and moving our service to the church hall on cold Sundays during winter. For us at the Ascension, care for creation is a central aspect of our discipleship and mission.