I was greatly encouraged in both the reach and the response of the initial ‘Fat Pastor’ post. Overall the response was positive. Many pastors emailed or commented discussing their own struggles with their weight. And many church members also chimed in with their ‘take’ on portly pastors. Good productivity and dialog.
Well, as promised, and just in time for the Holy American Feast Day of Thanksgiving and subsequent guiltless indulgencies around the celebration of the birth of Christ, I want to offer the second of three installments of this series on ‘Fat Pastors’. The first post dealt with some possible reasons why pastors are overweight. This post will focus on why this is a problem. And the final post will give some directions out of the problem.
So, what is the big deal with being overweight and in ministry?
First, let me state the obvious. Obesity is a big problem in the US. It is estimated that two-thirds of all adults are overweight. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that obesity results in over 400,000 deaths per year in America. This costs the national economy nearly $123 billion annually.
Well that is just the pagans. Right?
No.
NPR reported that the obesity rate for those in the ministry is 10 percent higher than those who are not! Yikes! The Southern Baptist Convention is not only the largest
Protestant denomination in terms of numbers but also on the scale. At the 2010 Southern Baptist Convention (annual meeting) free health screenings were administered. Of those screened 73 percent were found to be overweight or obese. If you are keeping track, that is a higher percentage than those outside the church.
In summary: the majority of Americans are overweight (dangerously so). But Christians, and in particular pastors, have higher obesity rates than our already heavy fellow Americans.
What’s the big deal? So what?
Let me give you a few consequences of being an overtly round rev:
-1- UNDERMINING THE MESSAGE This is the big problem. You are undermining yourself if you are preaching a message that has a transforming power at its core but you are obviously a slave to and conquered by food. Where is the power of the gospel to restrain your flesh? Does it work? If I am skeptical about this gospel and the guy preaching it to me looks like he could be a stunt double for Augustus Gloop then I am going to be wondering about the effectiveness of this power. Pastors, the last thing you want to do is undermine your ministry. Take a hard look at this and prayerfully consider if you are giving offense here.
-2- WORLDLINESS In some ways I can understand obesity in an unbelieving world. They do not have the motivation, the biblical worldview that we do. They don’t eat and drink to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10.31). They don’t enjoy food as a gift. Therefore it is abused. However, the church and particularly pastors should not think like this. Part of what is to be renewed in our minds by the gospel (Rom. 12.1-2) is our thinking about God’s gifts. God’s good gifts are to be enjoyed and not abused. The way some pastors graze at the buffett lines in their stretchy waist pants shows that food is not being enjoyed but abused. This is a great opportunity to think of the various kinds of food that God gives and enjoy it. Use it for your health and pleasure. Don’t just stuff yourself like someone who doesn’t know God or where food comes from.
-3- HYPOCRITICAL If there is one thing the ‘world’ understands it is what we are against. No smoking, drinking, gambling, etc. BUT we love us some potlucks! Whatever you think about alcohol or smoking you have got to concede the gluttony is sinful. How can you be the pastor, the one who speaks God’s word, be living in outright disregard for his word? It is hypocritical to say you believe God’s word is true and authoritative and then live a lifestyle of overeating.
–4- POOR STEWARDSHIP You have been given a life and a body to live that life in. You only have so many days. If you are overweight you are actively trying to limit the number of days you can serve Christ and his church. Your effectiveness in ministry will be shortened and decreased if you are overweight. You will not be able to shepherd, study, teach, preach and care as well if you are overweight. You will incur health problems. At the end of your life you will have to agree that your undisciplined eating habits hindered your ministry effectiveness. This has got to be a problem for any pastor who is aiming to live for and serve Jesus.
-5- FINANCIAL BURDEN TO THE CHURCH If you are overweight you will incur medical costs. And who is going to pay for that? More than likely it is the church. Why would you want to let your undisciplined eating habits become a burden to the people that you are supposed to love and serve?
-6- THE WRONG TYPE OF IMPACT If you are fat and have bad eating habits then you will train others to do so as well. If you are a pastor then you are leader. This means that you will train your family and your church to be undisciplined and biblically disengaged when they eat. Pastors are supposed to be an example (1 Peter 5.4). And sadly, some are the wrong kind. The generational sin of gluttony is real. Take visit to one of those pot-luckey churches and see what I mean.
-7- IT BREEDS LAZINESS I have found that when I am undisciplined or lazy in one area that it bleeds into other areas as well. For example, if I am lazy with Bible reading or prayer then I am lazy with family devotions and putting sin to death. If I am lazy with eating and drinking then I am lazy with reading. Our lives overlap quite nicely. Chances are, if you are lazy and lacking self-control at the dinner table you probably have this problem in other areas of your life. Personally, I would not be very comfortable bringing a guy on staff who is overweight. I think it is a portal into other issues.
-8- MINIMIZING EFFECTIVENESS When I eat junk I feel like junk. I remember reading in Jonathan Edwards’ biography of how he was meticulous with his food and sleep so as to maximize his time. He found that certain foods and patterns worked well for his body. This impacted me greatly. I have found the same thing; if I have to study, write or read at length then it is probably not a good idea to throw down a large calzone. I would not want to read but rather take a nap. If you are undisciplined in eating and just throw back whatever and how-much-ever you want you will hinder your study time.
-9-WORLDVIEW ISSUE As I said in #2 above, this comes down to a worldview. Food is to be enjoyed–not abused! Don’t tell me you’re ‘all about the glory of God’ and then kill yourself with food. This betrays a fundamental worldview issue. God is to glorified in everything we do. Perhaps it would be a good idea to pray after we eat. In this way we could thank God for providing the food and remind ourselves of our duty to enjoy it and not worship it or ourselves.
As a pastor I am burdened for my fraternity. But more than that, I am burdened for Christ’s glory in and through the church. It is high time that pastors start leading in their congregations in word and in deed.
Let me say in closing, I am not a fat pastor, nor have I been. But this does not mean that these posts have fermented in a distant, unsympathetic spirit. I have not been clinically obese or overweight (being 6′ 2″ may help this). However, in the past few years I have seen my weight get well above where I would like it. I saw many of these problems in my own life. I made some changes and dropped some weight. Therefore, I write them in the first person before the second person. Make sense? In the next post we’ll talk about the way out. That is scheduled for the first week of December, just in time for you to get the jump on New Year’s Resolutions.
