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Blog Entry 2 of 2 The Genesis Effect
Thoughts on the church, culture and living one's faith in Jesus

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~PastorRand

Shouldn't all churches be green?
Contributed by: Rand Clark   on 4/2/2008

I begin with confession... I am not a brilliant theologian, but I try my best to understand.

I am not a scientist, nor to do I begin to suggest that I understand half of what they tell me. I am not a significant pastor and I really have no desire to be such, except maybe to those who God has allowed me to touch. I am a church planter and most days it is all I can do to rely on the Holy Spirit to live as He would have me to live

In recent days, the issue of Environmentalism and Creation Care has again been brought to the table for discussion within the SBC. I was asked to consider the SBECI and sign it prior to its release a few weeks ago. I did review it but did not sign it, for my own reasons, even though I continue to be in support of the debate and dialogue it has sparked.

This issue is important to me and many others like me. Even this morning, sitting in a coffee shop writing down my thoughts I have had conversations with 5 others about the environment and my faith; some who consider themselves followers of Jesus and some who do not.

I am not in a position to make broad statements about this issue and its implications in our denomination. I can only share from my experiences and tell you the story of how the church I lead engages in this dialogue.

In our context, the environment holds a position of high importance among the members of our community. We did a very unscientific survey, but went to 60 homes (2%) in our neighborhood and asked them on a scale of 1-5 how important was taking care of the environment. We were not shocked when the data showed the average response to be just over 4.

They are not the "tree huggers" that live in trees to protest expansion but we describe them as the soccer moms who recycle and use CFLs. They spend their free time in the mountains, at the park, fishing, skiing, camping, biking, hiking, etc. In fact, in our community we often say that the biggest barrier to God is His creation. They love creation but have no relationship with the Creator.

We have not found the environment to be a distraction to the Gospel but rather the exact opposite. It has connected with a value within our community and afforded us opportunity to share about Jesus.

I frequent a local coffee shop to use their internet and spend time with people. Last week I was waiting for my drink and talking with one of the Baristas. I don't even really know how it came up but I had an opportunity to share with her about a project our church was promoting. It was simple, global event last week, that encouraged people to turn off their lights for one hour Saturday night.

Her first question after I shared about the event was, " Why are you promoting this?" I told her that my church was interested in helping people take care of God's creation so we involve ourselves in activities like this and encourage others to join us. Her response... "Wow, I didn't know churches did that sort of thing." That sparked about a 10 minutes conversation about faith in which I was able to share with her about my faith in Jesus. Since then we have continued the conversation about faith and environment.

For the same event, we used our connections at the local Chamber of Commerce to help promote the event to the businesses in our community. I had a similar discussion and reaction from one of the staff members at the Chamber. I have never had a spiritual conversation before with her, but since this event connected to one of her values, we had an extended conversation about my church and why we champion God's creation.

The week prior, I was promoting one particular event at another business leadership gathering that lead to numerous conversation about spiritual things and my faith in Jesus. Again and again the response was the same, "I never though the church or Christians cared about this stuff."

Last year, we passed out 1,000 environmentally friendly light bulbs to our community (not CFLs). I was stopped a few weeks latter by one young couple regarding the light bulbs and our church. The wife told me that she liked what we were doing so much that she took the bulb to her church, the Mormon Church down the street. This led to a 45 minute long conversation about the differences in our faith. Because we shared the value of the environment, she initiated the conversation where I got to share about Jesus.

You see, for me, the issue of faith and the environment is not a political issue (although I fear that for too long it has been made into one, thereby damaging our witness in the culture). It is not even a scientific one, for they cannot agree on what the science is telling us about our impact on the world. For me it is singularly a Biblical issue; God is the Creator of everything and has asked us to be good stewards of it.

In a culture today that relies upon it's humanistic, "good works" hope of eternity, taking care of the environment is rising up the list of do and don'ts that they believe they will be judged against. I see people that are on wife number four but would not be caught dead driving anything other than their Prius.

For me, this provides us with a huge door of opportunity to connect with people and share our faith.

Ask someone why they recycle, drive a hybrid, clean up trash along a trail, or use energy efficient light bulbs or appliances and you will probably get a response like; "it is the right thing to do, it helps the environment, I want to reduce my carbon footprint, it saves me money, etc." If you are doing it with them I bet they will ask you the same question. My response to them, "I worship the God that created all of this and have a relationship with Him through His Son Jesus. I take joy in being able to help take care of what He created."


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Showing 1-3 of 3 comments
Submitted By: Barbara Neff
posted on 4/3/2008 @ 11:28:37 AM
Rated Blog Entry
yes, church-goers should all "go green" because we should all go green. church-goers certainly are stewards of our planet, just as each human being is, church or no church, religion or no religion, and all personal beliefs aside.
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Submitted By: Gail Kirkegaard
posted on 4/2/2008 @ 6:45:25 PM
Rated Blog Entry
I'm Lutheran (LCMS). You did hit on the Biblcal perspective - that we are stewards of God's creation. We should do our share of reducing our footprint. When it comes to making donations, given our financial limitations, I prefer to support causes which sustain and preserve human life. Thanks for the discussion! We could use more like this at YourHub, (as long as they remain civil.)
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Submitted By: Rand Clark
posted on 4/2/2008 @ 5:28:55 PM
(Not Rated)
By the way... some of you might be wondering what the SBC and SBECI are. The church I lead is a Southern Baptist Church (SBC) and there has been a recent storm of dialog and controversy over the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative. My thoughts here, were initially intended for the audience within my denomination. I felt, however, that there are others out there that might also benefit from entering this discussion.
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Showing 1-3 of 3 comments
CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Rand Clark

Monument , CO

Rand Clark has posted 2 blog entries and 5 comments since joining on 7/12/2007. Rand Clark 's average blog rating is 5.
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