The United Reformed Church’s Youth Executive was presented with a letter of commendation at its recent Youth Assembly, held at Whitemoor Lakes in Staffordshire from 28-30 January.
A Rocha UK, which organises the Eco Church and Eco Synod programme in England and Wales, wrote the letter in recognition of the leadership that URC Youth Assembly and its Executive have shown in encouraging the whole church to act swiftly to develop how it cares for the environment.
URC Youth displayed a strong commitment to ‘get its own house in order’, introducing innovative ideas to ensure that its events and meetings were as environmentally friendly as possible.
In recent years, Youth Assembly passed resolutions urging the URC’s General Assembly to recognise the climate emergency and divest from fossil fuels. These resolutions were agreed and adopted by General Assembly and have influenced policies at synod and local church level.
Now every synod within the URC has registered as an ‘Eco Synod’, with West Midlands first to achieve a Bronze award. Almost 200 URC congregations have registered as Eco Churches, with St John’s Marsh Green in Southern Synod the first to receive a Gold award. Almost half of all congregations within West Midlands Synod and the National Synod of Scotland (where the scheme is administered by Eco-Congregation) have signed up, with Green Apostles or Green Advocates in all our synods working hard to support and encourage more environmentally friendly churches.
When it came to recognising URC Youth’s environmental achievements, however, there was a problem. The URC Youth structure doesn’t fit neatly into the ‘Eco synod’ or ‘Eco church’ categories, so Helen Glasse, Eastern Synod’s Youth Representative, appointed to serve as Green Apostle for the Youth Assembly Executive in 2021, searched for another way to celebrate all their hard work in this area.
The team at A Rocha responded with a unique solution to this unique issue by writing a letter of commendation, addressed to the URC Youth Assembly and Youth Executive.
In it, Andy Atkins, CEO of A Rocha UK, and Helen Stephens, Church Relations Manager for Eco Church, said: “Whilst we don’t have an award or recognition scheme for young leaders, there is no doubt that the growth we’re seeing in Eco Church can only be achieved and sustained by the sort of cross-generational leadership which we know you are demonstrating. Thank you for being such a significant part of this movement and for helping the whole of the URC to respond to the dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.
They concluded in the letter: “Please continue to make your voices heard, to demand action and accountability from leaders and to take practical actions yourselves such as you are doing in running your event in an as environmentally sustainable way as possible. Leading by example is so powerful.”
Roo Stewart, the URC’s Programme Support Officer for Church and Society, presented the letter at Youth Assembly at Sunday morning business, saying: “This special recognition is highly deserved and testament to the sustained hard work and commitment of the young people of the URC in caring for creation. The leadership that has been shown is remarkable and has been a tremendous gift to the wider church.”
For more information on church eco award schemes, visit ecochurch.arocha.org.uk/ in England and Wales, and in Scotland visit ecocongregation.org/.
A Rocha UK’s letter can be read in full here.