Sustainable churches
Is your church looking for innovative ways to manage your grounds, engage your congregation and local community? Are you applying for Eco Church or other environmental awards? Are you involved in Creation Care or Wilder Churches? Read about how Ripple Effect’s farming techniques can help you use your church grounds more sustainably and inspire your congregation to combat the climate crisis.
These simple African designed techniques will encourage biodiversity, improve your soil and provide you with nutritious food to eat! Watch as your land is transformed!
Improving your Church Land
Bag gardens are a simple way to grow vegetables in small spaces, whether in Africa or in your garden! A hessian sack filled with a mixture of soil and compost around a central column of stones, bag gardens filter water to vegetables planted in the top and around the sides.
Instructions to make a bag garden
A keyhole garden allows a family to grow enough food for three meals a day – even in the face of an extreme climate and poor soil. The garden, shaped like a keyhole from above, encompasses a circular raised bed with a central basket where compostable waste is placed along with used water from the kitchen.
Instructions to make a keyhole garden
Stemborer moths and Striga weed are two major threats to cereal crops in east Africa. The families we work alongside use intercropping techniques or 'push pull technology' to reduce pest damage to crops such as maize. Stemborer moth larvae bore into maize and kill it and Striga weed latches on to maize roots, draining them of nutrition.
Learn how it works
Utilise the same sustainable farming techniques as our farmers and use marigold leaves, chilli or onion to create a natural pesticide.
Instructions for natural pesticideGlobal engagement
Twinning your church garden will plant hope for a family in Kenya. Your donation of £60 could help a family living in rural Migori, Kenya, with three years training in sustainable organic farming.
Starting with small kitchen gardens, families can grow enough to eat, set up small businesses, send their children to school and go after their dreams.
Learn more about church Garden Twinning.
Your church can help farming families living on the front line of the climate crisis and create a wave of change across rural Africa.
Worship and information
As your church starts to use the land more creatively, why not create a contemplative space in your church garden. It does not have to be a large space or a well-stocked garden, just somewhere where you can sit and be. A space where you can enjoy the world around you and appreciate God's creation.
Download this pdf to learn how to create a contemplative garden.
Host a Special Sunday this Harvest using our All Age Service. You can adapt the suggestions to suit the needs of your church and utilise the additional resources included on our website.
Sign up to email newsletter Making Ripples for Top Eco Tips about how to improve your church gardens and care for God’s earth. Hear stories from farming families in rural Africa who are living life on the front line of the climate crisis and pray for our work.
Sign up to Making Ripples.
Composting can transform lives
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