by Wm. David Waterman

Created on: December 26, 2008

I have considered the Recycling issue as a christian from a pastor's view when I was pastoring mission churches and as a business person operating a recycling business.

My personal convictions tend to colour all of my opinions regardless of what I am addressing. So I see recycling as a natural by product of a true christian. I realize this appears to be a ridgid, no vote, no discussion, no opinion asked for position on my part. But hear me out before you decide. First of all God did not call robots to serve him. He called human beings to whom He gave freedom of choice. We can choose to do what we know is the responsible thing to do and we can also decide to ignore those same leadings by God. We are called to be good stewards of what we recieve from God and we are directed to be givers and not takers from the society we are in and the world at large.

I am somewhat amused that we don't realize that churches and shelters(for people in need) are already recycling on a grand scale. Churches are usually running thrift shops and food ministries. I see tons of food that is otherwise dumped by restaurants given to our homeless shelters in my area, and the thrift shops I patronize use the proceeds for ministries and missions or to support the poor. But we get tangled in the semantics, and fail to see that we can go above and beyond those activities and do more. Whe we refer to recycling, we often think of recycling in very narrow terms.

There are many ministry opportunities that are missed for lack of funds or lack of communication into a new area. My recycling business had a large number of homeless people that sold cans and scrap metals to support themselves. They had learned the value of what other people discarded and were capitalizing on those discarded items. When those clients brought their cans in to be paid, I used the business transaction as a door to minister to their spiritual needs. There are many people in my area now living productive lives because of the meeting over the recycling scale. In addition, school teachers, scout leaders, and many other youth groups would recycle to raise money for their activities.

The other area where we as christians often fail to see an opportunity to recycle is in our building programs. We often equate shiny new buildings and cars as proof that God is blessing our ministries or churches. But if we measure the blessings of God by those standards we are of all people the most blinded by false status symbols. God is in the the

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