Over 500 churches, including 50 United Reformed Church congregations, are now registered with the Eco Church scheme launched last year by Christian environmental charity, A Rocha UK. The 500th local church to register was Great Chishill United Reformed Church, south Cambridgeshire.

As the successor to Eco Congregations in England and Wales (Eco Congregations continues in Scotland), Eco Church is based on a simple online survey. Users register for free and can revisit the questionnaire as often as they wish to report on their eco efforts in areas of church life including worship, building management and community engagement. The website keeps note of their progress scores and indicates when they qualify for an award.

Resources

There are many resources available to help you, and your church, to explore some of the issues tackled at Greenbelt. Here are just a few of them. Keep checking this page as more are added!

• Joint Public Issues Team (http://www.jointpublicissues.org.uk/)
  A Place to Call Home http://www.jointpublicissues.org.uk/aplacetocallhome/
  Conversation Welcome http://www.jointpublicissues.org.uk/issues/eu-referendum/conversationwelcome/
• URC Church Related Community Work: http://www.urc.org.uk/our-work/church-related-community-workers.html
• Students, Young People & The Common Good - Greenbelt 
  http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/students-young-people-common-good/?mc_cid=32098b0585&mc_eid=6d43573f0e 
• Radical Welcome Facilitators Guide: These are in a pack in the public library of URCLE and can be found by scrolling down the page at http://moodle.urc.org.uk/course/view.php?id=57 
• Intercultural Resources
  

  http://www.urc.org.uk/intercultural-resources.html
  http://www.urc.org.uk/intercultural-stories.html
  http://www.urc.org.uk/intercultural-good-practices.html
  http://www.urc.org.uk/at-home-mission.html

• Rural Mission resource
  http://germinate.net/mission/open-welcome/

Why go to Greenbelt?

Looking back at Greenbelt 2016

'Scrap the Church?' at Greenbelt 2016

Making a Scrap Church from Scratch!

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published the biggest ever review into race equality in Britain. The report, ‘Healing a divided Britain – the need for a comprehensive race equality strategy’, found that life has got much worse for ethnic minority groups, especially young black people, over the past five years. The study covered every aspect of people’s lives, including education, employment, housing, pay and living standards, health, criminal justice and participation.

Reflecting on the findings, the URC’s global and intercultural ministries team, said it is evident that not enough is being done to tackle the increasing racial tensions and widening inequalities in our country. ‘These inequalities are not new,’ the team added. ‘They are deep-rooted. And as Christians we have a duty to work to guarantee the fullness of life for all, a life free of racism, xenophobia, hate-crimes and structural inequalities.’

Reflection: https://www.facebook.com/urcglobalandinterculturalministries/posts/1718245491760938