It can be difficult to decide where to begin or what's next once your church has signed up to go on the Eco Church journey! There are just so many ways and opportunities for a church community to reduce their environmental impact, to practice sustainability and to foster care of creation within the church community and beyond.

Our kaupapa for Eco Church is that any change or initiative needs to start from the church community themselves to ensure local ownership and long-term sustainability. That's why we often recommend the self-assessment worksheet as a good starting place. The self-assessment worksheet aims to be comprehensive in its coverage to help the church team make their own assessments of what their strengths are as a church community, and what areas they'd like to prioritise next, based on their existing skills and resources within their community.

Some church communities are already seasoned travelers on the sustainability journey even before they signed up to join the Eco Church whānau, and others are just beginning their journey. But the one thing we all want is to support each other to grow on this journey. For this reason, we have stories from church communities - we share stories of early steps being taken, the challenges faced, the many initiatives in progress, and also the longer term dreams and visions. We hope through these stories we will learn from each others’ experiences and be inspired to try new initiatives too.

Here are some tips if your church community is just beginning the eco church journey:

• Create an Eco Church team. Integrating care for creation into the church’s ministry and mission can feel like a big task if you are trying to do it on your own. Gather a team of the people with different skills and passion to share the load, pray together, support each other, and explore different areas together.

• If possible, a member of the Eco Church team should also part of the leadership team so that the eco church kaupapa is integrated into the rest of the church.

• Check that your church has a sustainability / environmental policy or statement so that it flows into all aspects of church operations e.g. influencing purchasing policies in the church. If your church does not have one, support church leaders to make this happen. This gives church leaders and church members the opportunity to openly discuss how your church will respond.

• Be visible to the whole church community. For example:

  • Have an Eco Church launch service.

  • Introduce the Eco Church team to the whole congregation during a service.

  • Have an Eco Church / creation care notice board.

  • Feature an Eco Church section or creation care tips in the church newsletter.

  • Celebrate eco successes during the service.

  • Share about your church’s commitment to creation care on your church website.

• Communicate regularly within the eco church team - e.g. a monthly meeting time, a whatsapp group.

• Work through the self-assessment worksheet as a team or with the whole church - use it as a springboard for ideas and discussions.

• Make an Eco Church action plan.

• Watch the Eco Church wānanga series.

• To get the whole church community on board, prioritise the Leadership, Worship and Teaching component of Eco Church. Care of creation needs to be seen as an integral part of the Christian faith, discipleship and mission. It doesn’t need to be an ADDITIONAL or NEW initiative - care of creation can be incorporated into all EXISTING aspects of church life and ministry.

• Join the Eco Church NZ group on the A Rocha Aotearoa New Zealand Facebook page to chat with others and support each other.

• For special topics featuring guest speakers, watch the Eco Church Kōrero series.

• Connect with other Eco Churches in your area to have joint action and collaborations.

• Importantly, make it fun, inclusive and action-orientated!

Below are some tools and resources that you might like to use as you get started on your Eco Church journey: