Remember several months ago when Sheryl Crow proposed her "solution" to saving the earth: to use only one square of toilet paper per sitting?

Sheryl's words drew much ridicule. But around the same time, I also heard criticism on the radio about Christians--how they were much to blame for the global-warming, neglect-of-the earth state of things because of their belief in the temporariness of their stay on earth.

The words made me both happy and sad. Happy in that the world seems to know what we're about, but sad in that we're not perceived as being good stewards of what we've been given.
In his book Generating Hope, author Jimmy Long describes five ways Christians--and the church we represent--relate to culture:

1. The Assimilating Church: Tries to become relevant by adopting culture's characteristics.
2. The Protecting Church: Builds walls around self to keep out sin and change. Develops a bunker mentality.
3. The Unchanging Church: Ignores culture.
4. The Battling Church: Fears annihilation and fights back
5. The Influencing Church: Sees the world as a mission field and us as missionaries.

If we're assimilating, we don't have anything to offer different from the world. If we're protecting,
we become isolated. If we're unchanging, we become irrelevant. If we're battling, we develop an "us-vs-them" mentality and are seen as persecutors. But if we're influencing, we're befriending and dialoguing and impacting change for eternity.

Yes, as Christians we are living for another world, but right now, we're living in this one. You and I can make the "green" platform a place of influence. After all, God did tell us to take care of things: "Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it" (Genesis 2:15). Tending and keeping is still our job. Recyle. Use sparingly. Donate and buy used. Clean up after yourself and others--and your pets. Take pride in what you've been given.
Don't assimiliate, protect, refuse to change, or battle those trying to save the environment. Step alongside them and do a little tending and keeping of your own--and dialogue as you do. When they realize you don't have two heads and the head you do have isn't stuck in the sand, they'll probably want to know why you believe as you do. And that's where ministry happens. "Always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15).

Go ahead. Go green. Go and tell.