Whanganui Salvation Army - Our first Eco Corps!
Extracted and republished from SALT (Salvation Army Life and Times) Magazine, Oct 2023.
Contributed by Rachel Montgomery.
Captain Simon Montgomery, Olivia Montgomery and Dianne Kerr, members of the Whanganui Salvation Army Eco Church group.
Captain Simon Montgomery, a member of Salves and corps officer at Whanganui Salvation Army, leads a group of people who are passionate about caring for God’s creation and helping to sustain the environment around them. As a corps (church) they’ve decided to join the A Rocha Eco Church NZ project.
‘I’ve always felt a deep connection to nature,’ says Simon, ‘seeing God actively at work within his creation. My passion for environmental sustainability and creation care has grown over the years as I’ve become more concerned with the impact of humanity upon the creation order. Becoming part of Salves has been encouraging for me to partner with like-minded people who share a desire to practise more sustainable ways of living.’
Simon says that there were several people in the Whanganui Corps who also shared this desire, and so they went on the journey of exploring the Eco Church project. Once they joined the project, A Rocha resourced them with different workbooks to help educate and make action plans for the corps to be more sustainable now and for the future. Their Eco Church working group consists of five people, who meet monthly to discuss the workbooks and suggest ideas for corps involvement.
‘We’ve already improved our recycling onsite,’ says Simon. ‘We have green bins clearly labelled in both kitchens, and since we have educated people about what is recyclable, there has been a noticeable increase in recycled products.’
A group from the corps visited the Whanganui Recycling and Resource Recovery Centre for a lesson on recycling and a tour of the facilities. The feedback was incredibly positive, and the group all learnt something new about recycling, which was encouraging. ‘We’ve decided to not use single-use cups and plates for any of our gatherings, instead we choose to wash the dishes’, says Simon.
In the foyer of the corps, there’s now a space where they share excess produce among their corps family, helping to reduce waste and nurture a spirit of generosity. ‘We’ve been exploring ways to reduce our carbon footprint by ride-sharing and using vehicles less. The corps van is used to pick up a group of people on Sundays,’ says Simon.
It is their intention to become involved in local restoration projects, such as tree planting and clean-up efforts at the beaches, river and parks.
‘Joining the Eco Church movement doesn’t mean you’ve got this all together,’ says Simon. It’s an intention to become more environmentally sustainable in everything we do as a church and a commitment to go on the journey of creation care with other churches, environmental groups and like-minded people.