• Archive for February, 2010

    Book Review – Tending to Eden: Environmental Stewardship for God’s People

    February 6, 2010 // 3 Comments »

    I was fortunate enough to receive a pre-release copy of Tending to Eden: Environmental Stewardship for God’s People by Scott C. Sabin from Judson Press.

    Sabin is the Executive Director of Plant with Purpose, a Christian relief and development agency.

    Christians have a responsibility to love and care for our environment as part of God’s creation and Sabin gets that for sure, but that’s not the genius of the book.  The real beauty of this book comes in the author’s ability to explain to readers, with remarkable insight and simplicity, the inherent connection between caring for the environment and caring for the poor and oppressed. He does so by providing a relational framework for understanding the issues throughout the book.  Through first-hand stories and lessons learned from years of experience, Sabin unmasks the naivete and ignorance of the brand of evangelicals for whom creation care is auxiliary to (their version of) the gospel.  He suggests – at times more implicitly than explicitly, that all the challenges we face, as well as the solutions to those problems, are relational in nature

    Throughout the book, the author tackles issues such as deforestation, sustainable agriculture, sanitation, grassroots enterprise, and climate change.  In each case, his aim is to point out how our engagement with these issues has everything to do with out concern for those who are most globally at-risk.

    For Sabin,

    …without God, all the development and environmental restoration in the world will not bring transformation.

    At the same time, he is able to articulate that transformation is not something other than God-infused labors of development and environmental restoration.

    As someone who believes that one of the hallmarks of the missional church is listening to voices from the margins, I was struck by this comment from the author.

    The idea that stewardship and conservation are part of a liberal agenda seems ludicrous in much of the developing world.  I remember the shock on the face of our Dominican director when I tried to explain the suspicion with which many U.S. churches regarded the environmental aspects of our work.  It was a horrifying thought to him that American Christians would be less than enthusiastic about caring for the earth.  Many of our brothers and sisters in the developing world are way ahead of us in their understanding of stewardship, and there is much that we can learn from them.

    For anyone wishing they could find a book that offers a global view of some of the most pressing environmental challenges without getting lost and confused in technical jargon, this book is an excellent resource. The book even features a discussion guide at the end for each chapter making it an excellent choice for groups interested in studying and talking about these issues together.  Through raising our awareness and offering practical suggestions, Sabin offers readers a hope for the future that is rooted not in our ability to affect change, but in God’s invitation to join him in his mission of the reconciliation of all things.

    Posted in books, environment, missional, stewardship

    We Need WAY More Missional Conversations: A Response to Ed Stetzer

    February 2, 2010 // 30 Comments »

    I regret that I’ve never med Ed Stetzer face to face.  I’d like to believe we’d be fast friends who share a mutual passion for people coming to know Christ and joining in God’s mission in the world.  At the same time, we’d disagree about a lot.  For starters, a blog post he published yesterday critiquing the need for missional (among other) conversations.

    Ed seems worried about missional conversations that don’t…

    involve men and women being redeemed, changed [sic], and transformed by the gospel.

    I read that and think to myself, “What?  Where in the flip is he getting his definition of missional and who is he talking to?  These are the things that are at the very center of missional theology and ecclesiology.”  I have worked hard over a healthy number of years to stay involved in every way I can imagine in the missional conversation and outside of the very fringes that you find in any population, I simply don’t know of any missional people or groups that would merit this kind of concern.

    Ed says,

    It is never a good thing to be defending our lack of converts to Christ while we are busy converting people to our cause. To me, it is the difference between complaining and creating a new (and better) way.

    He goes on to say,

    I don’t want missional to mean attacks on mega and fast growing churches who are reaching people “wrongly,” while missional churches are reaching few “rightly.”

    I think I get Ed’s heart here, but these statements are FAR too simplistic. One of the main reasons for the lack of converts in missional and emerging churches is the popularity of churches who are, in fact, “reaching people ‘wrongly’.” For those who embrace missional theology and are trying to cultivate missional communities, especially in contexts where Christendom still exists, we are fighting an uphill battle… and wearing a 100 lb. pack… and it’s raining… and we’re barefoot… and…  You get the point.  In a culture which still features the cheap grace of individualistic salvation and consumeristic church involvement, guess what – the message of dying to yourself, submitting yourself to a community and joining in God’s Kingdom mission that will, in all likelihood, threaten your identity and lifestyle is pretty unpopular.  When given the option, would-be converts will of course respond,

    Thank you very much, I think I’ll just attend St. McDonald’s where I get saved by raising my hand, I can disappear in the mass of people, and the entertaining music & speaking gives me warm fuzzies every time I’m there.

    The fact of the matter is that those who identify with missional theology engage in this fight for the very reasons mentioned above – because the converts made by the dominant expressions of Christianity in the US are in no meaningful way redeemed, changed or transformed. I doubt many people are more aware of the crisis of nominal Christianity in the US that Ed, so I find this a surprising oversight.  So, albeit with the character and concern of Jesus, I think this is very much a biblically justifiable fight for missional people to be engaged in – the fight for biblical faithfulness and fulfilling of the command to make disciples.

    Ed goes on to say,

    I am not willing to say that a lack of converts is a sign of unfaithfulness. But, I am willing to say that too many change movements are not seeing lost people’s lives changed.

    Fair enough, but this reality is far more poignant and dire when we consider the lack of disciple-making happening in long standing traditions that aren’t thinking about change at all!

    Stetzer rounds out his post by saying,

    So, let’s continue conversations about being “missional” or whatever, but let’s not do so if it distracts us from the mission. Instead let’s talk about these issues but not let them distract us from our main focus–showing and sharing the love of Jesus to a desperately lost world that needs a message of hope.

    To this I say a quick and hearty AMEN!  But I am also quick to resist Ed’s false dichotomy by pointing out that having “conversations about ‘missional’ or whatever,”  aimed at the faithful practice and witness of the church is VITAL to the manner in which we show and share the love of Jesus.  Not having these conversations, or having them poorly, is far more dangerous than seeing them as a distraction.

    Between the promise I believe missional theology and ecclesiology hold for the trajectory of Western Christianity and how incredibly misunderstood both remain, I submit that we need WAY more conversations, not less.

    Posted in christendom, missional, western culture

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