Did you know that cigarette butts make up 30-40% of coastal and urban litter found during clean-ups? We have all seen them scattered on the curbside outside of our favorite restaurant or grocery store, hiding away on the edge of the shrubbery outside the stores.
An estimated 5.6 trillion cigarettes are smoked each year, and two-thirds are improperly disposed of. So that's 4.5 trillion butts each year.
In central London, it cost the city over $1.4 million to clean them up and properly dispose of them. So, an environmental activist had an idea to convince the city to install on street signposts and rails these small aluminum boxes that attract the smoker with a faint yellow glowing light and a well-designed question on the front, such as “Favorite food, pizza or hamburgers” or “Favorite superhero, Batman or Superman.”
They are called Ballot Bins. This little aluminum box has reduced the litter of cigarette butts by nearly 80%.
More often than not, when we look at the success and failure of a church, we believe it takes tremendously huge, overhauling changes. And so, churches will either subjugate themselves to change their entire identity to model themselves after the latest fastest-growing church, or they will settle into immobility, not wanting to compromise their identity.
We have convinced ourselves that the difference between one thriving church and one failing is a different as night and day.
But what if what separates successful churches and failing churches is relatively small? What if the difference between thriving and floundering focuses on subtle and small things that make an incredible difference?
We are coming back to our series, “The Little-Big Things: How Shared Spirit-Led Commitment Drives Oversized Results.”
Throughout the series, we have been journeying through the Book of Acts who hosts a repetitive statement not found in any of the rest of the New Testament letters: And the church grew in numbers.
After taking a break for Advent, we will return to the series this Sunday. Won't you join us online or in person for worship? Catch up on missed sermons by listening to the UBC Baton Rouge podcast: https://www.ubc-br.org/podcast.
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