Tending to Eden: Environmental Stewardship for God's People [Paperback]

Scott C. Sabin (Author), Kathy Ide (Editor), Brian McLaren (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2010

Written by Scott Sabin, executive director of a Christian relief and development agency, <I>Tending to Eden</I> is an invaluable resource for environmentally conscious congregations and community groups. In this practical guide for creation care, Sabin offers: Theological foundations for environmental stewardship, Practical strategies, Case studies of contemporary ministry groups, and Sidebars by leading voices in the Christian church who are passionate about environmental stewardship. Each chapter also includes a study guide for small-group use, and the appendix offers a related Bible study. With the holistic tools provided in this innovative and practical resource, churches and organizations can transform lives, communities, and ministries.

Editorial Reviews

Review

After reading this very readable book with its powerful storytelling and its accessible survey of best practices in creation care, for the rest of your life you will see a bigger picture than you've ever seen before when it comes to matters of human poverty, health, prosperity, and security. --author, speaker, and pastor Brian McLaren

This is a highly personal approach to educating and inspiring today's evangelical church to think biblically, locally, and internationally about environmental stewardship. Using conversational narrative, Scott weaves together hard data and personal experience to highlight the issues and to present solutions. Easy to read and practical to implement, Tending to Eden offers a fresh vision of how Christians in this new century can love our neighbors, especially 'the least of these,' by caring for God's creation. --Rev. Jim Ball, PhD, senior director, Climate Campaign, Evangelical Environmental Network

In sharing his own journey, Scott Sabin shares important theological principles, shows how science can be applied effectively, and demonstrates how successful a comprehensive program like that of Plant With Purpose can be. This is must reading for anyone who wants to really make a difference in the world today. --Edward R. Brown, author of Our Father s World: Mobilizing the Church to Care for Creation and Director of Care of Creation Inc.

About the Author

Scott Sabin, MA, is executive director of Floresta, a nonprofit Christian environmental organization with operations in seven countries. Sabin has been published in various periodicals including The New York Times and San Diego Union-Tribune. He is currently a contributing editor to Creation Care magazine and a national speaker in the creation care movement.

Product Details

• Paperback: 174 pages
• Publisher: Judson Pr; Original edition (February 15, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0817015728
• ISBN-13: 978-0817015725
• Product Dimensions: 0.6 x 5.4 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #784,709 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Caring for earth, loving the poor, following Christ... February 23, 2010

By Eric Kaiser

Format:Paperback

What is the best way to help the rural poor in the neediest parts of the Earth? Start with the earth itself. This book shows how poverty is rooted in broken relationships: people and the soil, people and institutions, people and their community, people and God. The people we meet in the book, the rural farmers and business owners are warm, witty, talented and frequently, desperate. Scott Sabin and his organization, Plant with Purpose, come alongside and walk the eroded hillsides with them. As the people are empowered to care for their land an amazing thing happens: as the land heals, it begins to produce enough for families to meet their needs in a sustainable way. As relationships are healed, communities become healthy and people's faith comes alive. The writing is warm and personal, very easy to read and engaging, technical without being intimidating.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book connects environmental stewardship with the poor and Christian faith March 12, 2010

By Scott A. Williams

Format:Paperback

Interestingly Tending to Eden begins not with a lengthy proof for creation care, but with a call to justice. Scott walks the reader through part of his journey into Guatemala and how that helped him understand God's concern for the world. It was not his intention to work in an environmental area. In fact, he was uncomfortable with it at first. He wanted to help the poor, the hungry. However, through his own journey Scott helps the reader to understand how caring for God's creation is caring for the poor. He employs "upstream thinking" to address root causes rather than mere symptoms. He demonstrates this connection clearly using the example of deforestation.

Scott then spends some time talking about reversing the vicious cycle that often traps them in their circumstances and exchanging it for a virtuous cycle of reforestation and economic empowerment. In this he emphasizes the importance of helping the poor understand their own value. He notes, "but if we do for others what they can and should do for themselves, we rob them of their dignity and reinforce the lie that they have nothing to offer. We create dependency." He then brings the reader into a couple ways that Plant With Purpose and others are able to help while allowing the poor to utilize their gifts, namely through sustainable agriculture and helping businesses.

Scott then focuses on the importance of sharing the gospel in the process. He highlights the idea that without God there will not be transformation. Sharing the gospel is a key part of loving and caring for the poor.

He then steps back to take a more global perspective on all this. Here some of the key ecological issues (such as deforestation, biodiversity, and climate change) are discussed with exceptional clarity.... The ecological problems are neither left with the poor, nor at a vague, global level. Rather, they are tracked all the way into our own backyards.

At this point Scott turns to the church. Here he points out the biblical basis for caring for creation as well as some of the church's history doing so. He says, "The biblical account is not just the story of God's love for his people and the redemption of humankind through Christ. It is that, but is also the story of God's love for everything he has made." People are hungry and Jesus offers hope and redemption for all things. The book concludes with a discussion as to how to get involved both globally and locally, how to "get in the game."

But wait there's more! (read that with your best infomercial voice) If this wasn't enough, the book also includes a small group study at the end, not to mention the ideas for making an impact as an individual, family, or church and a list of creation care resources.

There is much to like about this book. First, Scott does an excellent job of making very complex topics clear. This alone may be worth the price of admission. Not only does he explain what things like deforestation are but he helps you to see how these ideas connect to the poor and our faith. Sometimes I think we like that we do not understand such problems let alone their broader impact. It allows us to be ignorant. But once we understand them and their impact of God's children and His creation it is hard to sit idly by.

Secondly, the link between a broken creation and the poor is well connected. Scott connects the plight of the poor (both globally and locally) to environmental problems. Caring for creation becomes a matter of justice. For some caring for creation comes at the expense of ignoring the poor. Scott points out that caring for creation actually is caring for the poor.

This leads me to another point I liked about this book: upstream thinking. Scott does not settle. He does not merely target symptoms. Instead, he seeks out the root causes. In the case of the poor, a broken environment is often a major contributing factor. To settle for feeding hungry mouths alone, is to create dependency. That's not to say that there's not a time to feed the hungry. By all means there is. But we must also target the factors that keep them hungry. I quite appreciated this reminder to think upstream.

Fourthly, I enjoyed his point that all of creation worships God. Since reading this book I have paid particular attention to how many scriptures and worship songs say that all of creation worships God. There are a ton! Yet, that is often removed from our thinking. I appreciate that Tending to Eden reminded me that in caring for God's creation I am caring for fellow worshippers of the Almighty God. What a critical idea!

Finally, I was so excited to see Scott point out the hope that we have through Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, this is often left out of creation care literature. Or at least it takes a back seat. At Creation Hope, this is a core part of what we believe. So, when I saw that Scott gets it, I was overjoyed.

You might be wondering if this is the perfect book. No, it's not perfect. But what is? There were times where the structure of the book seemed a little hard to follow. Also, the section on the biblical basis for creation care was fairly short. That said, there is a whole Bible study in the back which certainly helps fill in gaps. But these and other minor issues are dwarfed by the great value to be had in this book.

If you are wondering about the link between the poor and the environment, if you feel like you don't totally get what we are talking about, if you want a book that is not a textbook but is seen through the lens of someone's life and work, if you want to better understand how to approach environmental issues from a Christian perspective, perhaps you should consider picking up Tending to Eden. Read more ›

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Thinking UpStream: Fighting The Causes Of Poverty June 22, 2010

By Joshua Hopping

Format:Paperback

Scott Sabin "messed up".

Yep. I think he should have titled his new book "Thinking UpStream: Fighting The Causes Of Poverty" instead of "Tending to Eden: Environmental Stewardship for God's People".

Why? Because Scott's book isn't just about being good stewards of God's creation - it is a book geared towards getting past the symptoms of rural poverty and focusing on the root causes. It is a fantastic book showing the holistic nature of poverty and all the factors attributing to it.

For example, farmers in Haiti can no longer grow crops on their land due to the land being depleted, which leads them to cutting down trees to make charcoal to sell in town. The removal of the trees weakens the soil, leading to erosion that further destroys the land which washes downstream to the ocean, where it becomes a `hazard to fisheries and coral reefs.'

Meanwhile, the deforestation of the area leads to a decrease in rainfall and changes in precipitation - not to mention the fact that if there are no trees, then the water in the ground cannot get filtered properly, leading to polluted drinking water. Polluted water in turn causes sickness and disease which places more pressure on the farmer to find some kind of income in order to buy food and medicine for his family. Putting us right back to the beginning of the cycle.

The crazy part is that these farmers know what they are doing. They know that by cutting down the trees they are causing long term problems. But they also have a proverb, "Either this tree must die, or I must die in its place" (Haitian proverb)....

In an effort to break the cycle, Scott and Plant With Purpose (the organization he leads) focus on repairing five different relationships:

"To heal humanity's relationship with creation, Plant With Purpose encourages reforestation and sustainable agriculture. Providing economic opportunities by encouraging local enterprise creation addresses the relationships between people, as it levels the playing field for the disadvantaged and helps families stay together. Discipleship focuses on our relationship with God. By helping others follow Jesus and obey his commandments, thus fulfilling the Great Commission, we help to create a foundation upon which future development can be built."

In a nutshell, if you are interested in thinking upstream and seeing how rural poverty can be stopped, then I would recommend reading Scott's book "Tending To Eden." Then I would pick up Jayakumar Christian's "God of the Empty-Handed: Poverty, Power and the Kingdom of God." Read those two books and you will have a good foundation.

After that - well, go DO something.

* Go help those in your community that need help (i.e. food banks, homeless shelters, community gardens, etc).
* Support those who are both sharing God's message of hope and thinking upstream (i.e. Plant With Purpose or other such groups).
* Be radical and change your lifestyle from a consumer driven one to a more sustainable one (i.e. buy less, use less, be happier)

And above all, pray. Pray for those in need and for those working along side them. Pray for His rule and reign to come on earth as it is in heaven.
____________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: Please note that I received this book free of cost from Plant With Purpose. I was not required to write a positive review - meaning that all opinions expressed are my own and where not influenced by Plant With Purpose or Scott Sabin. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255 : "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising." Read more ›

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "Do your part" March 8, 2010

By Dan Panshin

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

In Tending to Eden Scott Sabin presents a compelling primer covering the insights and experience he has acquired during his eighteen years at Plant With Purpose. Sabin tells us why "in many ways rural poverty is worse than urban poverty" and how--in a vicious cycle--deforestation and poverty are inextricably linked.

In response Sabin sets forth a comprehensive, long-term approach, starting with reforestation (leading to soil stabilization and cleaner water), proceeding through sustainable agriculture, community development, and micro-loans, all of which is centered around our right relationship with God. In this way the vicious cycle is transformed into a virtuous and victorious cycle. He points out that many well-intentioned gifts of the American church address only the symptoms of poverty and quickly fail. They illustrate the devastating effects of unintended consequences: "We bring used clothes that put local tailors out of business and give away free food that undercuts the local farmers."

Tending to Eden is an inspiring and important book, theologically based and also candid and eminently practical. Sabin writes with great clarity, passion, respect, and humility. All in all, the book puts forth the challenge to us of the Creole proverb, "God says to you: do your part, I'll do My part."