So, yes of course I am
talking about recycling all sorts of things, but in addition to that you need
to evaluate how much decent food, clothing, etc. you are simply throwing away
for no good reason.  That should never
happen. Waste not, want not.  No more
groaning about leftovers. Don’t take more food than you can and should eat, and
when you go out to eat if the portions are too large, share, or bring it home
and eat it later. Period.  And in the
non-health Gospel department stop eating ‘fast food’ or food that is otherwise
going to imperil your health.  Your body
is a gift, indeed Paul calls it a temple, 
given by God.  Stop treating it
like a toxic waste dump or a garbage can.

And this brings me
to the issue of energy consumption. 
Christians need to be going green as rapidly as possible to be a good
witness. This means hybrid cars, and smaller one’s as well.  It means energy efficient light bulbs and
solar panels if possible. It means don’t leave the air conditioning running
when you are not there most of the day, and so on.  We need to be conservers, not just consumers,
increasingly.  You would be amazed how
many resources such practices free up.  You would also be amazed at what a good Christian witness opportunity this becomes as well.  Even so simply a thing as weather-proofing your house can be an opportunity to share the Gospel with a neighbor.  Christians should be those who take care of what they have,  realizing that all good gifts ultimately come from God. 

The story of Adam and Eve makes clear enough that we are indeed called to be God’s conservationists, tilling the earth, tending the garden, helping things to grow, wasting nothing.  You should not listen to those in the Christian community whose theology goes like this— ‘well the world is all going to Hades in a handbasket, but it doesn’t really matter since I have my ticket to heaven’.  This is a false theology not least because what the Bible says is that God is planning an Extreme Makeover Edition of the earth, and that after the resurrection we will be spending an eternity down here on mother Earth. This being the case, conservation and ecology now foreshadows and provides a foretaste for the good earth when it merges with the heaven and heavenly ones coming down from above. God is a conservationist of not merely you and me, but of the whole of his creation, and all creatures great and small.  This is why the prophets when envisioning the final future think of the lion lying down with the lamb without thinking of lamb chops!  The peaceable earth is the final future they envisioned, with nature and human nature  being in harmony with God’s original plan of Shalom for it all.