The Minster and St Paul’s in Great Yarmouth recently celebrated achieving Eco Church Bronze awards. Parish Eco Rep, Paul Spychal tells us more.
Caring for God’s Earth and God’s People lies at the core of our Parish Vision. By looking at how we worship and teach in Great Yarmouth we can grow closer to God. By looking at how we use our buildings and church land we can reach out to our wider community in the town and share our love for God’s Creation.
At the Minster, we have worked with more than fifty community and business groups to determine how we as a church can meet the wider needs of Great Yarmouth. They have helped us to formulate a substantive and innovative Green Energy Plan. This involves generating renewable energy on-site and sharing excess energy with our community partners. This plan, when realised, will result in the Minster becoming the Gold Standard in Eco Church. Indeed, it may well be necessary for Eco Church to introduce a new category, the Platinum standard!
Our Green Energy Plan for the Minster will increase our visitor numbers significantly and empower us to reach out and share God’s Word and God’s Love.
At St Paul’s Church, Eco Church has helped us to identify areas of strength where we care for God’s Earth and areas for us to target to attain the next Award, Silver. Planting of bulbs in the churchyard will be carried out by our young, uniformed church users. The very long south-facing roof has an optimal orientation for solar panels but please, do not tell the Rector!
In the wider Parish it is hoped to include our third church, St Mary’s, where we are working towards attaining the Bronze Award. The future is Green!
Have you started your Eco Church journey yet? Register as an Eco Church or find out more at: https://ecochurch.arocha.org.uk/
Sign-up for our Eco Newsletter here
Join the conversation on our Facebook group here
Watch the message from Bishop Graham here
For any further help, contact barbara.bryant@dioceseofnorwich.org