Jeff's Blog: Green Or Not?

Because of my position I am often asked about things that you will probably never hear me talk about in my weekend talks. Not because I don’t care or have an opinion (If you know me you know I have an opinion on most things!) but because that the mission and vision of what I do in my position is very clear and I stick with it in every talk. So, I thought my blog might be a place to give voice to some issues that I am often asked about. Besides I would love to hear your opinion.

One that I often am asked is about being Green? Am I Green and should the Church be more Green? Here’s my simple answer: As a follower of Jesus, God the Father is my loving heavenly Father and we are called to be faithful stewards of God’s creation, responsible for its care and use. That being said let me give a few of my thoughts and observations:

1. Christian Environmentalism is more about the fact that we worship and acknowledge our creator. Be it that we are being faithful stewards with the money He gives us or the world we live in, we do so as an act of worship to our creator who gives us all things. Unfortunately, many Christians are motivated by the trendiness of being “green” or quilted into it by the world, rather than living the value of worship and the results of that being stewardship of all God has given us. Stewardship is not just a trendy thing.

2. The other concern is that stewardship is replaced with a subservient mentality. In other words, we cannot allow concern for the environment to lead to worship of the environment. We worship the creator, not creation. It could be easy to buy into the mentality that we were created for the earth rather than the truth of the Bible; God created the earth for us. Much like we see in scripture that the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath. God has blessed us with much that is for our benefit, not so that we would worship any of His gifts. We are to worship Him alone.

How quickly the trends of society change, already this issue is quickly taking a back seat. Just listen to the political debates and you will see where the trends of society are going. For the Christian, ours is not to be trending and make the Bible fit into the latest and greatest concerns rather to live by the values God has given us through the Bible – His Word. As we do so we will be able to avoid the trendy and hip things of culture and faithfully steward the blessings of the Father.