Eco Church

At St Mary's we take very seriously the role that we are called to play in stewarding God's Creation. We are proud to be enrolled in the Eco Church programme, which is supported by the Christian environmental charity A Rocha.

“The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it” (Psalm 24 vs1)

“For by him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” (Colossians Ch1 vs 16)

Being part of Eco Church helps us think about:

How to ensure that our worship and teaching aligns with our calling as Christians to steward God's Creation
How we look after the land and buildings entrusted to us as the current congregation of St. Mary’s
The way we live both amongst our local community and as global citizens, and
The personal choices we make in our lives when it comes to travel, diet, energy use, etc.

In January 2022 we started our Eco Church journey when we were awarded a bronze and then in December 2024, we were delighted to receive a prestigious silver award. We’re really grateful for all the hard work, enthusiasm and commitment of many people across the whole church family who have made this possible. We hope now to be able to work towards gold. And, of course, as you progress along the road it becomes more and more challenging, so that journey won’t be possible without the help and support of more and more people in all sorts of different ways.

How might you get involved? What are the unique gifts, talents and enthusiasms that you could bring to the table? Please fill in one of our digital forms to highlight the particular areas that you are interested in. This will help us to keep in touch and to keep you informed of developments across the whole Eco Church project.

Eco Church Silver Certificate
Here is some more detail on our activity across the five areas that make up Eco Church:

Worship & Teaching

As an Eco Church St Mary’s is committed to making care for creation central to its worship and teaching. This is reflected in an annual Creationtide (1st September to 4th October) service with liturgy and prayers dedicated to God as Creator and Sustainer of all life. We arrange for guest speakers to share with us their special knowledge and experience of creation care. In recent years we have welcomed Eco Church gold award-winning Tring Baptist church, Ben Niblett from Tearfund, St Peter’s, Quarrendon community garden designer Dave Furze, and environmentalist and theologian, John Weaver.

Management of Buildings

We have completed an Energy Audit of our church building and for our bronze accreditation we switched our electricity supply to a green tariff. For silver we’ve installed LED lightbulbs both internally and externally, and Smart metering. Our entrance doors are now motorised. This increases accessibility for people with mobility issues and for young families with pushchairs. It also promotes energy conservation and efficiency as previously the heavy glass doors were often propped open.

In 2024 we commissioned GeoEnergy to carry out a desktop feasibility study for the most energy-efficient and cost-effective Net Zero Carbon replacement for our aging gas boilers. That study recommended a Water Source Heat Pump (WSHP) using nearby Hampden Pond. In 2025 we secured funding from HS2 to install a 40m deep borehole to recharge the pond, restore its ecology and increase its viability for a WSHP. In 2025 we also secured a stage 1 grant from the Church of England’s NZ Demonstrator programme. That will pay for a detailed site-based options appraisal (ASHP, GSHP and WSHP) and an environmental impact assessment should the WSHP be the preferred option.

Borehole

Care of Land

On regular churchyard maintenance mornings, we've created bug hotels, woodpiles and built a new compost area. We’ve also installed bird and bat boxes. A wildflower meadow area has been seeded. More than 400 saplings have been planted to create hedging. All these activities provide habitats for plants and animals to thrive.

How You Can Help: Sign-up for the next churchyard tidy-up and help with our plans for conserving nature and promoting biodiversity.

barrow

Community & Global Engagement

To enable climate action activities more widely across Wendover, a number of St Mary's congregation formed the community group Climate Action Wendover. This runs independently of St. Mary’s, but we cooperate closely on many activities.

On the global level, St Mary’s takes part in Christian Aid Week. The annual campaign focusses each year on a different area of acute global need, often impacted by the climate crisis. The campaign raises both funds and awareness of the scale of the challenges facing vulnerable communities - and the work of Christian partner organisations in providing sustainable long-term solutions.

Lifestyle

We admire Ruth Valerio’s work as an advocate for ecological work from a Christian viewpoint. She has worked for A Rocha in the past and is now Global Advocacy and Influencing Director for Tearfund. We very much recommend her website - a fantastic read is Ruth's book L is for Lifestyle.

Remember that our very own shop JUST is completely stocked with ethically traded gifts, clothing, food items, cleaning products and the like. Supporting JUST not only provides income to many individual and family businesses around the world but is an additional source of funds for St. Mary’s.

Earlier this year we encouraged people to adopt New Year’s resolutions that would be particularly beneficial to the planet. There are, of course, lots of things we can do as Ruth Valerio book points out. We focussed on three:

Cycling or walking to church, and
Shifting our banking, our pensions and our savings, wherever possible, to institutions with ethical and sustainable values. And signing up with a green energy supplier.
Trying as best we can to buy LOAF which stands for local, organic, animal-friendly and Fairtrade.

It’s always much easier to make changes as a group, swap ideas and inspire each other – so talk about these issues in the organisations you belong to, with your family and friends. And why not join Climate Action Wendover - and help us to make a real difference in the fight against climate change.

To help you identify and reflect on what you might do differently to help you become a better steward of God's created world, take a moment to complete this Environmental Lifestyle Survey.

If you'd like more information or you'd like to get involved, please contact Sian Chattle, David Blackmore, Paul Moring.

Hello and welcome to St Mary's. If you are a new visitor, we have a page for you to get to know us and learn more about planning a visit.
Click here to see more.

Visitors click here

Planning your Visit

A Warm Welcome!

The following information is specifically for those planning to visit us for the first time, so that you know, beforehand, what to expect on a Sunday morning.

Where and When

We meet at St Mary's Church in Church Lane, Wendover, for our two main Sunday services each week, which start at 9.00am and 10.45am. For your first visit, we recommend arriving 10-15 minutes early to ensure you get a parking space and find somewhere to sit before the service begins. When you arrive, you will be greeted by someone on our Welcome Team.

Plan your journey

Accessibility

There is wheelchair access, and a sound loop for anyone who needs it. Please let one of the Welcome Team know on your arrival and they will help you to get set up. There are disabled toilets in the Church Centre, which you can find through the door towards the front of the church on the left hand side.

Our Main Sunday Services

Our 9am Holy Communion is a more traditional service, including music and hymns in an established style but using up-to-date language. It will probably appeal to those who are used to more formal Anglican worship. There is no provision for children at this service.

Our 10.45am Sunday Worship services follow a more informal style with contemporary worship songs. These services are typically most suitable for families. Children of all ages are very welcome and we have activities for younger children at the back of church. On the second and fourth Sundays of each month, we share Communion at this service. The first and third Sundays do not include Communion and are designed to be rich in teaching and learning for people of all ages - from 2 to 92!

You can find details of our other services here.

Getting Connected

Small Groups

While Sundays are a great way to meet new people, it is often in smaller gatherings that you can really get to know someone. Being part of one of our small groups allows you to make new friends, share together and support each other. We have a variety of groups that meet throughout the week, some afternoons and some evenings. Check out our Church Life section on this website to see if there’s a group that you'd like to join, or we can put you in touch with a small group leader who will be more than happy to invite you along to their group.

Serving and Volunteering

If you want to get involved in the life of the church, why not sign up to serve on a team. We are always looking for volunteers to get involved in different aspects of our work.

Get in touch with us to plan your visit

If you would like to come and visit the church beforehand you are more than welcome! St Mary's is open every day from 9am to 6pm and you would be very welcome to come and have a look around before you come to a Sunday service. In the meantime, please fill in the form below if there is anything you'd like to know.

Name:

Telephone:

Email Address:
Comments / Questions or anything you would like to say?

We hope that whoever you are and wherever you come from, you will feel at home at our church.

Best Wishes,

Sally
Rev Sally Moring