We were delighted to announce at the harvest thanksgiving service in October that Emmanuel Church has received the Bronze Eco Church award in recognition of our efforts to care for God’s earth. A big thank you to all who have helped to make this happen.
The Methodist church as a whole has ambitious plans to become net zero carbon by 2030, so it’s good to be doing our part in progressing towards that goal. As we saw during our harvest service, what we do here really does affect people living in less economically developed parts of our world who tend to be impacted more by the effects of climate change. The unpredictability of seasons, prolonged droughts and flash floods all make farming much more challenging. This is also one of the causes of higher food prices in this country.
Our next step is the Silver Award. This will mean us being intentional about making more changes in the way we use the building, but particularly in the ways we engage with our local and global communities, and changes we make in our own lifestyle choices as members of the church. If you are interested in being part of a small group to ‘champion the cause’, bring ideas or make things happen, please do talk to me or Paul. If you’d rather email, Paul’s contact details are in this magazine.
As a first step in greater community engagement we have arranged a session called
The Energy Talk: ‘Reduce your energy use and start saving money and the planet now’ on Wednesday 13th November, 9.30am refreshments for 10am start.
A group called Energise Sussex Coast (energisesussexcoast.co.uk) who offer free energy advice will be taking the session for us, and can follow up with individual advice as needed. They will also be bringing some free energy saving goodies to take away. So please come, and invite your friends and neighbours, especially if they are struggling with paying energy bills. We will be advertising it around other local churches and community centres, as well as through Jenny Wren’s. But if you have other ideas of who to invite please go ahead and do so. If you’d like publicity material please contact me. If there are 2 or 3 volunteers who could help with teas and coffees at 9.30am on 13th November that would also be greatly appreciated. Please let me or Paul know if you can help. Thank you!