Warning don't feed the pastor

Pastors are often fat.

That's true of me so I feel entitled to comment on it. I'm not sure that there's an excuse-but certainly the explanation is that we tend to care for everyone else before we do ourselves.

What's funny about that? Well I've come up with some ideas that may help us preachers and Christians do more to make our bodies a temple instead of a literal living (but soon to be dead from obesity) sacrifice unto God. We like to dig our graves with a spoon and fork thank you very much-its so benign and gradual. Plus it tastes good.

I think something helpful would be a treadmill or stationary bike attached to the sound system of the church-the speakers and microphones would not work unless I peddled fast enough.

Walking to visit people in the hospital-God knows the gas prices would make it easier to do this with a good conscience.

How about this one? An elliptical trainer that would run the electricity going to my laptop? Now that's a great idea. If I couldn't get on here to blog-or check my email say 112 times a day-I'd feel like a junkie without a fix. The amount of miles I'd cover to stay connected would be staggering.

Maybe we could have cell phones that run on kinetic energy. The number of minutes I get would be tied to the amount of movement in which I was engaged. For them to work you'd have to be walking, lifting weights, or dancing. I like the dancing idea-doing a swing dance while conversing would make for a good mental focusing exercise as well as physical.

Oh and how about deep knee bends while praying-say the Lord's prayer over and over while standing up and down-until you've said it 100 times.

Here's one to help the whole congregation. Have as much liturgy as possible-and stand up on alternating verses of the call to worship. Also stand up and and sit down on alternating verses of the hymns.

Put in a mill that grinds wheat that has to be pushed manually to make the bread for communion-have communion every Sunday.

Walk to church from home-carrying a backpack full of Bibles so that its a Holy journey.

Literally pick up your cross daily and follow Jesus-make sure your cross weighs no less than 70% of your body weight-and no more than 120% of it. Carry it everywhere-especially in Wal-Mart to impress people with your piety.

Also make sure to walk in place the entire time you do the liturgy for communion-of course one in which you use only whole grain bread that you milled yourself.

Grow, tend, and harvest the grapes for the communion that you have every Sunday.

Finally when you sing the hymn "Guide My Feet While I Run This Race" sprint around the sanctuary through all six verses.

I'm feeling more fit already. My fingers must have burned eleven calories typing this. Now I'm going to have some pie and coffee so I can have energy for the worship service on Sunday. I've got bread and juice to make.

Grace,
Dwight