Creation Care
Caring for God's beautiful world
We believe that God has made humanity in his image – and as his image bearers we have a responsibility to care for and work with the good environment God has created. We are conscious of our responsibility to carefully steward the global resources that God has given us and, in particular, our impact on the environment. We want to be a church that gives a greater focus on teaching about creation care, to improve our buildings for sustainability and to gradually improve our activities.
We'd love to invite you to watch our talk series 'CREATED'.
Join the Tearfund 'TAKE A STAND' campaign
We feel one of the most effective was to transform climate change is lobby those in power. There are lots of ways of doing this but if you would like to join us in supporting Tearfund's 'Take A Stand' initiative click HERE
Links and Resources
Find more resources in the following sections Climate Change, Theology of Creation Care, Church of England, Action and Children & Families. If you're a member of St Matthias we recommend that you discover your own carbon footprint, think about your lifestyle, and find ways to reduce what you can.
Climate Change
Sir David Attenborough explores what modern Climate Change is, how it affects the world and what we can do about it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00049b1
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a United Nations body responsible for assessing the science related to climate change including causes, impacts and solutions: https://www.ipcc.ch/
WWF Brazil: A quick summary of the Paris Climate Agreement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-4F5MJEeqs
Christiana Figueres (The Inside Story of the Paris Agreement): The Paris Climate Agreement and how we got there from the woman who help negotiate it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIA_1xQc7x8
IPCC published a special report on Climate Change following the Paris Agreement to look at the differences between achieving a 1.5°C or 2.0°C warmer world (the report also reminded everyone that we are already 1°C towards those targets) Media Summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVjp3TO_juI
IPCC published the most comprehensive report to date assessing all parts of the Climate Change problem in 2013-2014. The Synthesis Report in 2014 brought all these findings together (the next major report is due 2021-2022). Media Summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGH0dAwM-QE
The Royal Society provides a great online resource to answer many questions on Climate Change: https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/energy-environment-climate/
NASA has extensive resources to explore on Climate Change (plus some awesome graphics – scroll down to “Images of Change”): https://climate.nasa.gov/
Climate Central is an independent organization in the US focused on analyzing and communicating Climate Science and its impacts to the general public (just remember everything is in feet/inches and degrees Fahrenheit) : https://www.climatecentral.org/
A great resource to help you understand the arguments for and against the reality of Man-made Climate Change and advice about how to respond to Climate Sceptics and Deniers: https://www.skepticalscience.com/
Oxford-based Climate Outreach have a wealth of great resources to learn about Climate Change and how to communicate it – they also host the award winning Climate Visuals website (https://climatevisuals.org/) documents the evidence, impact and solutions to climate change in people’s everyday lives: https://climateoutreach.org/#
A new film has been released called "2040". It focuses on climate solutions with a few that are less known, such as regenerative agriculture, soil and seaweed. Overall, a sign that climate actions/solutions are on the verge of going mainstream! https://togetherfilms.org/2040-home
Theology
Hannah Malcolm presents on Theology and the Environment at 2019 Theology Slam. Grand-daughter of Sir John Houghton (who was editor of IPCC’s First, Second and Third Assessment Reports), she is an ordinand, doing a PhD in theology and climate, and is project co-ordinator at God and the Big Bang, an organisation that runs workshops for young people on science and religion: https://youtu.be/GknXxsvqToU
Peter Harris takes us on a whistle stop tour of the Christian response to the Environmental Crisis as part of ‘Connections: Spirituality and Conservation’ at the IUCN World Conservation Congress, Hawai’i (September 2016): https://vimeo.com/181801950
Old Testament Scholar Sandra Richter presents a 7-minute reflection on a Theology of Creation Care: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHn1TrRgQ-E
Biblical Scholar Howard Snyder presents a 7-minute reflection on Christians and the Environment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s91vvdcytAU
New Testament Scholar Douglas Moo presents Session 1 of Creation Care: What do Christian’s have to do with Creation? (The rest of the sessions are available to buy through Zondervan): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rif-x24GhCw
Creation and COVID-19
Climate Outreach have put together some great material on communicating Climate Change during COVID; https://climateoutreach.org/resources/communicating-climate-change-during-covid-19-crisis-evidence/
The consultants McKinsey published a report looking at how we might address climate change following the COVID-19 global pandemic:
Church of England
The Church of England released their strategy document to achieve Net Zero (there's that word again!) - here it is for you to look at and consider how St Aldates will be able to respond: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2020-04/the-practical-path-to-net-zero-carbon-for-churches-FINAL-April-2020.pdf
The summer edition of the Church of England's Environmental Programme newsletter is out: https://mailchi.mp/churchofengland/environment-bulletin-summer-2020-from-the-church-of-england
The Church of England are also running a series of webinars on getting your Church to Net Zero: https://www.churchofengland.org/more/policy-and-thinking/our-views/environment-and-climate-change/webinars-getting-net-zero-carbon
Paul Massara’s webinar summarizing the Doicesan strategy on the environment: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/4ot-I4ys1khOZbPL9lD6ALcqTqb3T6a8hnMXqKAOyLxAIlVJtXrkh1HU9YSzjLI Password: 3Z*i9358
Action
A Rocha’s Wild Christian network group. ‘Journey together, reflecting biblically and acting boldly’: https://arocha.org.uk/wildchristian/
Operation Noah is a Christian charity working with the Church to inspire action on the climate crisis: https://operationnoah.org/
Green Christian is a community of ordinary Christians from all backgrounds and traditions. Inspired by our faith, they work to care for Creation through prayer, living simply, public witness, campaigning and mutual encouragement: https://greenchristian.org.uk/
Christian Climate Action is a community of Christians supporting each other to take meaningful action in the face of the climate crisis: https://christianclimateaction.org/
Hope for the Future is a climate charity which works to equip communities, groups and individuals across the country to communicate the urgency of climate change with their local politicians: https://www.hftf.org.uk/
Low Carbon Oxford is a network of over 40 groups committed to seeing Oxford become a low-carbon City: http://lowcarbonoxford.org/
Recycle Now is a national website seeking to inform and help people steward their waste – with lots of ideas and tips, plus information on what each local council recycles (click “Local Recycling” and enter the item and your postcode!): https://www.recyclenow.com/
The Faith for the Climate Network is a space for people of faith working on climate change - from lay people and activists, to Bishops, Priests, Rabbis and Imams, to CEOs and professionals working in faith based NGOs - to come together, learn from one another, encourage and support one another in our faith based work on climate change: https://faithfortheclimate.org.uk/
Children and Families
Little Oxplorers Exploring Oxford outdoors one little step at a time! Great link to local parks and reserves. Facebook page gives resources and links to other nature based adventures: https://www.facebook.com/pg/LittleOxplorers/about/?ref=page_internal
MinnoLIFE Devotions and Resources for family life and faith: https://www.gominno.com/blog/creation-care-for-kids-how-to-steward-the-gift-of-water
Eco Kids Planet Magazine and resources: https://www.ecokidsplanet.co.uk/