Shellie asked:
Do you have any outside resources that help you along the way, or were you raised to be a good steward to the earth and your body? I feel lead to be a better steward of my body and my children’s, to teach them how to care for themselves and the earth. Any suggestions?
What a wonderful question! I am open for lots of ideas from my readers on this one! I personally wasn’t really raised with a strong desire to be a good steward of the earth. I always thought that was just for the environmentalists and they were a little too radical for me. It has only been over the past year that I have grown with a passion for being good stewards of the earth that God has entrusted to us, as I have studied the Word of God, especially the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:26-28. My eyes have been open to see that this is a means of glorifying God as I seek to take care of His creation.
We were made to subdue the earth by making it productive and fruitful and this can be accomplished in many ways just around our homes and in the decisions we make as to purchases. All and all, I believe God is in control of creation and that it will morn and groan until God returns and creates a new heaven and a new earth, but until then I want to strive to be faithful in taking good care of the resources He has entrusted to me, make them productive and seek to bring about good fruit on the earth.
Cornelius Plantinga’s says it this way in his book, Engaging God’s World:
“God gives human beings authority in the created world, what we might call ‘responsible dominion.’ Let them take responsibility for keeping the earth, for respecting the integrity of kinds, and times, and seasons. Christians and others have sometimes taken dominion as justification for the ‘conquest’ of nature…the Bible speaks of dominion, not in the sense of conquest, but in the sense of stewardship…To have dominion is to act like the mediator of creation. This means that a human steward of God’s good creation will never exploit or pillage; instead, she will give creation room to be itself. She will respect it, care for it, and empower it. The person who practices good animal husbandry, forest management, and water conservation shows respect for God by showing respect for what God has made.”
How can we begin to train our children in valuing being good stewards?
1) Start with the Word of God. Start with teaching the cultural mandate. Study God’s creation, emphasizing how He made us stewards of it. Teach them that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit and thus it is important to eat well and exercise. As we teach more about His glorious creation, we can begin planting seeds of valuing the earth as we see His glory on display through it.
2) Begin practicing it yourself and they will follow. Do I treat the earth as God’s creation? Recycling, buying locally grown food, organic foods or growing your own as much as possible, using cloth diapers to avoid waste, using less water while washing dishes and taking less showers, using canvas bags for shopping, choosing natural cleaning supplies, etc. If we teach our children to understand how significantly blessed we are and what others are suffering, we can train them to value conserving water and other things. For other ideas of how we are striving to walk this out in our family, read the Green Living articles. When your children learn that many of these ideas can actually save money in the long run, they will learn that good stewardship is also wisely using our money and resources.
3) Exercise and Cook healthy meals together – again, doing things together can teach these ideas! Practice what we preach and they will catch a vision!
4) Creatively Reuse – be creative and get your children involved in thinking up creative ideas for reusing things in your household before throwing them out. Have an old sheet? What could we make with that? Cloth napkins maybe? Wash clothes? You can search practically anything on the web and find alternative ways to reuse it.
5) Pick up trash together – Carry a trash bag around with you wherever you go. If you taking a walk and see trash around the pathway, pick it up and dispose of it properly. As our children observe us doing it, they will follow.
6) Buy less stuff for your children – the less you buy the more you allow the creative juices to flow! Your children will be more content and learn good stewardship of the little they have. When you choose to buy something, make it yourself or buy from a local or homemade source (Etsy.com for example). Encourage savings. The Story of Stuff video was used as a means to inspire me with a desire to decrease our living and spending in consideration of the impact upon our environment as well as upon our lives. It revealed how we can so easily be ruled by the unending cycle of work, buy, sleep, thinking that the increase of possessions will make us happy. Although not from a Christian perspective, it inspired me to think more seriously upon the long term impact of my purchasing decisions. It made be truly re-evaluate if Christ was my ultimate satisfaction or was I trying unsuccessfully to find it in other means?
Many of these ideas may take more work…but is our goal convenience or good stewardship? Many of these options will provide a more healthy and safe environment for your family as well, thus you will be taking good care of your family!
Unfortunately, I am not aware of any books on this topic of training our children. I hope these ideas help get you started! Please note that not all these ideas will work effectively for every family, each family needs to prayerfully decide how they can play their part in being a good steward.
Does anyone else have any book or resource recommendations? Please share how you are training your children to be good stewards!
As environmental educator David Sobels says “children must first learn to love the earth, before they are asked to save it.”
There are a bunch of good resources for teaching good stewardship. Rather than scare kids with stories about rainforests being cut down and melting glaciers, introduce kids to nature nearby. The ditch at the end of the driveway may be their grand canyon. They empathize with baby animals. As they age their world expands and adults can help keep them engaged….
Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods is a good primer and Jennifer Ward's I love Dirt” is a call to action.
Cheers,
Tim (whose “An Environmental Guide from A to Z” will be available in a few weeks!)
I don’t have any personal resources or anything, just wanted to say that I appreciate this post and appreciate the resources that others have given. I was raised the same way, where we weren’t purposing to be “bad” to our earth, but assumed that anyone that did anything more than a little recycling was a radical, new age, or from my parents time some earth loving hippie.
It seems that along with eating healthier, living more frugile we have also realized the need to be better stewards in caring for the earth God has created for us.
As environmental educator David Sobels says “children must first learn to love the earth, before they are asked to save it.”
There are a bunch of good resources for teaching good stewardship. Rather than scare kids with stories about rainforests being cut down and melting glaciers, introduce kids to nature nearby. The ditch at the end of the driveway may be their grand canyon. They empathize with baby animals. As they age their world expands and adults can help keep them engaged….
Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods is a good primer and Jennifer Ward’s I love Dirt” is a call to action.
Cheers,
Tim (whose “An Environmental Guide from A to Z” will be available in a few weeks!)
I heard a guest on Midday Connection last year, I don’t remember his name but he was a doctor and talked about the increase in cancer, etc. His book is “Serve God, Save the Planet” I thought it was very interesting because he was the first evangelical Christian I had heard talking about this. I want to get the book one of these days!
Oh, and you asked for good books.
What Are People For; Wendell Berry
Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community; Wendell Berry
What’s Wrong With the World; G. K. Chesterton
These last two, especially, you would enjoy:
For the Beauty of the Earth; Steven Bouma-Prediger
The Reenchantment of Nature; Alister McGrath
Lots of stuff for me to think about! Your blog is always such an encouragement for me to constantly be on the lookout for ways to grow as a wife, mother, and child of God. Thank you for such a great blog!
Thank you, Lindsay, for answering my question! We (my family and I) have been blessed by your blog and your ideas. Some of your ideas are things we already do, such as cloth diapering and re-using everything. Others are things I definitely want to try. I have taught them creation, but never with the premise of stewardship of the earth. What a good idea! Also, doing with them… always thought of, never put into practice. How hard it is to try to let them cook with you when there are 3 of them! LOL I will definitely have to try exercising with them, and maybe bring them to the recycling center with me (the older ones, anyway) and let them see the things being sorted into bins.
Also, thank you, all who responded. I will be checking out the resources you list within the next couple of days. My family thanks you (and our pocketbook, too!)
My wife and I continue to be greatly blessed by your blog. A friend of mine has a blog called Wonder of Creation that I think would be right up your ally.
http://wonderofcreation.org/
The man who runs the blog is named Dean, and he has a lot of good ideas on how to put what you wrote above into practice. Anyhow; I just thought it would be a blessing to you.
Oh! One more thing… my wife co-owns a website called Scarlet Stitch and they’re having a sale the first week of December. 20% off, I think… but don’t quote me on that.
http://www.scarletstitch.com/
Please let us know what you think of the clothing!
God bless,
Bryan & Jill
A great book (among many) from an environmental stewardship approach is “Our Father’s World: Mobilizing the church to care for Creation”. Ed Brown writes beautifully and shares a great message about both our role as Christian stewards and provides more practical ways to apply our role as stewards in our daily lives.
Another good book on this topic is “Affluenza.” I forget who the author is, but we used it in a capstone course at the Christian college I attended. It’s not specifically from a Christian perspective either, but it definitely applies. It addresses that fact that the “American Dream” is unattainable and really just makes people more and more unhappy, not to mention unhealthy pursuing it. My husband and I are actually starting to lead a small group based around a discussion of this book. I hope it will inspire some people, as most of the other families in our small group are working father/stay at home mom types, but very few see that as the blessing that it can be and apply this concept of stewardship to raising their children.
Also, in teaching our children to be good stewards, I think it is important for children to have a concept of where their food comes from, including growing our own produce, and if feasible keeping a few chickens (or ducks in our case, come Easter!!) to produce eggs, and maybe even raising some livestocks, if your housing restrictions allow. Not to mention this is the best way to control what goes into your food!