St Andrew's Psalter Lane, Sheffield

'Spiritual' activities:

Regular services with environmental theme, covering Harvest, St Francistide etc. In 2003, we had a series of “Three Sermons and Seminars on Creation Themes”. A guest speaker gave the sermon at the morning service, then there was a seminar on the subject during the same afternoon.
Eco-lecture series: we ran a series of three in May 05, with guest speakers the first of whom is a member of the congregation: Some Environmental Effects of Transport; The Bible and the Environment; The Highly Variable British Climate: Past, Present and Future.
Festival of Church Life, May 07 – stalls covering church groups from Brownies to eco-congregation.
Brother Earth, Sister Air, Autumn 2005: a range of organisations/ activities set up stalls at the church on a Saturday morning and spoke about their work – e,g Department of the Environment and npower. The All-Age Worship on the following morning (9th October 2005) picked up the same theme.
Llewelyn Roberts: there is a memorial plaque to him in the church. In the 1960s, he was Chief Medical Officer for Sheffield and a member of the Clean Air Council. We have researched more details of his achievements and feel pride that even 40 years ago this church was conscious of, and involved in, environmental issues.
Ecological hymn for small children – used by Junior Church
Your Contribution to Climate Change: questionnaire issued to congregation Feb 07 to raise individual awareness of how much energy they use.
Items in church library, e.g. Green Christian, “An Inconvenient Truth”, “Heat”
Relevant articles in Nexus, our church magazine
Promoted activities elsewhere, eg. Riding Lights theatre production, “Pipe Dream” and Al Gore visit to Sheffield
During the church weekend at Launde Abbey in Sept 07, one of the sessions was on eco-congregation issues and challenges. Part of the session a discussion on the links between Christian discipleship and environmental concerns.

Practical:

Bulb Planting:
- free bulbs from council for the church grounds. Members of the congregation organised bulb planting involving Junior Church.
- One of the congregation organises bulb planting through the local neighbourhood group, which others have taken part in.
Garden working parties: garden is filled mainly with plants recycled from other gardens;
Maintenance of trees, done by tree surgeon.
We re-modelled the church about 5 years ago, and lots was done then: e.g. some of the new church furniture was made from the old pews by a local joiner; members of the congregation embroidered a credence table cover (so an old table could be re-used in a very visible spot).
Heating/ insulation etc done as part of the re-modelling: the insulation to the roof of the main building was upgraded to 200mm.
- New boiler and heating system.
- Although the new light fittings give better levels of light, the fittings are more efficient. We use long-life bulbs, and have no tungsten bulbs.
We have changed to eco-friendly cleaning materials; we use expanding bags in toilet cisterns;
A member of the congregation has sewn practical, beautiful quilted playmats for our Parent and Baby Group
We’ve reduced the number of weekly notice sheets, asking families to share.
We have had a box for recycled paper in the church office for years; we have introduced one into the church narthex recently.

Reaching out:

Fairtrade stall, one Sunday a month after morning service in the narthex;
Kafue in Zambia: money for water bore hole; members of the congregation bought Christmas presents from a locally-produced Kafue catalogue (like “Oxfam Unwrapped”, listing items needed by people in Kafue).
Junior church have also collected money: for Kafue Loo-ey (toilet in Kafue school) and footballs for Kafue, and for mangoes and donkeys (Christian Aid);
Reciprocal visits to Kafue: on two occasions, we have had people from Kafue come to visit us. They have talked about Kafue, shared meals at many people’s houses, and talked to other groups about life in their part of Africa;
Parent and Baby Group – reduced cost if parents and children walk. The 20 pences thus collected raised £27 for Friends of the Earth last winter;
Brownie trips to Earth Centre and litter picks;
Bulb planting – organised by member of congregation. Other members of congregation helped with planting;
Bat walk as part of Sheffield Environment Weeks. Entries in Environment Weeks’ Brochures in 2006 and 2007;
Considered recycling bins, but some were organised near church which we have advertised in weekly Notices
For several years, we have encouraged members of the congregation to cut down on Christmas cards to others in the congregation by signing one card and donating the money saved to HARC (the local charity, Homeless and Rootless at Christmas). Members of the congregation also have volunteered to help with the running of HARC over the Christmas period.
Christian Aid week: local house to house collections for many years.
Raise money for National Children’s Homes (NCH) and The Children’s Society, including at our popular Christingle service.
One of the congregation is heavily involved in Council for Protection of Rural England and other environmental organisations
“We welcome refugees and asylum seekers”: we were among the first organisations to display this statement and we are involved with the City of Sanctuary (Sheffield has recently become the first City of Sanctuary in the country.
House group course: some members of the congregation attended a local Lent group on Climate Change under the auspices of St Mark’s Broomhill in 2007; we also offered the same course in Autumn 07 and aim to do more awareness-raising on similar lines.

St Andrew's Psalter Lane