Unpacking Truths
Dive deep into God's word and unpack divine truths for today's life journey. In a world where everyone is seeking, join us as we guide you to find hope and power in God's timeless wisdom. If our discussions spark questions or ideas, reach out to us at UnpackingTruths@LOCChurch.com. Don't forget to Like, Share, and Subscribe, allowing us to continue helping people unpack God's truth for their lives! Hosted by Pastor Kendall Koenig and Pastor Maureen O'Connor of Light of Christ Church in Algonquin, IL.
Unpacking Truths
Taking Care of Creation
Ever wondered how the Bible guides us in caring for the environment? Join us as Pastor Kendall and Pastor Mo unpack the profound truths of environmental stewardship from a Christian perspective. Hear insightful stories from their own lives, enriched by reflections on their families' and communities' practices. Delve into the scriptures from Genesis and Psalms and discover how viewing the world as God's creation can revolutionize our approach to environmental care. We also highlight generational differences, with a special nod to Gen Z’s proactive stance on sustainability and a powerful quote by Billy Graham that deepens the theological understanding of stewardship.
Explore the pressing issue of single-use packaging and its environmental impact, especially on socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. Pastor Kendall and Pastor Mo share personal anecdotes, such as the struggle to recycle Costco cookie containers, and discuss how even small, conscious actions can make a significant difference.
In the coming up portion of the episode, the conversation takes a heartfelt turn as we address colorism and societal beauty standards, offering practical steps to provide positive representation for all skin tones.
Tune in for inspiring stories, practical advice, and theological insights that encourage us to make a lasting impact on our world, both environmentally and socially.
Help share this podcast with others, so they can experience the freedom of God's truth, and we unpack it together! Like, share, subscribe or visit unpackingtruths.com for more info!
Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe for more Unpacking Truths!
🎙️ Listen to Unpacking Truths on your favorite platforms:
✝️ Connect with Unpacking Truths:
- UnpackingTruths.com
- UnpackingTruths@locchurch.com
😃 Connect with Unpacking Truths on Social Media:
So today, on Unpacking Truths, we are going to be talking about creation and our responsibilities as followers of Christ. What this looks like to take care of everything the world, nature, insects, animals, all that good stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm Pastor Kendall.
Speaker 1:And I'm Pastor Mo.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Unpacking Truths, where we dive deep into God's timeless truths for our lives today.
Speaker 1:Grab your coffee, open your hearts and your minds. Come take this journey with us as we unpack God's truths. So, growing up, what did this look like for you as a follower of Jesus and you grew up in the church and your dad was a Lutheran principal right and your mom a teacher at a Lutheran school Was this instilled in you? This idea of taking care of all of creation?
Speaker 2:Well, when you named insects, Mo what I actually thought of. I took care of mosquitoes by swatting them. That was how I took care of that part of creation.
Speaker 2:So, yes, I mean I grew up. I'm 60 years old now, so, going back, I mean I remember when I mean I think before I remember it, you know, you start to see the green triangle of sort of reduce, reuse, recycle, and my dad was someone who loved the outdoors and so he very much had a sense of an ethic, of we wanted to care for creation, and so I grew up around that I even had except for mosquitoes.
Speaker 1:Except for mosquitoes, those could be gone for now and forever. Apparently, mosquitoes have no souls.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do not. Um and uh, and I even grew up with um. Both my parents grew up on farms. So so that sense of caring for the farmland, and I remember seeing up on my grandpa's wall he had won an award at one point for sort of progressive farming practices that were about sort of caring for the soil to create less erosion and some of those things. So I've been exposed to this idea that, yeah, the world is not simply our garbage can or our ashtray, but that it is a gift from God. And there's so much scripture around that. I mean from Genesis, the very beginning where God created the world and he said it's good, it's very good.
Speaker 2:Right, it's very good Right. And so I grew up loving nature and that sense of treasuring, the gift of wild places as well as settled places.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Very cool. Okay, so well. And when I think about this you brought up Genesis and how we're called to work the land and take care of the land I also think about Revelation, how the whole story of what God is doing, too, is reconciling all things back into the right order, right, and so making all things right, and that includes creation. When I think about myself growing up, although recycling was something that was very commonplace, I was never. We never talked about it. We never talked about, like how we shouldn't be polluting, you know, our air or water. It wasn't like a thing that I saw, you know readily. I didn't live next to a factory or wasn't exposed to certain things, so I don't think I, you know it really wasn't brought up and I'm going to like true confession I just kind of threw like a bunch of stuff I think I shouldn't have in the recycling bin and just kind of hoped for the best.
Speaker 2:Oh, back then or yesterday are we talking?
Speaker 1:about.
Speaker 2:Whoa whoa. I'm just asking, I'm just trying to clarify.
Speaker 1:No, my kids actually were Gen Z. They are like gung-ho about taking care of the environment. They don't play around. Man. If I throw something wrong in that recycling bin, I am shamed like hardcore shamed, and so and, and you know, they want me to clean it out and all this stuff. And I'm like doesn't someone do that at the garbage place? But I mean, and that's, and I need to work on that, so that's so I need to work on that of what it means to really view this differently. Right, because I think we need a certain kind of lens if we're going to look at this the way God wants us to.
Speaker 1:And I think about a quote that I saw from Billy Graham and I thought it was pretty powerful. He said why should we be concerned about the environment? It isn't just because of the dangers we face from pollution, climate change or other environmental problems, although these are serious. For Christians, the issue is much deeper.
Speaker 1:We know that God created the world and it belongs to him, not us. Because of this, we are only stewards or trustees of God's creation and we aren't to abuse or neglect it. The Bible says the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. When we fail to see the world as God's creation, we will end up abusing it. Selfishness and greed take over and we end up not caring about the environment or the problems we're creating for future generations, and I think that's absolutely true. We are selfish when we don't care about the you know pollution or what we're doing or how we're living, because we aren't thinking at all about those who come after us and and building a foundation for them and planting, you know, doing things correctly so that they can prosper. And yeah, I just thought that was pretty powerful.
Speaker 2:Very powerful, very powerful quote. You know, I think there is there's so many layers to this and so many aspects to it, mo, and this is again one of the questions that was raised by one of our listeners. So thank you for raising this one up so we can take a few minutes to reflect on it. There are so many great scriptures. Billy Graham quoted Psalm 24.1.
Speaker 2:You referred to Genesis 2.15,. The Lord placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it, that we have a role in this of tending. I mean it's like a garden that's been entrusted to us, but it's not really our garden, it's God's garden. And so how are we doing that? And I think you know, just to step back a minute from this all as we were preparing for it, I was just thinking that animals impact their environment. I mean birds gather grasses and things to make a nest, and gophers burrow underground, and so they change that. And beavers do it the most when they create dams on a stream and flood an area, so they change their environment. But clearly the creature that changes the environment the most are human beings that we are changing so much. I just think of the property that we're on. We had big bulldozers over here to recontour the land, to do what we needed to do on it. We change the very environment we live in.
Speaker 1:And so often without thinking ahead of time and really thinking how is this going to impact the ecosystem? How is this going to impact, you know, just everything the biodiversity that lives in this space? I think about invasive species and how we've introduced them, you know, into different places and how it's really impacted certain places, like, for instance, so many species are becoming extinct because of this, especially on islands, because of we invite these invasive species in. I read a quote that and we'll give you guys all the content, everything will be cited where we got this information from. But the natural rate of extinction is estimated to be one in five species per year, but the current rate now is a thousand to 10,000 times faster. On average, one species goes extinct every hour. And then the World Wildlife Fund reports that the population decline of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles have averaged 60% lower in the last 40 years. So I mean we're just because we're continuously doing this without thinking of how it's impacting One man's collection of a South African beetle and he was from South Carolina, so this was in 1996, his collection of these beetles literally destroyed the bee colonies in the area and then they went on to even go do that in different areas like Florida and bees are so important pollinators.
Speaker 1:They make up one third of the global crop production of fruit and vegetables. Um, they, they also provide half of the world's supply of oils, fibers and raw materials, and so it's like wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it almost starts getting overwhelming when you start talking about it in that way, it's like your beetle collection dude. Did you need it Really?
Speaker 2:You know, I think there is this challenge that we do things yeah and the challenge is we never fully know the all the implications of it I don't think we think about it well, I, even when we I mean I think as a as humanity, we've started to think about it more. I mean I think back 50, 60 years ago, when they introduced ddt to wipe out certain insects, and then it it started weakening the shells of birds and so, like eagles, were dying, and then eventually we had to ban DDT.
Speaker 1:Weren't they like spraying that off the back of trucks?
Speaker 2:or something too. I don't even remember.
Speaker 1:That was before my time, my mom said that that they were like spraying it off the back of trucks and the kids would go chasing the trucks.
Speaker 2:I don't know about that story, but I do know that there are things where we think we're doing something, even right or good, and sometimes there are ripple effects, but we also can't stop doing everything. And so how do we find that and how do we continue to think about not just what works for me, but what works down the road? What works down the road, what makes sense not just for me, but for my kids or my grandkids or, yeah, future generations? I think is a helpful way to frame it that, if we have been entrusted with the gift of this planet, you know, and we're passing it on, what are we passing on? And we need to be thoughtful about that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well and you know being created in God's image and you know we see in the Psalms especially how God delights in creation. And also our commandment is to not just love God and what God loves and steward that, but also to love our neighbors. And if we're really honest, most of the areas where there's the most pollution and those who are affected are really impoverished areas and poor areas. In developing countries especially, that's where most of the air population are linked to deaths because the laws there are incredibly weak, there's no vehicle admission standards and there's lots of coal power stations, and this is impacting lives. And yet out of sight, out of mind, like what do we have to do to maybe bring some of this stuff as leaders in the church to the forefront and have us thinking about this? And have us talking about this Because in essence, it's our responsibility If we are the body of Christ and every member matters, and how we care for or don't care for our brothers and sisters half across the world in these areas are impacting us in ways beyond our comprehension.
Speaker 2:I think some of the challenge becomes is it starts getting so overwhelming?
Speaker 1:to think about.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the things that I've just become conscious of in the last few years is packaging. How much one-use packaging stuff that I end up using, you know. I just think of all these clamshell things that you know those things?
Speaker 1:What are those? Those like styrofoam-y things that fly everywhere? No, I'm not talking about those.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about those clear plastic things that I just got my Costco cookies in. That keeps all the cookies not getting mushed together. But I use it once and then I get this big old plastic thing that I just try to recycle, but a lot of it doesn't get recycled.
Speaker 1:You don't upcycle that. You change that into like your tool holder or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I have not figured out. That would be ideal.
Speaker 1:That would be the reuse part of it, if you cared you would upcycle that and put Connie's makeup brushes in it. There you go and be like here, honey.
Speaker 2:I made this for you, Okay, but then what do I do with the cookie container that I get two weeks later, or the one two weeks after that? I think there are a lot of challenges, even when you get conscious of it, to begin to change behavior, that I think there's both individual things we need to thinking like okay, I can't do everything, but can I do this, this and this to to honor this, the gift of this planet? And even if I can't change everything, can I change these things so that we don't get paralyzed with how overwhelming but how do we learn even how to change those things?
Speaker 1:Because, if we're on it like I'm going to be really honest, I don't remember much conversation about creation and caring for it. Growing up in the church, I don't remember it being talked about. Even in churches I've led, I'm going to be like I mean I've had, unless I had someone in the congregation who was like very into it. It wasn't an initiative that I could personally take on because I had so many other things happening. So it's like how are we being intentional in the church to talk about this? No, we're not going to save the world. It's like talking about poverty. It doesn't stop us from helping certain, maybe children, receive clean water. Right, like when we ran the marathon. For what is it?
Speaker 2:World Vision.
Speaker 1:World Vision, yeah, to help provide clean water in certain areas of the world. We don't go like, oh, it's everything's so overwhelming with this idea of needing clean water. Let's just not do be paralyzed and not do anything, but like how do I think, just how do we? Maybe it's educate more um, come up creatively, maybe make space at the table to talk about ways we can, we can do this better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have probably not led in this area here. At Light of Christ Mo.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm not just like talking about Light of Christ, but like in general.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, yeah, I don't think it has been a major focus, yeah, and because there are so many things to focus on, but I do think we need to acknowledge it and engage it. And again, it's kind of like the how do you? When issues are so big and there's so many implications and so much that we can't control at all, it is easy to just sort of throw your hands up and go I can't do anything about it. And what are the things that we can do? And rather than what can't we do? Are there a few things we can do? And some of it is becoming aware and some of it is taking the action that we can take as a community of faith, as other churches, but also as individual Christians. I think some of this is also how do you, as you reflect on your own voting and in your choices in those ways, how do you shape things that way? I think there are different ways to choose, to act and to think about that, but again, there's so many layers to it it's hard to sometimes know.
Speaker 1:I would love to hear from our listeners are there certain things that you've implemented in your life to be more aware or conscious of how to care for creation, how to care for our air, our water, other people in different countries or different areas? Even Because I was even looking at different stats and I was shocked because it's like I wonder if we're not talking about it because it really doesn't affect us that much in certain more established communities. Honestly, we don't see it. The American Lung Association talked about all these studies that showed evidence that linked areas of low socioeconomic status with premature death from fine particle pollution among 13.2 million Medicare recipients and Medicaid recipients. So here are areas where these people premature death is because of pollution, and that's 3.2 million people of lower socioeconomic status.
Speaker 1:And that was like heartbreaking and it's like if I lived in an area where my children were exposed to this factory and all the pollutants that are being pumped out, and I would be enraged as a mother and it would matter. And so I wonder, I feel kind of convicted a little bit about this, like I should. How do I care more? I should be caring more. What are we supposed to be doing? Not that we're going to save the world or change everything, but thinking through it, at least as the community of body of believers, as people who are called to do this work body of believers as people who are called to do this work.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the challenge I mean, I think those facts are real, I think the challenge for all Christians is well, but I don't own that factory, I don't know how I can impact that issue, and so some of it comes back to. I think there is an awareness we need to have so that we aren't oblivious to these dynamics. But then what are the actions I can do? And let me tell you, I mean one of the things there's this big push about not having straws, because so many straws, paper straw.
Speaker 1:My kids got paper straws, making me use these paper straws. They get soggy in my mouth. They're the dumbest invention ever. I'm sorry, they're horrible.
Speaker 2:But see, that's the place where we're wrestling right now is what we like, and what is convenient isn't always best for the environment, Absolutely. And so are we willing to give up our convenience, and I agree. And I've heard those same complaints in vehicles when we've gotten those, or when they say we're not giving straws anymore and we're like I want my straw, I mean soggy straws. When you get those paper straws, no one likes that and other people are like well, let me get a metal straw.
Speaker 1:So I'm reusing that.
Speaker 2:And I think those are little things and I think part of what as people who recognize that we have received this planet as a gift and we want to hand it on and that it is God's in the first place. We need to do the things that we can do.
Speaker 3:We can't do everything.
Speaker 2:I can't take out the swirling mass of plastics in the Pacific Ocean. I don't know how to do that.
Speaker 1:But I can do certain I thought all things were possible through Christ, who gives me strength.
Speaker 2:They are, but not possible for Kendall. But the things that I can do are you know, am I thinking about how much packaging? Am I buying stuff with double, triple, quadruple packaging? Or am I even conscious of that? Am I considering-.
Speaker 1:Or when you do get a lot of packaging, what do you do with it?
Speaker 2:Well, we recycle what we can.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Absolutely Can I tell you what I do with it, and I know it sounds so extra. I literally put it in like those big industrial garbage bags and then I use it to pack other things up, like if I'm moving or I'm packing things or I'm going somewhere, I put it in there as like cushion. I just reuse it, but I don't know if that's helpful.
Speaker 2:Are you talking, those little nuggets, pastor Mo?
Speaker 1:No, I'm talking about those little peanut things.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I save some of them. I do, and then I also. Well, I give some to my friend too, because he actually has, and we'll link this. He has a program for kids where he takes garbage and creates things out of it, or shows the kids how to make things out of it, like productive things, like gum wrappers you can make purses. He takes different plastics and creates like bags out of it, like actual bags you can use. It's really kind of neat. I mean, I don't have talent for that, but he does, so I give some of the stuff to him.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think it does become. What are the things that you can do, and are we conscious of this? Are we aware of this? Are we asking God for wisdom? Are we trying to learn and doing the things that we can do?
Speaker 2:So what are some things that you do, you guys do well, I mean, we recycle, um, that, I um, uh, I mean that's probably the simplest things. I try to look at what sort of packaging I'm buying stuff in and can I get it in less packaging. Yeah, um, I think the you know trying to be conscious of driving and you know, hold it. Can we get by with one car instead of taking two cars somewhere?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just trying to think. In all sorts of little ways Am I being conscious and a good steward of the resources, not only the resources that I have, but the physical world in which I live in. I also think about. What chemicals am I using?
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean, I think there's so many different areas where this applies, and it's not that everyone has to do. You know that we should be judging everyone, because they're not doing this?
Speaker 1:No, we can't judge what are the ones that we can do. Absolutely. And then is there?
Speaker 2:are we continuing to stay open to other ways where we can be?
Speaker 1:doing that? What are the small little changes that feel realistic for us, in our context, that we can actually do? Yeah, unless God called you to something bigger? Right, like to dive into the ocean, like you said, and start scooping up all the plastic? Is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 2:No, but there are some really cool inventors who are looking at creative ideas of how to deal with that.
Speaker 1:I do love that yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, I think, looking at those and being aware of those efforts and, where appropriate, supporting those efforts, yeah, where we can, absolutely supporting them as well.
Speaker 1:So we would, like I said, we'd love to hear from you regarding what do you do? What are small little changes, things that seem practical or big? Has God called you to get out there and do something, maybe campaign for something that helps with taking care of God's creation? We'd love to hear from you Next time on.
Speaker 3:Unpacking Truths. There is still this stigma of being darker. I never experienced that If you were more fair or lighter or somewhere in my range of skin tone, you didn't get those types of jokes. But for the girls that were darker skinned, they would get those jokes and they would feel like you know they would want to be lighter.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think even around the world you'll see that where there's this push to be lighter or even to have more of a European look Like that, we would experience that in different ways. And so for me, like even with my daughter, when it comes to like her Barbies, I give her all of the different types of colors and hair and all the things, because I know that that can feed your subconscious. You don't realize it.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us on this episode of Unpacking Truths. If anything that we discussed sparked any ideas or you have any questions, we would love for you to go to unpackingtruthscom, or you can also email us at unpackingtruths at locchurchcom.
Speaker 2:And don't forget to like, share or subscribe to the podcast, because you doing that allows other people to connect to this content and grow with God as well.
Speaker 1:Until next time, we hope you know that you are loved.
