Posts tagged crossroads

The Greenest Church In Lexington - An Interview with Caleb Mathis

I love where I work. As far as churches go, there’s not very many like it in my experience. One of the things I love about it is the people I get to work with. We have a diverse staff with diverse passions that are all being put to use trying to love God and love the people around us.

One of the people that I particularly love is Caleb Mathis. Caleb is a young, inteligent guy with a great heart - and there’s not an ounce of pretense in him. What you see is what you get - and that, to my mind, is a pretty rare thing. Caleb is extremely passionate about taking care of the environment. I love his heart and his vision in this area so much that I asked him if I could ask him a few questions about it and post it on my blog. He graciously agreed. It’s a long read, but totally worth it. If, after reading this, you have any questions for Caleb about starting a Green program at your church, hit me up in the comment section and I will get you in touch with him.

Patrick: On staff you’re known as the recycling guy.  The Green guy.  The dirty hippie (sorry, I’m the only one that calls you that).  It’s obvious to anyone that spends a little time with you, that you’re passionate about caring for the environment.  Have you always been that way?  When did you first kind of become aware of this passion?

Caleb: Haha! Actually, my parents love to tell that story of how, as a kindergarten student, I fussed at my dad for leaving the water running while he brushed his teeth. I’m not sure if I learned that lesson at school or from watching Captain Planet – but as a child, I do remember being “creation care” minded.

That being said, as I grew up, I abandoned that type of thinking for a long while, mostly as a way to “fit in.” I grew up steep in the church (my dad’s a pastor) and Christian culture (like I didn’t seriously listen to secular music till college), and environmentalism was something that Christian culture always associated with “liberals” – and that was certainly not something I wanted to be a part of! I just took on the predominate thinking of that Christian subculture which, ironically, didn’t value the creation.

In college, propelled by a number of books I was reading, I came to the realization that Christ wanted to redeem much more than just my heart – he wanted my whole life. That meant rethinking my views on everything, including environmentalism. Even just a cursory search of the scriptures shows that God cares very deeply for what He has made and expects mankind to care for it as well. Honestly, I have no idea how the Christian culture of past years was able to maintain their negative stance on environmentalism when nothing in scripture supports their view.

That was a long answer, haha, sorry.

Patrick: You’ve started a “Green Team” inside of Crossroads’ student ministry.  What’s that all about?

Caleb: Last summer, we offered a “summer school” for the students in XSM. We’d meet, every Thursday, for a lesson and activities, and then we’d go out to eat together. I was put in charge of this summer school and kind of just went out on a limb with the topic of Creation Care – I knew how important it was for the students, early on, to realize God’s love and mandate for us to care for the planet, but I wasn’t sure if kids would attend. Surprising, a good number of students showed up, week-in and week-out, and we had an especially large showing from the middle school students. When summer school was over, many of the kids expressed a desire to keep meeting together – they were now full of knowledge about the environment, but they needed an outlet to work toward change – so the Green Team was born.

We meet once a week to take of all the recycling in the church, and then at least once a month for a different type of “green” activity – we’ve painted storm drains for the city, gone on camping trips, right now we’re in the middle of changing the church’s light bulbs from incandescent to CFL. The kids are really the heart and soul behind the Green Team – every week they come in excited, with new ideas to implement – it makes heading up that time very easy!

Patrick: You guys have recently joined in a local competition of sorts.  Tell us about that.

Caleb: Sure thing – the Green team enrolled our church in the Live Green Lexington Games, which is a competition between local schools, business and churches to see who can implement the most “green change” over the course of a year. Somehow, I missed the boat on that for the first half of the competition, but we enrolled in the Games at about the six-month mark. There is a huge checklist of green changes, and each one of them corresponds to a certain point value. As we go through our church making changes, we earn a certain number of points – and the school, business and church with the most points at the end of the competition (July) wins! 

The games have been great because it gives the Green Team a checklist to work on – we’ve recently changed all our Exit Sign bulbs to LED (using much less energy), set out cigarette butt receptacles at the entrances (cuts down on litter) and created a green policy for our office workers to follow. The games have really energized the Green Team kids, as it gives them a goal to work toward!

Patrick: In a recent email to the rest of the Crossroads staff you mentioned a desire you and the kids in the green team have to make us “the greenest church in Lexington.”  Why is that important and how do you get there?

Caleb: I firmly believe that the way we treat the creation (the planet and the 7 billion people living on it) reflects our feelings for the Creator. God places extreme value on His creation, but if our daily lives do not reflect this value, then there is a disconnect between us and the Creator. 1 John explains – “If anyone says he loves God, yet hates his brother, he is a liar.” I feel the same way about the planet, we can say we love God, but if we recklessly use and abuse his Creation, do we really love God? One of the first commands given to Adam from God was for him to take care of the garden that God had created for him (Genesis 2:15). That commands travels through time and is our command today… how can we say we value the Creator when we abuse His creation? Our churches, among other things, are a place where humanity should correctly connect with God. Our church buildings need to preach the same love and respect for God as our Sunday sermons.

Just yesterday, I read an article about a little church in Germany who’s outfitted their roof with solar panels – they make enough electricity to power eight more churches their size! And by switching to solar, the energy they are using doesn’t come from burning coal, a process that not only pollutes the air, but destroys the earth through mining.

Many people are scared by the prospect of going green because they perceive it to be expensive and time-consuming, like having to retrofit solar cells on your roof. And that is a great idea, but I would encourage others to start small. Before you install solar panels, work on increasing your recycle, or printing less, or choosing to not purchase sytrofoam anymore. Small changes really do add up – and if you can get into the habit of continually add another small change, another there, you’ll eventually find yourself in a place where purchasing roof solar panels isn’t such a wild or extreme thought.

Patrick: In recent years we’ve seen more and more churches embracing the idea that we need to be good stewards of the planet, but there are still some that are resistant to that that sort of thing.  Without trying to get into their heads too much or demonize them, why do you think some religious bodies resist the idea of environmentalism?  You obviously see it as something that fits very comfortably into your faith - how did you get to that place?

Caleb: I’ve thought about this for a while. Some people seem to equate caring for the environment as a slippery slope that could lead to something extreme like worship of the earth. Of course, every movement has its “crazies,” and there’s some people out there who deify that planet. For a Christian, that’s obviously not an option – we don’t worship the earth, rather we care for it because we worship the one who made it.

Other folks, I believe, are turned off from the green movement because it’s so long been tied to the political left. Many churches seem to want to ally themselves with a political movement, and your more traditional/fundamental churches seem always identify with the political right – a branch of politics with little use for environmental stewardship. Like you said, I don’t want to demonize these churches, but it seems they are more concerned with stopping a political agenda, or electing a certain official, then they are with following God. The entire body of scripture teaches and supports care for the planet – to ignore this issue just because it’s favored by a certain political party, is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

My feelings about care for the environment, as I said earlier, really blossomed in college, when I finally sought to personally know God, and not just be told my others what He was like. As I sought after Him, and spent time in prayer and the scriptures, it became obvious that this was something He cared about.

But I also look at environmentalism as a way to engage in justice. The scriptures make it very obvious that God cares for the poor. Poor environmental stewardship has affect the poor in vastly greater ways than everyone else. For example, if climate change increases the temperature on earth, Americans with their air conditioners will be fine, but children living in rural Africa will die. Water contamination doesn’t affect us, because we have plants that filter and purify our tap water, but if a company’s factory in a third world country is allowed to pollute local bodies of water, then disease will spread. The examples could go on and on and on. I find it hard to believe that a Christian could look at the scriptures and not recognize God’s desire for us to care for creation, but even if that was the case, they should support environmental efforts as a way of pursuing the type of justice for the poor that God so adamantly cares about.

Patrick: Environmentalism has been highly politicized by people on both sides of the political spectrum.  For you, is this is a topic that transcends traditional politics?

Caleb: Washington wants to politicize every issue, and this is especially detrimental in the case of environmental sustainability. I hope that, one day, environmentalism can transcend political boundaries because (at the risk of sounding a little dramatic), the future of our lives depends upon it.

That being said, I’m not willing to wait around for Republicans and Democrats to agree. I’ve learned to stop looking to political parties, agendas or candidates for my hope. Let’s be honest, a politician’s job is to get elected, and once there, stay elected – it sounds a bit cynical, but every decision they make revolves around that. In the past few years, the word compromise has become taboo in Washington; Democrats and Republicans don’t want to work together – and of course, each party blames the other way. I’m afraid that environmentalism won’t become a unifying issue until its too late, so I hope and pray that the Church leads the charge on championing this issue. For all the reasons I’ve mentioned above, the Church is uniquely qualified to lead the creation care movement – and if its something we believe that God supports, we should be doing it anyway.

Patrick: Any closing thoughts?

Caleb: For anyone who is skeptical about the issue of mixing Christianity and environmental stewardship, I would just encourage them to look to the scriptures. Put politics aside, put even what you think aside, and take time to be educated on what God thinks about the issue. This could be very eye-opening for many believers who don’t currently embrace environmentalism.

If you find yourself ready to make changes to your lifestyle, I would encourage you to start small – you don’t have to sell all your possessions and buy a Prius immediately. Work your way up; add a different green change to your lifestyle each month. So there so much each one of us can do to lessen our impact on the environment – find friends who are doing the same and share ideas! Find me, I’d be happy to talk about it.

Joplin

Last week I went to Joplin with a group from Crossroads to volunteer with recovery efforts and to capture some video. It was heartbreaking, exhausting, and very rewarding. We met some incredible people and hopefully helped a small handful of people regain a tiny bit of control of their surroundings.

Here’s the video that we’ll be playing this weekend at church to encourage people to take part in future trips throughout the summer.

I usually wait until after the weekend to post pieces here on my blog - but this one doesn’t reveal anything content-wise about this weekend’s service, so I feel safe going ahead and posting it.

Plus, it’s not like that many people go to my blog anyway, right? Jerks.

Recent Project: Imagine A World…

Recently, the director of the Children’s Ministry, here at Crossroads, came to me for help brainstorming a volunteer recruitment video. By the time we finished talking about it, I was begging him to let me film and edit the piece.

I was excited about it because it was a chance to get a little more cinematic than I’ve been so far at Crossroads.

Here’s the video. It features some really talented and really cute staff kids and the extremely talented Matt Hadley, Jason Koerner, and Griff Ray. Below the video is some very self-indulgent process stuff that I recommend skipping unless you’re a masochist.

One of the things I really wanted to try with this piece was directing the viewer’s eye by using a rack focus. That kind of thing is fairly easily done if you’ve got the right equipment - namely a follow focus. While that kind of thing is on my “to buy” list eventually, I came up with an idea to try and accomplish the same effect on the cheap (and when I say, “came up with” I mean “was probably the last guy on the planet to figure this out”).

A follow focus is basically some gears and a knob that allow you to move easily from one pre-determined point of focus to another - on some professional shoots, there’s actually a guy other than the camera guy in charge of operating the follow focus, I’ve read. Below is my shoe-string solution:

Yeah, that’s a rubber band and some tape. Basically, each ink mark on the rubber band represents a pre-determined point of focus. When the mark on the rubber band lined up with the mark on the tape, I knew that particular point was actually in focus. So to move my focus from say, an actor’s face to a set of keys, I simply moved from one ink mark to the next. Simple. Amateurish. Effective.

This was also the first time I’ve attempted any sort of color grading with a video. Specifically, I wanted to give this piece a highly saturated, blue-heavy look kind of like a modern action flick. I was pretty fascinated by the whole process and clearly have a lot to learn. Curious what a little color grading can do for a piece? Well, here’s a nine second video to give you a little idea.

Neat, huh?

Okay, that’s enough rambling. Thanks to Jason for letting me work with him and the kids!

Patrick’s Favorite Things

We showed this at Crossroads on Christmas Eve.

Actually, now that I watch it, this is a longer version than what we played on Christmas Eve. So this is the director’s cut, I guess…

Going viral

Crossroads Viral Video (via xroadschurchky) Crossroads made this video as part of our Viral Virtues series and we’re trying to make it go viral. Send the link to all your friends. And if they have questions about Crossroads, send ‘em to me!

How I learned to quit worrying and love XTC (the band, not the drug)

When I was younger, my sole exposure to new music was my older brother Jeff. I had a pretty limited tape collection of, frankly, terrible music; some particularly cheesy Christian bands, Huey Lewis and The News, Steve Winwood, and, embarrassingly enough, Bruce Willis’ blues album. My brother, though, would come back from college with a lot of stuff I’d never heard before - Bands that were a revelation - like The Violent Femmes or The Dead Milkmen; bands that broadened my pallet considerably.

I remember looking through his vinyl albums one day and finding a record by a band named XTC. It had a song on it titled “Dear God.” I’m sure my first thought was that they must be a Christian band. One look at the album sleeve and the lyrics corrected that assumption. Dear God was a statement of unbelief; an open letter to the God of the Bible, detailing all the bad things he let happen on a daily basis and the writer’s conclusion, therefore, that he must not exist.

As a really religious kid growing up in a small Kentucky town, I was scandalized. Why would somebody write such a song? Why would anybody buy the album? Why did my brother have it?

Fast forward to last Monday. I’m sitting in a meeting at the church I work for, discussing content for the coming weekend’s services when my co-worker, Steve, says he wants to do a song called “Dear God” that he heard on a recent episode of Glee.

Imagine my surprise. It’s been twenty or so years since I first encountered the song. Since then I like to think I’ve developed a much deeper appreciation for music (I won’t say I have eclectic taste. Everybody says that and they almost never do) and a much sturdier spiritual constitution. After the initial deja-vu wore off, I became very excited at the notion of the church band doing the song. Yeah, it’s not exactly the kind of song you imagine hearing at church. I think that’s why I’m excited.

My church has always been really interested in acknowledging and addressing what the Christian faith must look like from the outside; and the fact is a lot of people have trouble accepting the idea of a loving God when there’s so much suffering in the world. This week we’re using a song to recognize that point of view - and then hopefully have a meaningful discussion about it. I like that. I hope that it makes people with similar doubts more willing to engage us. And I hope it makes some believers a little less likely to be traumatized by hearing song lyrics that don’t agree with their world view.

I have a friend who attends another large church here in Lexington. He teased my wife one day because Crossroads performs so many “non-Christian” songs. I’m sure that’s a stumbling block for some folks. In the thirteen years I’ve been associated with the church I’ve heard covers of songs by Radiohead, Queen, The Violent Femmes, The Avett Brothers, Jeff Buckley, the Beatles, Colin Hay, Depeche Mode, and LL Cool J (Don’t worry, it was an acoustic version, nobody rapped). I think that kind of thing is good. Not because we’re “totally not your father’s church” or some other stupid cliche, but because you almost never learn anything in an echo chamber.

UPDATE - Sara questioned the song being on Glee. I can’t find any evidence that it was. I’m not sure if I misheard Steve or what. Anyway, we’re doing the song. If Glee, indeed, wasn’t the inspiration then all the better in my opinion…