Worship

Like all good preachers, we have four categories, which all begin with the letter S:

Survey

A good place to start is to find out what the congregation thinks about climate change. We have made survey which has already been used in two churches, with interesting results. Click here to download the survey form used and see the results from other churches.

Sermons

• St George's Church had a sermon on the subject of Tearfund's Carbon Fast, and are following up on this by having tips on 'cutting your carbon footprint' in the weekly church notices throughout Lent. You can hear the sermon here.
• Tearfund, Christian Aid, and A Rocha all have speakers who could come and speak about climate change at a church service or event.
• If you want to go multi-media, there are various videos on our Audio and Video page.

Services

• If you have notices on powerpoint slides before or after your service, you could include one of our Green Tips on powerpoint slides each week.
• Members of 4C wrote some prayers which were used during a service at St George's Church in 2012. Click here to download these prayers, which you could use and adapt for your church. Alternatively, you could try the prayers written by the Sanctuary Centre in Ilkley.
• St Chad's Church held a service with “Rooted and grounded in the love of Christ” as the theme, and after the service the congregation planted trees in the grounds.
• St Chad's Church had a Q&A session with a climatologist from Leeds University in place of a sermon, and as people entered church, they were given a red, orange and green slip. At the end of the service, the congregation was invited to write on the appropriate slip something they would cease to do which damaged the environment, something they enjoyed which was environmentally neutral and something they did or would now do, which had a positive benefit to the environment. The slips were anonymous and displayed for all to read, and some chosen for a Parish Magazine article.
• Green Christian (formely known as Christian Ecology Link) and eco-congregation have a lot of resources for services, including prayers, liturgy, suggestions of hymns and even 'green' comments on the C of E lectionary!

Small groups

Various organisations have prepared small group bible studies about climate change, including:

• Christian Aid's studies
• Tearfund's Carbon Fast resource includes weekly studies for a small group, as well as daily carbon-cutting actions, designed to be used during Lent.
• Cherishing the Earth- a set of five studies on how to care for God's creation.
• 'Christianity, Climate Change and Sustainable Living'- a set of five studies written by the Jubilee Centre.
• 'Whose World?' a set of 5 studies on creation care in general produced by Southward diocese
• Caring for Creation- a thought provoking one-off study