Katrina Recently went to a service “For the love of…” at the beginning of the mass lobby of Parliament on Climate Change. It took place across two churches, St. Margaret’s and Emmanuel Church both in Westminster. These are her thoughts.
Those of us at St Margaret’s heard the Bishop of Salisbury Right Rev Holtam speak of God having created the earth and it was very good. We were given earth to live in and to care for it. Are we good at doing so?
Virtually all its problems are created by us as we continually consume and waste and destroy its resources. There is the need to not just argue about issues and if it’s humans making problems or not: not just talk about how we address them but need to act each day to tackle them. An example is that of fuel consumption. This is a complex and global issue which we think as individuals we can’t do a lot about but can we each day think about how we use fuel – do we walk or cycle or take the car?
If we love the whole of creation, including us, then we are encouraged to praise God, as we heard Psalm 148 sung by the choir, then how can we not take care of it?
Right Rev Sherrington Auxiliary Bishop of Westminter read St Luke’s account of Jesus reading in the synagogue. Isaiah’s words about the Sprit being on him -Jesus – and being sent to bring the good news (of God’s love) to the poor.
Climate change is already affecting poverty stricken countries, do we love the people there as God does and help them? CAFOD spoke about how a community in Africa had found that their crops were not doing well as they had lost a lot of trees so the good soil was being washed away and they were left with infertile or poorly nutritious soil. They decided to start planting trees – not a short term solution but to provide stability for the soil so that long term it would be good once again for planting.
The Vice President of Methodist. Conference, Gill Dascombe , read from Colossians;
’ Jesus the first born of all creation… all things in heaven and earth created through him and for him.’
Do we bring honour and glory and praise to God by looking after everything created by him or do we abandon, destroy and ruin ?. In prayers led by Right Rev Dr Cheetham Bishop of Kingston/ Sister Karen D’Artois OP and Rev Mabbs of the URC .We acknowledged our tendency to not care for creation or for each other and asked for forgiveness and help to see how good and loving God is and to share that. We also prayed for God’s guidance as we try to work out how to live responsibly and to ensure we don’t ignore people who find it hard to speak up for their concerns.
The sound of singing I’m sure could be heard across Westminster! We sang joyfully praising; ‘All creatures of our God and King’ ‘I the Lord of Sea and Sky’ and ‘Oh Lord my God when I in awesome wonder consider all the works Thy had hath made’.
It was good to be part of such a crowd saying that the earth is created by God and we think it’s amazing and we want to please Him by looking after it as best as we can.
Many organisations, Both Christian and Non-Christian were involved in the lobby. Find out more here.