Celebrate creation at a church Eco-Fest
The church of St Mary’s in Chirk, will have a festival feel for a day as people gather to celebrate Creation.
Eco-Fest on Saturdaywill include drumming workshops, face-painting, live music and arts and crafts activities. There will be bunting making, prayer walks, scavenger hunts, a taste of forest church, as well as stands and stalls with plenty of information.
The day is free and is being run by the Diocese of St Asaph to encourage churches and communities to take the next step on their eco-journey.
The Dean of St Asaph Cathedral, Nigel Williams, is one of people organising the event.
He said: “Eco-Fest is designed as a fun day to help people engage with issues of climate change and sustainability, offering advice and information on making our churches and our lifestyles more environmentally friendly.
“We hope people will come along to Chirk and try out our drumming workshops, have a go at making prayer bunting and consider how they can connect with God through outdoor church. In addition, we have a number of eco-businesses coming along to explain how churches can reach carbon net zero. We’ll have stands and stalls offering advice and activities. We hope there’ll be something for everyone.”
This is the second Eco-Fest organised by the Diocese to encourage churches to become Eco-Churches and to measure their carbon footprint using a new online tool launched by the Church in Wales. Its climate change champion, Dr Julia Edwards, will be at Eco-Fest talking about the online tool and encouraging churches to get involved.
The Diocese of St Asaph’s Eco-Church group is working to encourage all 214 churches across the diocese to register as an Eco-Church. So far, the diocese has 13 churches gaining a silver award, and more than 34 with a bronze award. The Diocese itself has achieved a bronze award and is working towards silver but needs more churches to embrace the programme.
Dean Nigel added: “There will be an opportunity at Eco-Fest to find out more the Eco-Church Awards and register your church. This is about embedding environmentally responsibility practice and behaviour into everything we do and what better way to find out more, than to have some fun at the same time. We need to ensure that caring for God’s creation underpins our faith and informs our way of living.”
Eco-Fest opens at 11am and runs until 3pm. There are a series of timetabled activities, such as forest church and talks on reaching carbon net zero but other activities, such as African Drumming, taking a prayer walk, creating art from nature, making prayer bunting, listening to live music and much more will run throughout the day. The event is free and open to all. To find out more visit https://dioceseofstasaph.org.uk/eco-fest/
