Year of Plenty [Paperback]

Craig L. Goodwin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2011

In 2008, Pastor Craig Goodwin and his young family embarked on a year-long experiment to consume only what was local, used, homegrown, or homemade. In Year of Plenty, Goodwin shares the winsome story of how an average suburban family stumbled onto the cultural cutting edge of locavores, backyard chickens, farmers markets, simple living, and going green. More than that, it is the timely tale of Christians exploring the intersections of faith, environment, and everyday life.

This humorous yet profound book comes at just the right time for North American Christians, who are eager to engage the growing interest in the environmental movement and the quandaries of modern consumer culture. It speaks also to the growing legions of the "spiritual but not religious" who long for ways to connect heaven and earth in their daily lives.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Sparkhouse Press (March 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451400748
• ISBN-13: 978-1451400748
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #356,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"The replacement god most in evidence in our generation is consumerism. Year of Plenty is a gentle but insistent expose of this consumerist replacement god. It is also a convincing witness to the sanctity of the everyday, the ordinary, the things we eat and clothes we wear, the names of our neighbors and the money we spend, which is to say, Jesus in our neighborhood." 

--(From the Foreword) Eugene H. Peterson, Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology, Regent College, Vancouver B.C., Author of The Message

"I heartily recommend Goodwin's charming, thoughtful, and extremely funny book. With remarkable insight and refreshing humility, Craig Goodwin takes us with him and his family as they learn who and what is behind the things we so often thoughtlessly purchase. Goodwin reminds us how much of community and life we have sacrificed in the name of convenience and low price. Through engaging narrative he skillfully integrates lessons on faith, life, and God, integrating the spiritual with the material and the local with the global. This is an important contribution to the ongoing conversation about our role as Christians in taking care of and enjoying God's creation." 
-- Scott Sabin, Executive Director, Plant With Purpose, Author of Tending to Eden: Environmental Stewardship for God's People

As someone who had gotten good at resisting grumpy calls to reject our consumerist culture, I found this book delightfully refreshing and compelling. Craig Goodwin describes an experiment in "familial art"--a creative effort to seek out new and very practical experiments living as more faithful stewards of the earth's resources. I haven't started raising chickens or making homemade butter (yet!) after reading this wonderful book--but I have learned some profound lessons. 

-- Richard J. Mouw, Ph.D., President and Professor of Christian Philosophy, Fuller Theological Seminary

About the Author

Craig Goodwin writes a popular blog that focuses on food, faith, and justice in the rich agricultural region of the Inland Northwest. His family's story has been featured on NPR, PBS, and in the New York Times. He is a Presbyterian pastor, a farmers' market manager, a master food preserver, and a fire chaplain. He has a Doctorate in Missional Leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary. Goodwin speaks regularly at schools, churches, and other community organizations about sustainable food and redemptive consumer practices.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Sparkhouse Press (March 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451400748
• ISBN-13: 978-1451400748
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #356,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Craig Goodwin writes a popular blog (www.yearofplenty.org) that focuses on food, faith, and justice in the rich agricultural region of the Inland Northwest. His family's story has been featured on NPR, PBS, and in the New York Times. He is a Presbyterian pastor, a farmers' market manager, a master food preserver, and a fire chaplain. He has a Doctorate in Missional Leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary. Goodwin speaks regularly at schools, churches, and other community organizations about sustainable food and redemptive consumer practices.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Eating is a Theological Act March 8, 2011

By Ryan J. Bell

Format:Paperback

From The Hillhurst Review ([...])
With poignancy and wit, Craig Goodwin relates his family's year of living locally in the new book, Year of Plenty: One Suburban Family, Four Rules, and 365 Days of Homegrown Adventure in Pursuit of Christian Living. Frustrated after one more Christmas of buying gifts that they didn't like and didn't need, Craig and his wife, Nancy, decide to do what seems so rare these days: they changed their way of life. Five rules, hatched hastily over dinner one night shaped the next year of their family's consumption: local, used, homegrown, homemade and Thailand (you'll just have to read the book to understand that last one).

In spite of a growing genre of books about families and individuals spending a year eating locally, this book, and the Goodwin family's experiment, is not about jumping on a cultural bandwagon. Goodwin's experience brings a fresh perspective to the growing conversation about environmentalism and sustainable living, which is captured in the subtitle. Theirs is an "adventure in pursuit of Christian living." Arguing that Christian faith has been largely colonized by the modernist narrative of consumption and unlimited growth, the Goodwin family deliberate steps off the treadmill and dares to ask whether there is something deeply amiss about our "normal" way of life. In a play on Wendell Berry's well-known phrase, "eating is an agricultural act," Goodwin declares, "eating is a theological act" (195). He goes on to explain,

For those of us who claim an ultimate allegiance to the Jesus who is redeeming all things (Col. 1:20), decisions about what we purchase or don't purchase are vital expression of our faith. In a world where everything is being gathered up "in Christ" (Eph.... 1:10) we are invited to join in, seeking justice and peace by what we gather up in our arms at the shopping mall and grocery store (195).

Books like Year of Plenty run the risk of idealizing and romanticizing what some call the "simple life," but Goodwin's honesty and self-deprecating sense of humor quickly dispels our fears. The author relates awkward moments when, for example, their commitment to buying only used items or making things at home from scratch crashes headlong into the sacred tradition of children's birthday parties in which carefully chosen gifts maintain the fine balance of childhood bliss. Along the way we discover that the bold choices made by this family are not so extraordinary or heroic after all. Any suburban American family could do the same if they chose to. Yet the life the Goodwin's chose was not easy and at the end of the year they revise their plan to accommodate some significant challenges.

Goodwin freely acknowledges that he and his wife had no idea what they were getting into. They did not prepare well for it, nor did they deliberate more than a few hours over their rules. Their execution wasn't perfect and he recounts story after story of patience worn thin. But in spite of it all, their courage is rewarded and they discover beautiful but sometimes hidden connections between food and people, the land and human flourishing, environmentalism and devotion to God. Read more ›

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny, Sweet, and Inspiring! March 7, 2011

By Emily Rose

Format:Paperback

There are all kinds of books that encourage readers to do this or that or the other thing to make the world a better place. But most of them seem to be written by people who live in a world without children or working parents or birthday parties or neighbors or moderate incomes or any of the other challenges of normal life. The fact that the Goodwins are a real family working through the very real struggles of changing their patterns of consumption makes this book not only far more practical than others like it, but far more charming. Craig Goodwin is a thoughtful, provocative, engaging, gifted writer who can describe his garden in the kind of poetic detail that will give you goosebumps, then turn around and make you laugh at his secret stash of chocolate chips three paragraphs later. Craig, his wonderful wife Nancy, and their two darling daughters don't pretend to have all the answers nor do they make their experiment in sustainable living sound easy or flip. And yet you will find yourself wanting to follow their lead and find your own ideas for living in a way that protects the earth, supports the work of those who bring us our food and other consumable goods, and honors the Creator who designed it all.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Consuming Thoughfully May 17, 2011

By David Scott

Format:Paperback

I connected with Year of Plenty author Craig Goodwin first via Twitter (@craiggoodwin). Craig is a Presbyterian minister in Washington State with a passion for local food, gardening, food preservation, Jesus and a passion for how all those things fit together.

Year of Plenty is a book about his family's journey growing food, consuming thoughtfully, eating locally, and being in relationship with the people who produce what goes on their table. From the jacket: "In 2008, Pastor Craig Goodwin and his young family embarked on a year-long experiment to consume only what was local, used, homegrown or homemade. In Year of Plenty, Goodwin shares the winsome story of how an average suburban family stumbled onto the cultural cutting edge of locavores, backyard chickens, farmers markets, simple living, and going green."

If you're like me, you're probably thinking, "Sounds a lot like Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" (by Barbara Kingsolver). True, there are several situations that indeed seem to come from the same place as Kingsolver's: local food vs. food imported from across the globe, how animals in the food chain are treated, gardening, raising chickens, etc. Thankfully, though, Craig answers this critique right out of the gate; "Does the world really need another book about one family's year-long consumption experiment?" he asks. The answer, he says, is that this book is about a theology of plenty, that followers of Jesus have something unique to offer the consumer/green conversation.

Goodwin weaves into his stories the way his theology informs his family's consumer decision-making processes. Instead of this being an environmental crusade, it's largely a relational crusade. After all, in Christian theology, we love our neighbor as ourselves.... How does what we eat affect the person who grows the food? Are they getting a living wage? What are they struggling with? Is the local farmer being cheated somehow by a middle-man, grocery chain, or seed company? After meeting a particular squash farmer, we see the Goodwin family sitting down to say "grace" for the meal, which then turns to asking God's grace on this farmer, his fields, and his crops.

We also see how Craig's belief that all of creation belongs to God, and is being redeemed by, and through, Jesus, impacts decisions of creation care. How we treat the land is a direct reflection of what we believe about how God loves the land, and His desire for ultimate redemption.

Woven throughout he has gentle critique for the Church and how it has been a part of the consumer culture of America. Not just that we consume without thinking, but that we often think of our neighbors as merely "consumers" and turn to consumer marketing strategies to generate demand for our product. As a former member of a church staff, the temptation to "market" to communities is enticing. But instead, Craig tells us, "The greatest gift the church has to offer its neighbors is to recognize them as something other than consumers. In a world where everyone is constantly reduced to objects, the church ought to be a refreshingly humanizing force. The story of the church is to envision people as beloved children of God who are irreducible."

For those of you who are not of any faith persuasion, there is plenty of good storytelling here. I couldn't help but laugh at situations he and his family found themselves in as they ripped out their yard to create a vegetable garden. I've felt those same stares from my neighbors as I built raised beds in conspicuous places throughout my yard.

But my favorite chapter by far was chapter 11, "Green Christians", where Craig more fully fleshes out how his new lifestyle is shaped by his theology. In this new age of "green", it's good to hear someone fully articulate why they eat what they eat, why they grow what they grow, why they buy what they buy. A complete connection between head, heart, hands, spirit and then pocketbook is rare. But then to have those connections explained from a Christian can be valuable for those of our number who have not yet made the connection between God's creation, Jesus' redemption and our participation. "We are created, not creator and our recognition of that makes all the difference. It opens up the possibility for us to participate in the grand story of God's saving work in the world, which includes decisions about money and even personal-care products but does not presume that these choices give us the power to save the world." (p. 159)

Well said. Read more ›

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars 5 Stars! March 6, 2011

By S.E. Hilsen

Format:Paperback

Pastor Craig Goodwin had no intention of formulating a life changing experiment while out with his family shopping one night but thank goodness they did! This book has provided a refreshing perspective on the foundational elements of family relationships and relational society that seemed long since lost but not forgotten when analyzing consumerism, food, and community. Welcoming to any reader, Christian or otherwise, the basis of real life experiences, challenges, disappointments, and victories allow you to be invited in and be challenged. I felt the opportunity to make educated decisions for my life based on some incredible principles, but rather than a feeling of ridicule, redemption. I highly recommend this book for a wonderful and inspirational change of pace. It's a good supplement to any small group study!