• Children and Youth
• Church Buildings
• Church Tourism
• Communications
• Disability Access
• Environment
  • Harvest Resources
  • Solar and Photovoltaic Panels
  • Bird Boxes
  • Lent Course
  • Energy
  • Biodiversity
  • Water
  • Transport
  • Purchasing
  • Waste and Recycling
  • Carbon Offsetting
  • What happens now?
  • News
  • Events
• Finding a church
• Fresh Expressions
• Fundraising
• Money and giving
• Olympics
• Safeguarding
• Social Responsibility
• The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee

Caring for our Environment

"Welcome to the Diocese of York: Our Environment 2011. I hope that these web pages will help you discover what people in our Diocese are already doing to help nurture our surroundings, and what you might be able to do in a practical way to care for our environment.

As Christians, we have a duty to care for our environment. I hope that 2011 will be a chance to celebrate and support what you’re already doing for the environs, and encourage you to follow other people’s examples. Psalm 24 tells us that “the Earth is the Lord’s” - we are only tenants on this Earth, and it ultimately does not belong to us. If we are tenants of the Earth, we have a duty to care for it – a duty to God, to the rest of the creation that we share the world with, and to future generations.

I want every Christian, every church in the Diocese of York, to pledge to make a difference to their environment in 2011. Whether you decide to use a bicycle instead of cars, or make sure your church is using energy efficient light bulbs, or manage your churchyards to increase biodiversity everything you do will make a difference to our world and how we care for it." Archbishop Sentamu.

What's happening?

Throughout 2011, we’re going to focus on six ways in which we can help our environment:

• Energy
• Water
• Biodiversity
• Transport
• Purchasing
• Waste & Recycling

We’ll be spending a week on each of these key areas throughout the year, sharing stories and ideas on the Diocesan website and through newsletters. If you’d like to share what you’re doing to help your environment, please contact Eleanor Course, Communications Officer. You can also follow our Year of the Environment blog at http://yearoftheenvironment.blogspot.com/

We hope that during the weeks focusing on our six themes, you’ll be inspired to implement some of the ideas on the website – whether that’s as an individual, or as a PCC in a church, or a whole congregation getting involved. We hope that each Deanery will host an event on one of these themes, which we hope you’ll attend, and there are a few big Diocesan events throughout the year.

We’ll be taking inspiration from national schemes and initiatives like Sustainable Energy Week and National Bike week – we don’t want to reinvent the wheel, but help you to change your lives and care for our planet.

Collect for the Year of the Environment

Almighty God
We praise you for the wonders of your creation.
We thank you for the beauty of the world and the vast resources of our planet:
beauty that at times we fail to respect;
resources that we wantonly exploit.
You have entrusted us with the care of your world:
Give us wisdom and compassion,
and move us to change our thoughts and our actions,
that we and all your people may value the whole of your creation,
serve you with responsibility, reverence and joy,
and look for that day when the whole creation shall be made perfect in your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.