On the way to gaining an Arocha Gold Eco Church award a Shropshire church may have struck more than one ‘pot of gold’. Oxon Parish Church, Shrewsbury, has been awarded ARocha’s 99th and Lichfield Diocese’s second Gold Eco Church Award.
In achieving the award, the church has adopted an ingenious method of managing its closed churchyard so as to squeeze every ounce of ecological advantage from what the Vicar of Oxon and Shelton, Revd Charlotte Gompertz describes as “caring for your bit of land and demonstrating God’s kingdom.” Oxon’s approach has not just been pragmatic, but about the Church’s fifth mark of mission: ‘To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.’ It turned out to be a contributor to the whole mission of the church and more than one mark of mission.
The Vicar was part of the small, enthusiastic Eco Team, alongside a Reader, Helen Gallagher, PCC Secretary, Jane Elliot and Churchwarden, Stuart Fox. Their efforts started with her sermon series in 2019 based on Ruth Valerio’s book, ‘Saying Yes to Life.’
To many parishes, a closed churchyard, in the care of the local authority, might appear a closed book. The church’s Eco Team saw that the Council’s perfectly proper mowing and herbicide regime was instrumental in causing soil erosion and the loss of vegetation. Paths and graves were becoming unstable. The inspired solution was to take back management of a portion of the churchyard under licence from the Council, who remain legally responsible, so can be given back areas of churchyard if necessary in future.
The fruit of this approach has been to give the church control over how the churchyard is managed to provide closely-mown areas which welcome those users passing through or coming to reflect, or to provide areas where long grass is allowed to grow and biodiversity abounds. In the words of Stuart Fox, Churchwarden, “We saw species of wild flowers we hadn’t seen in a generation.” That includes Oxide Daisies, Cowslips, Clover and Buttercups. Butterflies also arrived: Peacocks, Red Admirals, Commas, small and large Whites. Aside from gains resulting from finding a way to let the grass grow, more active eco-friendly interventions included providing a ‘dead hedge’ made of natural branches, twigs and other waste wood. This created a natural habitat for bugs and even hedgehogs without using a man-made brick bug hotel.
The overall approach was symbolic of the deep commitment to caring for the environment which recognised that gold-standard eco care is not just about reaching a summit but about achieving a plateau of sustainability.
It’s not just the fifth mark of mission that is benefitting. Stuart Fox observes: “People come here to reflect. Hopefully we’ve made an area which looks loved and looked after rather than just basically maintained. Another thing its done is, because the wife and I and others are often here volunteering in the churchyard, all sorts of conversations have happened that wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t been here fairly regularly. Our Vicar calls it ‘churchyard ministry.’ It’s a ministry around you’re doing something and people will talk. You can’t put a value on that.”
The Diocesan Environment Officer, Jan Firth, has produced this updated report on Eco Churches in Lichfield Diocese.