I heard someone say, “the method is the message”. That’s deep. I wish I understood it better…

But I’ve thought a lot about it and I really think that guy was on to something. So many times I’ve tried to say something with words but what I said was completely sabotaged by the condescending tone in my voice or the roll in my eyes. You know what I mean. When your son or daughter hand-made you a card in kindergarten you hung it on the refrigerator because it came from the heart, not because of the words on the card. The fact that it was made by the hands of someone who loved you–the method–spoke louder than the message itself.

So what does that have to do with shopping bags?

A lot actually. And Gaby helped me see it. We began to wonder what message we send to the world around us when we market Dialogue Church with “Business Cards and Banners”? Lots of churches do that. Are we trying to say, “we’re just like them”? Or are we trying to show the culture around us that we are somewhat different? If we claim to be different how do we show it?

There isn’t anything intrinsically wrong with business cards or banners–and we’ll use them when we need to, but how can we get the word out in a way that reflects who we are and what we believe? I suppose that there are lots of good answers (and I’d love to hear them), but one thing that we are doing is giving away Eco-friendly shopping bags.

One of our core values at Dialogue Church is that followers of Christ must live a life of social and ecological responsibility. We, as followers of the Creator of the Earth, should esteem and value the health of God’s creation. One way we can do that is by cutting back our use of plastic shopping bags. Here are some facts about the ecological impact of plastic shopping bags:

* The raw material of plastic bags is oil. Therefore, the more we use plastic bags, the more we waste oil – a non-renewable energy source.
* The petroleum-based plastic bags take up to 100 years to break down, so if they are not recycled they litter. It creates visual pollution: in the streets, on the beaches etc.
* They endanger wildlife and particularly sea life such as sea turtles and dolphins which can die of entanglement, suffocation, and ingestion because they assume that these bags are jellyfish.

So we are giving away Eco-friendly bags as a way to get our name out to the public, but more importantly, it is a way to demonstrate to the world who we are and what we believe.

So what do you think? How else can we demonstrate our core values to the world around us?