Packaging the Church
So, as many of you may have noticed lately I’ve been on somewhat of an environmentalist tear, ranting and raving about waste, consumerism, and green issues. The reason of course is because I love where I live, the earth. It’s awesome! God made it. It’s awesome. Did I mention it’s awesome? So anyway, when I read things that make sense from a “hey let’s use less and preserve God’s artwork for our kid’s kids to see” I like to point them out and if possible relate it to how we function as a church and how this makes use more relevant and credible to the rest of the world.
Today I happened upon a post by Seth Godin, my favorite marketing genius, who had the displeasure of buying a new mouse which came in near bomb-proof packaging. I can totally relate as I’ve been in a similar situations myself and of course I start immediately thinking about how this doesn’t really relate to the church because, well, we don’t really package much of anything, right? Well, not so much.
I recently received an update from a church on “what’s happening in their world today” which immediately came to my mind as I started to dismiss this point from the Church’s responsibility. The note came on a full sheet of letterhead, in a normal sized #10 envelope, with normal sized envelope postage. The same information could have definitely been sent on a postcard using half the postage, half the paper, and wait… this church has my e-mail address! There’s no reason that they had to send me this letter in the mail, when my preferred modality is most definitely digital. So, the lesson is that YOU as a church marketing professional need to be conscious of how the church marketing campaign you’re running is using resources and make a conscious effort to reduce, reuse, and recycle!
If you haven’t heard me say it before, listen to me say it now. The Church needs to be conscious of how we use the resources He gave us. Stop wasting paper. Get a recycling bin for waste paper and watch how quickly it fills up. What about those cute little plastic cups we use for communion? Do they get recycled or tossed in the trash? Could we opt for a single cup “dip it yourself” solution instead? Think about it, 2 services of around 500 people, 26 times a year equals 26,000 little plastic cups tossed aside either in the trash or to be recycled (still wasting energy of production costs and recycling costs). Teach people how to care for the planet while you teach them about the one who made it!
I’ll step down off of my soapbox for a bit and say this… I love you. The Church. God’s children. My brothers and sisters, whether you’re saved yet or not, I love you. We’ve been doing this all wacky for a long time and getting frustrated and angry with those environmentalist freaks for being so in love with the earth but I think they have something important to teach us. They love the earth because it’s beautiful and unspoiled and perfect before we mess it up. We love it for those same reasons but so much more. We love it also because our Heavenly Father created it for us, to show us how incredibly huge and awesome his power is that he can be infinitely small and yet infinitely huge at the same time.
Love Him first… then respect what he gave us. Say thanks to God for this earth he made for us and show him how much you appreciate it by being a careful steward of the parts you touch.
Stay Green!
