Inconvenient Truth: Global Warming

Elder Kee Huat was the Director of Energy Efficiency & Innovation Unit, Suruhanjaya Tenaga which provided him a unique perspective into the issue of global warming and creation care. Last Sunday, he gave an informative and passionate plea for action to the Church. Listen to the audio sermon here

The Powerpoint slides would provide some research data he compiled, painting a grim picture of current situation that requires our response. Towards the end, he gave a Christian response similar to the Creation, Stewardship sections of the Lausanne Evangelical Commitment to Simple Lifestyle document.

He also draws resources from Richard Foster's Discipline of Simplicity for personal application:

"The inward reality of simplicity involves a life of joyful unconcern for possessions. Neither the greedy nor the miserly know this liberty.

If what we have we receive as a gift, and if what we have is cared for by God, and if what we have is available to others, then we will possess freedom from anxiety.

However, if what we have we believe we have got, and if what we have we believe we must hold onto, and if what we have is not available to others, then we will live in anxiety."

What are some outward expressions of Simplicity?

- Buy things for their usefulness rather than their status.
- Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you.
- Develop a habit of giving things away: de-accumulate
- Refuse to be duped by gadgetry: time saving devices almost never save time.
- Learn to enjoy things without owning them: beach, parks public libraries...
- Develop a deeper appreciation for creation. Walk whenever you can, smell the
flowers, watch birds.
- Develop plain simple talk.
- Reject anything that breeds the oppression of others.
- Shun anything that distracts you from seeking first the Kingdom of God.

Only the simple are free. All others are tyrannised by the ambitious self, the demand for recognition thru things, and preoccupation with the opinion of others.