Green Hearts

‘I mowed the vicarage lawns yesterday’ Roger, the Vicar, told the children ’and now, I’ll never have to do it again, will I?’
’No!’ Came the firm reply.
’Why?’
‘Grass grows’
’But it’d be so much easier if I only had to do things once. Like feeding your children. What if you could just have breakfast and that’d be it?’
’No!’ Came the reply, even more vehemently. ‘You need lunch…and dinner’
‘and supper’ another voice spoke up.

We have to keep on doing things, just as God continues to keep creating…and we are called to help God and keep working with Creation. Which means that the Vicarage lawns will indeed need to be mowed again.

Environment Sunday, and buoyed up by the Priory’s Silver Eco Church Award, the Environment Group led Altogether Worship, setting the Priory’s sights on the Gold Eco Church award.

The story of Creation was beautifully read by two of the younger members of the congregation, from the inspiringly different ‘Eco Church for Kids’ and Roger preached on hope for Creation in the face of headlines of gloom and doom. Taking the easy option isn’t the right way. We need to make an effort and work with God as God continues the wonder of Creation.

And this is where the green hearts came in. As the choir sang ‘Touch the Earth lightly’, the congregation was invited to pledge to work for one or more things to bring hope for Creation onto the back of the green hearts they’d been handed as they arrived. Eco-printed using real plants by two members of the congregation, the hearts soon covered the branches of a bare tree as, one by one, the congregation walked to the front and added their pledge of hope.

From using less water, to recycling, to gardening sustainably, to using less plastics, the Priory congregation wholeheartedly embraced their role in caring for God’s amazing Creation, proving that ‘there is hope’.