Fife Network
The latest news from our Fife Network.
Season of Creation 2026 – Living Water
You are warmly invited to help shape our Season of Creation resources for 2026 (6th September – 4th October 2026). The theme this year is Living Water, based on Ezekiel 47.
Each week there will be prayers and reflections for every passage in the Lectionary. You are invited to be creative and share with us something new that can be shared with others; videos, poetry, art. To find out more watch our invitation video and get in touch with David Coleman.
Celebrating 25 Years of Eco-Congregation Scotland
On Saturday 28th March Eco-Congregation Scotland celebrated our 25th anniversary at our Annual Gathering and AGM in Perth. Thank you to everyone who joined us on the day either in person or online. Our special thanks to our speakers, and to all the volunteers from St Matthew’s Church of Scotland who made us so welcome and supported the running of the event.
Marjorie Clark, Session Clerk at St Matthew’s opened the day with prayer. Our morning speakers included Sharon Hall from Operation Noah who spoke their Church Land Use Vision, and Carolyn MacPhee from SCCAN (Scottish Communities Climate Action Network).
Adrian Shaw and Margaret Warnock then led us through a reflection on the last 25 years, with those in the room and online adding their stories. You can read more about the history of Eco-Congregation Scotland here.
Before our AGM, we launched our new website, with thanks to Gerard Donnelly of We Contribute. We will continue to add resources, news and events to our new website in the coming weeks.
We then shared in some delicious cake.
At the AGM we heard from our Chair, Richard Murray and Treasurer Mary Sweetland and welcomed Sarah Young to the board of Trustees.
In our afternoon sessions we heard from Catherine Lloyd, Tayside Biodiversity Project about the many ways to connect with nature in our church grounds. Stephen Curran led a workshop on connecting on issues for the Scottish Parliament election in May. Fintan Hurley and Russell McLarty led a workshop on connection with other people. Our Chaplain David Coleman shared with us on connecting through prayer in a climate crisis before leading our closing worship.
During the day people were asked to look back and reflect on what they were thankful for over the last 25 years. Here are some of the things they said:
“The opportunity to encourage so many churches to care for Creation”
“Knowing that caring about creation is not just me in the church”
“Involvement in action, learning and sharing worship with an Eco heart”
Thank you again to everyone who came and along and made the day possible and also to everyone who has been involved in Eco-Congregation Scotland over the last 25 years.
Eco-Congregation Scotland: The First Twenty Five Years
Dedicated to the memory of Sheena Wurthmann (1944-2025)
In the Beginning
It hardly seems credible, but we are now more than a quarter of the way through the twenty first century and at the same time, Eco-Congregation Scotland (ECS) is now twenty five years old.
At a time of discord and difficulty in world events, it is good to pause and reflect on what has happened during these past twenty five years and how ECS has grown to attract so many churches to its mission of caring for creation.
It started in March 2001 when ECS was launched at a service in Dunblane Cathedral, part of an ecumenical environmental movement developed by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. The first registered eco-congregation in Scotland was Barclay and Viewfield Parish Church in May 2001. With start up support from Keep Scotland Beautiful and the Church of Scotland Society, Religion and Technology project, the early growth of ECS was enabled by talented staff and volunteers including Victoria Beale, Eleanor Todd (now Eleanor Harris) and Margaret Warnock.
Some important features were established early in the story, for example: an awards scheme was set up to recognise the achievement of eco-congregations; local area networks were established; and a website created to offer a range of resources. The awards scheme recognises the great work done by eco-congregations across Scotland and the local area networks encourage cooperation and knowledge sharing across communities. The first ECS award was made to Callander Kirk in 2002 and in the first decade the movement took off. By 2006, 100 churches had registered as eco- congregations.
In 2007 the Church of Scotland appointed a Climate Change Officer, Adrian Shaw, part of whose remit was to support ECS and help congregations respond to the challenge of climate change. The post was created in response to increasing concerns from partner churches and development agencies about the impact of climate change around the world and helped to shape the work of ECS in its formative years.
Becoming a Charity
ECS was successful in gaining financial support from the Scottish Government and others, including the Scottish Episcopal Church, Christian Aid and SCIAF. By 2008, 200 congregations were registered. ECS became a charity, registered with OSCR in 2010, with Ewan Aitken as chair and Gordon Hudson appointed as manager. David Bethune and Judith MacLeod were regional coordinators who offered tremendous support to local networks. The new charity also received generous support from the United Reformed Church, who made available a minister on secondment to ECS as Environmental Chaplain. Trevor Jamison was appointed in March 2013, and the role was subsequently taken on by David Coleman in 2018. The Environmental Chaplains have visited eco congregations across Scotland, encouraging and challenging them to reflect, in worship, what it means to care for creation. David’s skills as a video artist have been shared widely, for example his contributions to the Season of Creation – a month long celebration held every September. Climate change has become a subject of growing concern, with ECS encouraging churches to monitor and manage their carbon footprint. In 2015, at the suggestion of Sheena Wurthmann, chair of the ECS board, eco-congregations around Scotland were invited to take part in a relay, carrying a baton around Scotland engraved with the message ‘Time for Climate Justice: Churches in Scotland Demand a Deal in Paris, December 2015’.
The baton was taken to over a hundred communities and then a small delegation, led by Sally Foster Fulton, took the baton to Cop21 in Paris. In Paris they joined church groups from around the world in a ceremony at the basilica of St. Denis to call for climate justice. Eco-congregations have been involved in a range of community activities: encouraging biodiversity in church grounds, installing low carbon heating systems, promoting food, gardening and orchard projects, developing pilgrim routes and engaging in advocacy. Nationally, ECS has been a prominent participant in the Stop Climate Chaos Scotland campaign, lobbying the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament. Internationally ECS was active, with financial support from the European
Christian Environment Network, in the creation of Okogyulekezet, the Eco Congregation movement in Hungary.
The 2020s
The new decade brought new challenges and concerns, both financial and political. The covid pandemic hampered the ability of churches to promote environmental action, and terrible wars in Ukraine, and in the middle east, have highlighted the world’s dangerous dependence on fossil fuels. Between the covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine came the UN climate conference in Glasgow in November 2021(Cop26). With over 80,000 participants it was by far the largest environmental gathering ever held in Scotland and the city became the centre of attention for political leaders and the worlds media.
Faith groups from around the world came to Glasgow. ECS, in partnership with Interfaith Scotland and others, and still under Covid restrictions, rose to the challenge to welcome and host guests, organise events and listen to the stories of global partners. Pilgrims walked from across Britain and Europe to join a rain soaked march in the city. For many participants it proved an unforgettable experience.
2026: a member led organisation
At a time of division, eco scepticism, and global discord, ECS faces its own challenges. With reduced grant funding and financial support from denominations, the charity now relies on its member congregations and individuals to support the organisation and shape its future. In 2026 eco-congregations across Scotland continue to champion creation care: hosting community events, opening up their green spaces, reducing their energy use, campaigning for climate justice and incorporating creation care into everyday worship. We give thanks for all the volunteers who have championed our movement over the last 25 years.
-Written by Adrian Shaw, Eco-Congregation Scotland Trustee, March 2026 –
Stirling Network – Save the Date
Upcoming events:
Hustings
Stirling Methodist Church (Queen St, Stirling) will host a Scottish Election hustings on the theme Climate and Social Justice, on Tuesday 21st April 2026. 7.30-9pm. The event will be for people of all faiths and none and will be open to the public.
Network Meeting
Our next local network meeting for the Stirling Eco-Congregation Network will be held on zoom on Monday 25th May at 7.30pm. Our Stirling network meets online quarterly and provides a space for churches to share their news and ideas. This ecumenical group is open to churches of any denomination and we’d love for you to join us.
Registration details to follow.
Perth and Kinross Local Network
We are delighted to announce that our Perth and Kinross Network is starting up again. Our local networks offer the chance to connect with others in your area, sharing ideas and building community.
This first meeting will be an informal meeting with tea and coffee and the chance to hear what other groups are up to and to encourage each other. Following meetings will be shaped by those who come along. If you are unable to make it on this occasion but are interested in future meetings, please do let us know. If you are new to Eco-Congregation Scotland or have been involved for years you would be very welcome.
Monday 22nd June at 7.30pm
St John’s Episcopal Church Princes Street, PH2 7HU.
Our local networks are run by local volunteers. This meeting is being jointly hosted by Elaine Cameron (St John’s Episcopal Church) and Karena Jarvie (Kinross Parish Church). To register your interest in this event please contact Karena Jarvie
COP30 Briefing
Cop30, the UN Climate Change Conference, will take place at Belem in Brazil from Monday 10 November 2025 to Friday 21 November 2025. This briefing has been prepared for Eco Congregation Scotland and Interfaith Scotland to help raise awareness and encourage participation in environmental action across Scotland.
Context
The context for the conference is challenging.
- The US Government is openly hostile towards climate justice and, at the UN in September, Donald Trump described climate change as the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” . Other governments and the EU appear to be stepping back from earlier commitments.
- The process agreed at Cop21 in Paris to promote climate action is faltering. All countries that were signatories to the Paris agreement were supposed to submit updated ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDCs) to the UN by February 2025, but only 62 had done so by September. 2024
- Development agencies like Oxfam argue that financial support to developing countries hardest hit by climate change has not materialised at the scale envisaged at earlier Cops.
- Oil companies and banks are distancing themselves from commitments on climate change. The Net Zero Banking Alliance folded in October 2025 and development of new oil and gas resources continues apace.
- It’s not all bad news! In October 2025 renewables overtook coal as world’s biggest source of electricity. Emissions of greenhouse gases have been falling in the EU and USA. China, while still the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions, excels in the production of solar panels, wind turbines and battery technology, and the cost of these technologies has fallen rapidly. Sales of electric cars are increasing and most of Scotland’s electricity now comes from low carbon wind power.
Events
Mass for the COP 30 Summit: Monday 10th November, St Andrew’s Cathedral & Eyre Hall, 196 Clyde Street, Glasgow, G1 4JY. Event Link
Resources and Links
Christian Aid:
COP 30. Why we need to work for climate justice
SCIAF:
Afro-Colombian & indigenous leadership in loss and damage solutions
Tearfund:
Tearfund at COP30
World Council of Churches:
Faith leaders position COP30 as peoples cop
Prayer resource (from Christians in Edinburgh and West Lothian)
https://www.cop-prayer.uk/home
Season of Creation 1: Talk at Mass: St Andrew’s Metropolitan Cathedral Glasgow
Greetings in the name of God the Sustainer, God the Word made flesh, and God the Wild Wind who blows-where-they-will. My name is David – I’m an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament in the United Reformed Church, one of the smaller UK denominations.
You might call me a “protestant”, though we actually avoid that word in our official documents. Christianity as respectful solidarity with the diversity of the friends of Jesus is quite sufficient.
Over the last seven years I’ve visited churches of all shapes and sizes, from the Borders to Shetland, and in every one, I’ve celebrated Pope Francis’ Encyclical letter of 2015, Laudato Si. To the church, and to the world.
Why? – because I work full-time with EcoCongregation Scotland, the ecumenical grassroots movement of churches committed to care of Creation. Which enriches and deepens our love for God.
The aim is not to convert any church to a particular way, but rather to encourage every tradition to make the most of the particular treasures which sustain and define your identity.
To discover what it means to follow Christ from an awareness of the sickness of the planet, and the causes of that sickness in knowingly chosen human injustice.
Green church,- I’m convinced, because I’ve seen it -green church is more church.
Forty-three catholic churches are among more than six hundred local churches, colleges and communities, from all over Scotland, who have joined in the twenty-four years since our movement started. Some of them can be proud they’ve achieved bronze, silver or gold awards for their combination of practical spiritual and global integration of faith and action – and of course, encouraging their neighbouring churches in similar initiatives.
Prayer and worship expressed as insulation, litter-picks, heat pumps and solar panels. Or maybe it’s all prayer, just “using words when necessary”.
This deepens our faith, and enriches our joy. With eyes wide open to the signs of our times, Christian faith as a resource for times of crisis, now makes more sense than when I was ordained thirty years ago this month. And there’s every encouragement to work more closely together to encourage the care of the common home.
In twenty-four years since the movement began, we’ve seen the rise of a global crisis of nature and climate. Truly, there is no precedent.
It is alarming that some in politics are trying to make capital out of denying this. Lies like that hurt the most vulnerable. It’s vital that churches continue to use their moral authority to support, in love, the truth we need to know to change direction – to embrace what Pope Francis called ‘environmental conversion’. The “transformation of hearts and minds toward greater love of God, each other, and creation.
It is a blessing that worsening climate events have been accompanied by a blossoming of scientific insight that these are not ‘natural’ but caused by human activity.
Caused above all by global injustice surrounding the burning fossil fuels, including in the everyday transport, industry and domestic use of our culture.
Our global north culture, which is only just beginning to transition to other ways of doing things. As all your bishops noted just before the COP conference last year, the urgency of this transition is matched only the requirement that it be justly conducted.
Transition is a must, but transition must be just! I observed first hand the science and the campaigning at COP26 here in Glasgow. COP drew people of faith and goodwill closer together in common prayer and purpose. Archbishop Nolan will remember walking through the November rain with the rest of us, to make these concerns visible.
At every level, from the conversations over the garden fence to the supportive lobbing of our elected representatives, we need to build on that togetherness, not let it slip away. Scotland is not alone in these responses. In the last two years conferences, in St Francis’ hometown of Assisi, have worked towards hard-wiring a day of prayer with Creation into the calendars of all the world’s churches.
Just for the conversation with delegates it was a privilege to attend.
Hearing from a leader of churches in the Middle East how “when the climate crisis is deep, the blessing within the church is abundant.” And Cardinal Fernandez affirming that Jesus … was in constant contact with nature, filled with affection and awe.“
I have met and spoken with sisters and brothers in faith who have already experienced the destruction of their homelands as sea levels rise; and other catastrophes in climate and nature. The gatherings around COP26 in Glasgow were such a great gift of knowledge and friendship. Not just in the Season of Creation, but throughout the Christian year. For speaking the truth in love, which sets us free to act and to change.
Over these seven years, I’ve spoken with colleges training priests and pastors who will be called to lead God’s people in the building of hope and resilience during the entirety of their pastoral and liturgical ministries. Your encouragement and support will be vital to their rising to this challenge. It’s in a renewed consideration of our scripture, tradition and liturgy that we find Good-News resources to enable us to face and respond to the very bad news, which we know will be with us for some generations.
As with other forms of prayer, by the grace of God: every small initiative is valuable.
But every neglect and denial does harm.
Pope Leo’s message at the beginning of this Season of Creation has also been very useful in my work, preparing resources for the Season and offering homilies and sermons in churches. The message recognised the causal linkage we can see in the major prophets of the Old Testament between knowing, chosen injustice, and environmental harm. Pope Francis and other major religious leaders have already asserted that to eradicate nature is sin, no ifs no buts.
And for the church this century, care for creation is the cake, not the icing!
Season of Creation Schedule 2025
The full selection of resources, including short versions of video reflections, can be found here https://www.ecocongregationscotland.org/creation-2025/
Bible Study on the global theme passage, ‘Peace with Creation” : Isaiah 32:14-18, written for a webinar with Student Christian Movement of India is HERE
Prayer: Rt Rev Rosie Frew: [G A Moderator, Church of Scotland] graphic text
First Sunday 7th September
***EcoChaplain visits St Andrews RC Cathedral Glasgow
talk following 10am mass
Notes and prayers: click HERE
Sermon-slot video click HERE
Poem: “My Church” by Chris Abraham: video HERE
Second Sunday 14th September
***EcoChaplain visits St Giles Cathedral Edinburgh, preaching in 11am service
Notes and prayers: click HERE
Sermon-slot video click HERE
Poem: “St Cuthbert’s Procession video, by Barbara Usher HERE
Third Sunday 21st September
***EcoChaplain celebrates 30 years in ministry at Augustine United Church
Edinburgh, 11am Communion Service
Notes and prayers: click HERE
Sermon-slot video click HERE
Poem: “Requiem for the bee” by Lorn Macintyre video, HERE
Fourth Sunday 28th September
***EcoChaplain preaching at St Andrews West Glasgow 11am
Notes and prayers: click HERE
Sermon-slot video click HERE
St Francis ‘Canticle of the Creatures;, illustrated by Christine Mailey video, HERE
Fifth Sunday 5th October
***EcoChaplain at St Andrews Episcopal Cathedral Inverness, 11am
Notes and prayers: click HERE
Sermon-slot video click HERE -Includes exciting walk to An Teallach
Poem: “Jelly in July ” by Marian Pallister video, HERE
Faslane Prayer
Rev David J M Coleman
Environmental Chaplain, EcoCongregation Scotland [A special category ministry of the United Reformed Church]
Sustaining God
as everything with breath sings out in praise;
your indiscriminate love and care
for all Earth’s web of life,
overwhelms us,
Christ’s teaching of the priority
of love for enemies
disarms us
And the transforming power
of the Wild Wind the Spirit
fills us with courage to attend
to a story so different
from those of power and Empire,
these eighty years, since all doubt fled
of what’s at stake with nuclear weapons.
So we long for a security built on trust,
on negotiation
not eradication:
A story built on costly integrity,
rather than violent hypocrisy driven by fear.
As people of faith, we do not hide: we make it plain
that the name of Christ cannot be enlisted
to bless or even condone such evils as are guarded
behind these barriers;
Guarded conscientiously by our fellow citizens,
with lives and loves and families of their own.
And faith.
Thus we pray too, for them, with them;
with urgent love, with understanding,
for change of hearts and minds
for all who are caught up
in this self-defeating project;
We pray that they may set aside the tools
of Earth’s destruction
and attend instead
to the care of our Common Home,
already groaning and suffering
from the damage committed
both knowingly and unjustly
through fossil fuels, through waste,
and the dogged refusal
to attend to the voice and the rights
of the poor, the planet
and to all those with whom
your rainbow covenant still stands.
AMEN
