Environment and Hypocrisy

Last week I presented on sustainability and church buildings at the Worship Facilities Conference and Expo in Atlanta, GA. It was a lot of fun; our talk got applause, and we were congratulated by the US EPA's director of EnergyStar for Small Businesses and Congregations. I'm glad it has become part of the dialogue regarding church buildings, excess, and utilization. There are over 10,000 buildings currently certified or registered with the US Green Building Council as LEED certified, and only 13 are church buildings.


Even so, as I learn more and more about sustainability, I recognize that there are an infinite number of ways to be more environmental at home, personally, and holistically.


I've been teased for being an "extremist" for tearing the plastic windows out of my junk mail so I can recycle the paper envelopes. And yes I've tried to get off every junk mail list I can.


We built a home in 2002 with as many environmental features as we could afford, and it does work almost as well as we had hoped - so there's an element of putting our money where our mouth is.


But then I meet someone who hasn't owned a car for five years, or who only uses a push-mower, or who commutes to work on a bicycle daily (rain or shine), or who doesn't own a clothes dryer. There's a guy in New York City who is doing a year-long experiment on whether or not he can be completely carbon-neutral for a year. And he lives on the 11th floor. And he and his wife have a pre-school child. Another great example is Matthew Sleeth who writes brilliantly on Christian spirituality and the environment in "Serve God, Save the Planet" which is in my favorite links on the right. But he doesn't just talk about it, he lives it.


There's always more that can be done to leave a smaller footprint on the earth. And as you learn more about the possibilities, you realize how far there is to go. It's funny how much trying to be more environmental is like trying to hate sin and honor God. (Maybe because that's precisely what it is? Whoa. Think about that.)


People treat me like some sort of "expert" in the area of sustainability and, folks, I have a long, long way to go. If you think there's hypocrisy in the church, try an environmental group meeting. What strikes me the most is that we're all at different places in living our lives in a way that is kinder to Creation - and that we have to have grace in teaching eachother and humility in learning from one another. Again - this sounds like a faith journey - and just maybe that's because it is.


I recently heard a statistic from the book "Unchristian" by Davin Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons that surveyed the attitudes of unchurched youth ages 16-29 and 87% believe the church of Jesus is hypocritical. I think that is low. I know, because I've been a church insider all of my life, and we are 100% hypocritical. I am a hypocrite. In fact, I've never met anyone who is not in some way a hypocrite, churched or unchurched. If we could live, work, and communicate with grace and love, and not judgement, there would be far fewer claims of hypocrisy because we would not be setting ourselves up to fall down. We're all "in process".


Cool how all of this dawned on me in a new way because of recently re-examining my life and how to live it - from an environmental perspective.