Yesterday, the New York Times front page featured Denmark’s choice for alternative fuel: trash. The Danes are burning trash in environmentally-friendly incinerators that filter the pollutants while producing energy. They have 29 such plants (there are around 400 across Europe). Fifty-four percent of their waste is converted into renewable energy and only four percent ends up in a land fill (In America, over fifty percent ends up in a land fill).
[If you want to get involved in ministries of environmental justice join the Indiana Conference’s Creation Care Team. Contact Dennis Shock at dennis.shock@aol.com]
Church leaders need to be like the Danes and learn how to convert the trash in the church into productive energy. The trash is the complaining, the belly aching, the gossip, the criticism—talking trash—in the hallways after worship and in the classrooms during meetings. There is a lot of litter in the church.
We need to take the negative energy and redirect it to good use. First, this requires us to stop complaining ourselves. Church leaders tend to be the worst when it comes to belly aching, precisely because they have the most to complain about. Do not succumb to the temptation. Second, stop tolerating the complaints. Cut off the conversation when it becomes a grip session. And the best way to end discussion is to ask a simple question:
‘OK, what are you willing to do about it?’
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