Creationtide: hope and act with creation

As a Church and as Christians we are called to safeguard God’s creation, and although there is much further to go, collectively we are already making an impact. This year’s theme is to ‘hope and act with creation’, so we’re sharing and celebrating some of the steps that our parishes are taking to be more sustainable, reduce their carbon footprint, improve biodiversity and make a positive environmental impact.
We hope these stories will inspire you to think about what you can do in your own spaces.

Christ Church, West Wimbledon

Christ Church has an annual Creationtide Display of pictures, artwork and objects contributed by the congregation. This always includes an installation for the congregation to add their prayers. Last year the display focused on Carbon Footprints and this was reflected during the annual Creationtide Service. The church has also established a prayer link with the team at A Rocha Kenya who pray for their environmental projects just as the congregation regularly prays for their conservation work and team.

The church garden has been improved with wildflower beds, bee and butterfly-friendly planting, boxes for birds and the youth group made insect hotels and fat balls to feed birds. Groups for children during the main Sunday service grew sunflowers and have sessions on caring for creatures in the gardens, including bug hunts.

During the renovation of the church hall the team improved insulation and switched to primarily electric heaters and a renewable electricity supply – which has reduced their carbon footprint.

St Peter and St Paul, Chaldon

Care for creation is part of everyday life at St Peter and St Paul’s – from holding regular services outside in nature, to improving biodiversity with bug hotels and laying a new, volunteer-led wildlife-friendly hedge between the churchyard and neighbouring farmland. The children from ‘Mossy Church’ created a cairn to mark lost species, and this year the Eco Churches from the Caterham Group organised their first ever Big Green Event with a Big Green Day.

Pocket Park at St Peter, Clapham

The Shine Pocket Park at St Peter’s sits behind the Two Brewers pub in Clapham. The space between the church and the pub was formerly a dangerous dumping ground but thanks to charities Safe Clapham and Father Nature, the area has been transformed and the new Pocket Park is a safe community and environmentally-friendly space that acts as a welcome to what is otherwise a hidden church.

St Luke, Whyteleafe

St Luke’s churchyard is a tranquil, welcoming community space. In 2022 the church set up The Root and Branch Club to increase biodiversity and manage this much-loved local space. The club meets monthly in spring and summer, looking after graves, cutting back invasive foliage and removing litter and plastic. Church members provide delicious refreshments.

The Revd Sara Goatcher said, “We received a grant of £2,000 from the Village Council towards a wild flower meadow, which is now well established, and Surrey County Council has agreed to provide us with six native and wildlife friendly trees: two wild cherry, two field maple and two rowan. They will provide food and nesting opportunities for birds, and be a haven for butterflies and other insects.

“Our churchyard is still open for burials and interments, and those who come to lay their loved ones to rest find the carefully cared-for grounds combined with its managed wildness to be a truly sacred space in which to spend time in quiet reflection.”

Eden Nature Garden at St Paul, Clapham

Established in 2000 as a community garden in an area of disused church land, the garden is now a green, tranquil, inner-city space for people and a biodiverse habitat for wildlife. Featured on the BBC’s Gardener’s World, this unique green space is a fantastic example of the huge positive impact that repurposing a formerly unloved area can have both on people and nature. The gardens are irrigated with the rainwater from the roof of St Paul’s, which overspills into a wildlife pond. Find out more about Eden at: Community | Eden Nature Garden | England

A new garden at St George, Battersea on the Patmore Estate

Even in a small space, the team at St George’s has planted an amazing, wildlife-friendly garden. The incredible flowers at the end came from a single packet of wild flower seeds being thrown onto the soil – and what came up this summer has delighted both the church and the bees. The gardeners (pictured) are (l–r) Lorna Alvaranga (churchwarden), Netia Burrell (who lives on the estate) and Simon Peter Ekayangulhu (a church worker).

New raised beds at St Francis, Selsdon

Members of the Men’s Shed at St Francis Selsdon built these three raised vegetable beds (pictured below), which are planted and looked after by volunteers at the church food pantry. The aim is to grow food for their community lunch, the food pantry and to encourage people to grow their own veg at home. The raised beds are watered using recaptured rainwater from the church hall – the Light House. St Francis was recently featured in a diocesan Parish Support Fund film which you can watch at: https://youtu.be/ZfctKuPmslE?feature=shared

St Luke, Charlton

The team at St Luke’s in Charlton have been managing their churchyard sustainably to support wildlife. They don’t use any pesticides and leave parts of the churchyard wild with longer grass and ground cover plants like ivy. They have also made a bug house and a wildflower area for bees and butterflies, and switched from using annual flowers to tougher, climate-resistant planting that comes back each year. The church make their own compost, harvest rainwater using water butts and collect the leaves in autumn to use as a mulch.

We’d love to know more about what you’re doing in your parish to make a climate impact. Please email communications@southwark. anglican.org and share how your church is caring for God’s creation.