Launching Eco Church at Karori Anglican
Contributed by Mary Hutchinson, A Rocha trustee.
On 1 August 2021, Jonathan and I (as an A Rocha trustee), had the pleasure of joining in the Eco Church launch celebrations of Karori Anglican at St Mary’s Anglican Church in Karori. Karori Anglican was the first church in Wellington to join the Eco Church network.
During the launch service, Stephen Sharp, the eco church kaihāpai / champion talked a bit about St Mary’s progress along the way to becoming an Eco Church, and Rev Ian Cook interviewed Amy Ross, Eco Church Community Coordinator for the Wellington region, about getting started as an eco church and Amy’s role in resourcing and supporting churches doing this. Jonathan Boston preached at both the 9am and 10:30am services on “Thinking Ecologically: A Christian response to the climate crisis” with the theme of willful blindness - turning a blind eye to climate change - and how we can respond as Christians and be carers and restorers of creation.
Amy had a great display of A Rocha resources in the church foyer between the two services and afterwards, along with morning tea! There was also relevant conservation related local information for people to browse, and take with them including material from Predator Free Karori (with rat traps), Zero Waste workshops, and Karori Kaitiaki.
Karori Anglican Church is partnering with an existing community group Karori Kaitiaki by attending their monthly environmental workdays, including tree planting. These projects provide missional opportunities to engage with the local community and lead out as a parish that cares for God’s creation. There were also sign-up sheets so people could indicate their interest to be part of the congregation’s Eco Church group.
When the kids went out to their Sunday School session, they did care of creation themed activities including having races sorting recycling.
Later, after a congregational shared lunch, at 2pm folk headed off with rubbish bags and gloves to Makara to do a beach clean-up, through until 3:30pm.
Photo contributed by: Stephen Sharp