The Simple Pastor
Simplicity & Generosity
The early church: unbelievably generous: I’m reading Henry Chadwick’s history The Early Church and there are some ... http://bit.ly/a5CIUn 11 hrs ago
*This is the second (the first is more of an intro here) post into ‘why I think consumerism should be a big deal for Christians*
It’s quite a headline really, when you stop to think about it. Pretty much everything these days seems to be about the environment. Climate change was one of the themes of the last decade and will be one for the next ten years too. If you’re sick of hearing about it, talking about it, thinking about it then I have some bad news for you, in all likelihood this train is only just beginning to pull.
There are massive forces at work reshaping the way our world works (and some fairly hefty forces resisting any such change), but governments (and importantly most of the big ones) are slowly changing too. Take recycling waste for example, almost everyone in the UK deals with household waste differently to ten years ago, more is recycled than ever and looking forward you’ll have increasingly less choice in the matter. Recycling will be what we all do, what we have to do.
Laws will make your cars more energy efficient, increasing numbers of electric vehicles will begin to appear, hybrids will change our petrol stations. Already incentives are available for households to generate electricity and grants available to reduce waste through insulation and new boilers. These are just a few of the ways your life is changing because scientists and governments believe our climate is changing (and not really for the better).
Tied to all of this political drive are the cultural battles taking place, those preparing for a brave new world where cars are obsolete, travel is restricted and everything gets local. It’s a back to the future kind of approach, a blending of nostalgia for ages past and a hopeful mix of new technology and thinking. At the same time a sizeable majority are appalled at the idea of not being able to buy strawberries in winter or driving to the shops in a 4×4. Development agencies are lobbying, oil companies are lobbying back. It’s grassroots against big business.
At the heart of much of the campaigning for change is the belief that our current way of living in developed nations is unsustainable, we simply can’t go on like this, goes the thinking. We buy too much, waste too much, need so little. This is mostly true. This is at the heart of consumerism. (more…)
I’m rapidly becoming a fan of Tim Chester’s books (I think I own 4 at last count) and I think you should be too. I’m convinced that most of us western Christians have a very poor handle on our time, we’re pushed around by the culture and our busyness makes our relationship with God thin and weak. Which isn’t surprising because Jesus’ warned us that this would be this case if we were preoccupied with the cares of this world.
The Busy Christian’s Guide to Busyness tackles our priorities and our ineffectiveness. But it’s not really a time management book but a book which exposes the lies that lie behind our over-busyness. The lies that we prefer pressure but actually procrastinate (that’s me), to needing the money or the lifestyle, to remain in control, to maximise our life or to feel significant. Yet each lie is countered by truth from the scriptures that bring us to a place of rest, confidence and peaceful trust in God.
The examples are helpful, the scriptures enlightening, the style is readable and most important of all the message is vital. Too often I hear about people who’d love to love God more but busyness kills the desire dead. Rules and time management principles will become the pharisees rules when what we need is more grace.
This is an excellent book that deserves a wide audience because we need to heed its message. You can read an extract here.
The Evangelical Alliance have started a campaign called Simplify as part of Life Beyond Debt, the Evangelical Alliance’s response to the current economic crisis. Naturally enough they came to Breathe for some stories. Have a read and consider joining the campaign come October
We suffer from having too much stuff. Sometimes I think we have too little space but mostly I think we have too much stuff. The question then is ‘how do you get rid of it?’
Here are my top places for getting rid in (mostly useful) ways of the surplus in my life.
*Update* I meant to add this but couldn’t find it because they’ve changed their name but check out www.streetbank.com which is a new idea launched by some guys known to us at Breathe. Have a look and see if you can join in and make it happen…seems like a good idea
I’ve not bothered with ebay or amazon, because giving away things for free is more enjoyable for me.
If, like me, you happen to have a few key issues that stand out above others (justice, generosity, simpler living etc…) the danger is that you become a bit of an ethical bore continually banging the same tired old drum. I’ve tried very hard not to force the issue on the rest of the church from the pulpit (we don’t actually have a pulpit but you know what I mean).
So it was a huge encouragement to learn that one of our Life Groups have taken it upon themselves to regularly discuss an ‘ethical living’ issue amongst other things and tonight was their first on the issue of food. Sounded interesting and fun.
As a church we’ve a long way to go on so many of these issues, but even having people who are willing to talk and discuss and encourage each other to make good life choices for their family, for the earth, for their community is really encouraging.
Click on the pic for an enlarged version
HT: Lifehacker
I’ve mentioned it a couple of times but we’ve had a shocking run of things breaking down (boiler, cooker, dishwasher, car exhaust and so on). What’s struck me is that on almost all of these occasions my first thought was ‘better go out and buy a new one’.
Broken cooker – time for a new one. Broken car – is it time for a new one? Part of the issue is that most of these things we own are actually quite old. The car is catching up the Starship Enterprise for miles on the clock for example and the cooker would have been showing it’s age in the 80s. At some point they will all need replacing so considering that option isn’t unreasonable. But it was my first thought. I didn’t think can they be repaired but can they be replaced.
The throw away culture it seems is pretty ingrained in me and that love of something new and shiny. I am in the words of Lily Allen a ‘weapon of mass consumption, it’s the way I’m programmed to function.’ Or at least I would be if it wasn’t for the Gospel.
Now I’ve never heard a sermon connecting the cross to fixing kitchen appliances so perhaps the link is a bit tenuous. But Romans 12:2 tells me not to be conformed to this world, not to fit into their mould and way of thinking. Christ is the means by which I can be transformed, that my mind would no longer be slave to old habits of thinking but be alert to the coming Kingdom. In Him I’m a new creation and that changes everything. Christ gives me a new heart and new mind, the Holy Spirit reminds of truth and I must learn wisdom and discernment.
In Lev 10:10 God tells Aaron to learnt he difference between holy and unholy, clean and unclean, good and evil. I’d take that to mean, ‘Phil, you need to think about the way you live in this world, the habits of thought you develop, the assumptions you have’. So, I need to be alert to my own thinking, watchful that sin and worldliness doesn’t gain ground through a slow creeping action.
I think stewardship, generosity and contentment are all part of what I’m aiming for and the world I live in encourages me to be carefree (read careless) in my spending, selfish and discontented (always wanting the new thing). I must think and then act differently.
I’m not against new cars, new cookers or new anything really. It’s just I don’t need them yet. We do need a new carpet, so we’re getting one. And the cost of fixing all of the above was far below what it would have cost me to replace any of them, or even one of them.
Suddenly and unsurprisingly frugality and thrift seem to be eminently sensible. It should be a point of note that people tended to view this kind of simplicity as somewhat bizarre while we were in the middle of the boom and shopping frenzy (not all that long ago), but now it seems its wisdom all the way.
If you’re interested in how to live more simply or simply need to prune the outgoing column of your budget (or even make a budget) then Lifehacker has a couple of useful posts each with links to plenty of other useful posts on doing all of the above.
At some point in the years after WWII our economies changed. The western world evolved into consumer economies. You are a consumer. I am a consumer. We have even designed our systems to measure your level of consumption. In fact from the point of view of a nation’s economy, the more you consume the more useful you are, even if you acquire massive debt in the process. The only point where this becomes problematic is when you can’t pay and default on your debts, because someone has to pay. Someone ALWAYS has to pay.
I’m not sure I’m happy with being defined as a consumer. I’m not sure I want to be measured by the strength of my appetites, be it for food, books, music, entertainment, travel or whatever. That doesn’t seem to fit within my biblical calling to be a steward, to be a follower, to be a worshipper or virtual any description of a Christian that I can think of.
There are plenty of problems that come from being consumers, not least the challenge of personal debt and the increased pressure it places on the environment. Because we consume, we rarely keep, we’re always looking for a replacement, we need MORE.
But we’re never satisfied by the new TV, the car we drive, the phone we carry, the clothes we wear. In fact you’re not supposed to be. If your dream was actually attainable then you’d stop consuming and that would be a problem. No, they want you coming back again and again and again for what is new.
But this mindset is a bit viral, it spreads beyond the wallet to relationships, family, character, work, society and so on. It undermines our satisfaction with ourselves, our lives, our partners and virtually everything. It’s not that we can’t be happy, but that we can’t be content. You do a word study to find the one the Bible encourages us to be.
There are problems with a consumer mindset for the church, because we measure church by how much it satisfies us, rather than how satisfied God is with us or even how satisfied in God we are. We start to measure churches in unbiblical ways – comfort of chairs, quality of sound, entertaining preaches, quality children’s programmes and quality coffee. I wonder how the church of Jerusalem or Antioch or Ephesus measured up under those criteria?
Instead, Jesus calls me to define myself by my service to God and to others and not my service to myself. To consider others first, to seek first not my own appetities and desires but the kingdom of God. It’s pretty rare that I go shopping with the kingdom of God on my list. Jesus challenges me to find my satisfaction elsewhere, we don’t live on bread alone right?
For more read a great article by my friend Mark Powley here at Breathe
It’s a while since I’ve posted on the subject of sustainable ways of living, but it’s certainly not gone away. So it was an encouragement to me to read this post by Mark Heath and he makes some interesting points.
On Global Warming:
“It seems that the consensus is that global warming is real and man-made, although every now and then I come up against skeptics (some more believable than others). To be honest, I’m not sure I really need to know. Most of the “good for the environment” things you can do have merits of their own irrespective of whether the planet is in immanent peril or not.”
I agree. And one of his final points is worth thinking about too…
“Second, I think the reason so many Christians care so little about environmental issues is nothing to do with their eschatology but rather because of syncretism. We have made it possible to mix Christianity with secular materialistic consumerism.”
Sadly, this is probably true too. But do read the whole thing.
I also came across this on MSN listing 21st Century Lifestyle Sins. Interesting choice of word, sin still has some resonance today it seems. I am regularly committing sins 2,6,7,9,11 & 12.
I wasn’t even thinking about this blog and then you find a real gem – I was Googling around the idea of ‘The Big Pitcure’ for a talk at church and came across Big Picture TV
This is what they offer:
Big Picture TV streams free video clips of leading experts, thinkers and activists in environmental and social sustainability. We offer a general audience analysis and commentary from a growing number of world leaders including scientists, journalists, economists, businessmen, designers and politicians.
Some interesting stuff for sure and well worth dipping in to…
Had a conversation with a friend of mine, Dave, today and we wandered into ethical living territory and it seems him and his wife Esther have made huge strides in making their lifestyle more sustainable. I wondered aloud about the options available to me – the basic stuff, the structural stuff has mostly been done, so where do we go from here?
Our lightbulbs are low energy, we recycle, compost, have a water meter, only one car (oh ok and a motorbike), we bank with an ethical bank, we try and take the environment and people into account in our buying decisions and we live fairly frugally but still very comfortably.
So where do I go from here? I think there are two sides to this for me, one is reducing the footprint, recognising that western lifestyle takes too much out of the world and making efforts to balance that out in some way, the second is having a reason a goal, to discover something better, richer, deeper than what is offered by consumerism…
I believe Jesus when he said 'life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions'. I believe he offers something better. This blog is mostly about that search.
I'm also a church pastor, a bookshop owner, a husband, a father, a keen runner, reader, and motorcyclist. These and a few other things make guest appearances from time to time.