Congratulations to Kilbride Presbyterian Church on receiving Eco-Congregation Ireland’s 10th award!
The presentation was made to the minister and congregation of Kilbride, which is near Doagh, Co Antrim, during morning service on Sunday 26 May 2013.
The church has undertaken many steps in recent years to become more eco-friendly and is particularly noteworthy for its initiatives that benefit the local community, including litter picks, craft fairs, bulb-planting and helping developing a local river walk. To find out
more about Kilbride’s eco initiatives, see here.
Presenting the award, Sr Catherine Brennan, ECI chairperson, said: “We need to appreciate all over again that the Earth is vivified by the living Spirit of God. As Christians, we are called to live as members of the Earth community and to be partners with God in the ongoing creation. This moment of crisis calls for a
spirituality and ethics that will empower us to live in the web of life as sustainers rather than destroyers of the Earth and her resources.
“Kilbride Presbyterian Church has begun to live this vision. On behalf of Eco-Congregation Ireland, I am delighted to present them with an eco award this Trinity Sunday – the second Presbyterian Church in Ireland to be so honoured, Fitzroy in Belfast being the first one. I congratulate Kilbride’s eco group, and indeed the whole congregation, on their dedicated work for God’s creation. This is a landmark award too in that Kilbride is the 10th Christian church or diocese to receive an eco award from us.”
Rev Karen Campbell, Minister of Kilbride, said: “At Kilbride we believe we are called to strive for the ideal of God’s shalom in the community in which we live. We are delighted to receive this eco award today and pray that it will spur us on to hand on a land to the next generation that reflects more of Christ’s kingdom goodness.”
Bertie Stirling, who co-ordinates Kilbride’s eco activities, said the initiatives undertaken by the congregation were a “natural response”. “Over many years members of the congregation have responded to situations and needs,” he said. “As Christians they have looked at how something could be improved, how someone could be helped, how something could be saved, how we could look after our environment better.
“Members of Kilbride do their best to live God’s love for the whole of Creation in the way that they worship, manage energy, dispose of waste, shop, plant and treat people globally and locally. The congregation has plans to use even less energy in the buildings, travelling to church, work with the local community group and the council to improve our local environment and support those individuals who are prepared to give up their time to help communities in need.
“Many members of our congregation have just responded through their love for the Creator, whether it is caring for people or wildlife or air, land and sea. We read in the Bible, when the earth was created God saw that it was good. It must therefore be worth caring for.”
Other churches to have received Eco-Congregation Ireland awards:
Clonakilty Methodist Church: 2008 & 2013 (only church to have received two awards)
Whitechurch Church of Ireland, Dublin: March 2011
Dundrum Methodist Church, Dublin: June 2011
Fitzroy Presbyterian Church, Belfast: October 2011
Rathfarnham Quaker Meeting, Dublin: December 2011
Rathfarnham Church of Ireland, Dublin: January 1012
Diocese of Kerry (Roman Catholic): May 2012
Oblate parishes of Inchicore, Dublin: September 2012
Diocese of Cashel & Ossory (Church of Ireland): April 2013
St Molua’s Church of Ireland, Stormont, Belfast received an award in 2002 from Eco-Congregation Scotland & Wales (Eco-Congregation Ireland was not set up until 2005)