In April 2022, 120 solar panels were blessed and commissioned on the roof of Oxford Terrace Baptist Church, Ōtautahi Christchurch providing around 25% of the church’s energy needs. A strong motivation for the church in installing the solar panels was recognising the importance of creation care as an act of worship to God. Since the church has been generating their own renewable energy, carbon emissions from church activities have dropped significantly, enabling the church to more sustainably steward the resources God has generously entrusted to them.

It is wonderful to use elements from God’s creation in worship. Using shells or stones or other things from nature enables people to engage with God using other senses. An Advent koru points to the new life that Christ’s birth brings here in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Advent koru is made up of shells which portray our kiwi summer, along with stones, bird’s nests, feathers, flowers, and other natural things we can find.

Kāpiti Anglicans did the Eco Church self-assessment exercise as part of a church service in October. The super-creative Rev Fee Thompson, the Assistant Vicar, designed and built these amazing boards as the basis for the exercise.

Season of Creation is celebrated annually all around the world, in different denominations, and many parishes in the Anglican Diocese of Wellington joined in this year. Read about the different ways Season of Creation was celebrated this year around the diocese, including an intergenerational pet celebration service, beach clean-up, eco-theology sermon series, and waste workshop.

All Saints Ponsonby recently organised a Market Day which included a dedication of their new community garden that has been in development since late last year.

Soon after Chartwell Cooperating Church joined the Eco Church whānau, they arranged for Paul Murray from Para Kore to come and share about the Para Kore kaupapa and gave an introductory wānanga about zero waste to the church.

As part of the Simplify series at Massey Community Church, members in our Sustainability Group took turns to produce a video about an aspect of their own sustainability journey. There are videos on groceries, transport, clothes shopping, making things at home, being sustainable on a budget, and more.

At Wellington South Baptist Church we’ve been imagining new ways to engage with our local community, to share something of God’s amazing reconciling vision for the world. This past Sunday, we partnered with a local charity, EkeRua/ReBicycle, to host a ‘Free Bike Fix Up/Repair/Swap’ event. After a shorter ‘normal’ service on the Sunday morning, we transitioned into a space of welcome for whoever was going to attend, including the bike workshop, a morning tea spread, and a place for kids to hang out while their (or their parent’s) bikes were getting fixed up!

How do we strengthen and nourish our young people who care about the environment in their faith? A group of us gathered for this online kōrero organised by Eco Church NZ to hear from guest speakers - Elke Keeling, Natalie Duchesne and James Beck - and explore what they have found to be helpful and unhelpful. It was an inspiring session hearing about ideas and resources available to support ecological discipleship in our children and youth.

At St Peter’s Anglican Church in Kaikōura, we have been privileged to help some of our local endangered birds this autumn. Kaikōura is home to the endangered Hutton’s Shearwater / Kaikōura tītī (Puffinus huttoni). Crash landings or ‘fallout’ of Hutton’s Shearwaters in the Kaikōura township is frequent, as the fledglings find their way to the sea at night. St Peter’s parishioners take an active role in patrolling for and rescuing the birds at night throughout this season.

‘How can church building projects be more sustainable and low carbon?’ was the question participants explored together in the recent A Rocha Eco Church kōrero on 24 March 2022. Participants from around the motu who are interested or involved in church building projects met together online to discuss experiences and options. The two key presenters were Caitlyn Lee, an architectural graduate working in the sustainable building industry, with experience and training in materials research, and Geoffrey Lee, project manager of Te Korōria - Karori Anglican’s new build project.

Late in 2020 All Saints Anglican Church in Ponsonby formed an eco-committee and went through the Eco Church self-assessment worksheet to ascertain areas to begin working on. A number of areas were identified through the worksheet, with the establishment of a community garden being determined as the most important. We liked the idea of a community garden because the church had available land, it is a very visible project and one of our church members has the expertise to make it happen.