Guest post from Ryan Cleveland: How to Hide Mt. Everest: a Diary of a 300 pound Pastor (sort of)

Last week we heard from Gary Thomas, who told the story of a 300 pound pastor figuring out his need to lose weight if he was going to minister well. My good friend, Ryan Cleveland, dropped me a note about it and we started talking back and forth and I thought, "Ryan has some good thoughts here, I'd love to have him share this with the gang at my blog." I asked him if he would be willing to do a guest post, and he graciously agreed. I love Ryan. He's a great man who stands by his convictions, has a deep andy growing relationship with Christ and isn't afraid to sit and talk with me about Green Lantern, comic books and movies. I feel certain you will enjoy Ryan's heartfelt and vulnerable post. You can learn more about Ryan's ministry here, or follow him on Twitter.

After waking up early this morning (thanks kids) I picked up my Blackberry (it’s a smartphone…used to be popular in Moses’ day) and checked my twitter app, and I saw a link to Gary Thomas’ guest post on Matt Mikalatos’ blog entitled, “The 300 pound Pastor.”

My heart sank.

As a missionary who currently weighs 330 pounds, I had several thoughts go immediately through my mind. Did Gary come down with an acute case of fataphobia? Did Matt betray me? (For I had recently shared with him and others about my struggles with my weight.) But really the thought and emotion that came out on top was despair. Not again.

 But because of some recent victories in my life, I felt like I was in a place to share about my own journey and struggle with my weight, and was happy to take the opportunity to post on Matt’s blog.

How to Hide Mt. Everest

Over the years, I have developed a highly scientific and effective tool to deal with my insecurity about my weight. I hide it. Yes, you heard me. HIDE IT! How do you hide that mini-Mt. Everest you are carrying around your waist, you ask? The only way I can—humor. By making jokes about my size, I am trying to seize control of the situation. I do this in many areas of my life. I can get up on a stage and be a goofball as long as it is my idea. Try and force me, and I run like Carl Lewis. In fact I remember having to get on a stage at a conference with some fellow team leaders a few years ago. Part of the act was to wear white T-Shirts. I didn’t have one and was lent one from someone else, a 180 pound someone else. I was at the verge of tears when I took control, and started making jokes and acted like a fool. Everyone laughed just as they should. If you know someone who seems to make light of their weight, it may very well be their desperate way of coping with their fears and insecurity.

Seeking a Better Reputation

For pastors and other spiritual leaders, being obese bodes a problem because we are God’s stewards of hope for betterment in the lives of those entrusted to us, and we run (okay maybe not “run”) in to the problem of hypocrisy. But is it hypocrisy? If we broaden our spiritual walk with God to an all or nothing thing, then an obese pastor preaching “God’s good, you’re not, do better” has a credibility problem. A pastor who preaches “we all have things that we struggle with; some of us have things that are visible, others invisible, let’s go on that journey together can do so and maintain his credibility because I believe that to be the biblical message behind true spiritual growth and development.

I appreciated Gary’s thought that we should not choose leaders by BMI, but I wonder if that is exactly the message we unintentionally reinforce when we talk about other people’s weight and how it damages their reputation. As an overweight person I have heard this often, and there is no question that people often evaluate me in light (yeah, I said “light”) of my weight. I think there may be a slippery slope at play here. Our culture likes pretty skinny people. We are enamored with them. I can lose 100 pounds, but can’t make my face any prettier. Trust me on that one, not unless I got some handy dandy plastic surgery. So here is my question, “Should I get surgery to make my face look “better” so people would be more apt to listen to what I have to say about Jesus?” Of course not. But even discussing the idea of "lose weight, gain reputation" seems off to me. That feeds my insecurity and is super demotivating, and I wonder if it unintentionally feeds our culture’s thoughts on image. For women, this takes on a whole new direction of eating disorders and depression, reinforced by our culture’s absolute right and wrong view of our bodies. As much as I don’t like it though, image does affect reputation. But should it? I wonder. I wear a suit when I perform a wedding ceremony and I don’t feel bad about that. Splitting this hair is most challenging for sure.

The Mirror Never Lies 

There is something you need to know about your overweight friend, and especially your overweight pastor or Christian leader. They know they are overweight, and more importantly they know you know it, and it likely terrifies them. About a year and a half ago, I was speaking at my church about our most recent summer mission trip. After I was done, I left the stage and was heading down the aisle to my seat and a gentleman whom I had never met before grabbed my hand and stopped me, pulled me close and said, “Great testimony. But from one brother to another, you really need to lose a lot of weight.” I said “thank you” and walked away. But in my mind I was thinking, “Yes, I have a mirror at home and I am not an idiot.” My interaction with this man just reinforced my belief that everyone who meets me thinks, “he just doesn’t take care of himself, tsk, tsk, tsk." And when I encounter those people, I franticly tell them about hypothyroid disease, and how my mom gave it to me because I did not eat beets growing up, etc., and therefore I am not 100% at fault, and then they have sympathy for me and all is good again. An obese person looks in the mirror as little as possible, and can be undone when others decide they need to be a mirror for them in such a way. They need a different kind of mirror.

Hearing the Truth in Love

Nate, a friend of mine I worked with a few years ago sat me down to talk to me about my weight and getting in the gym. He didn’t care about how I got fat, or what my reputation was. He cared about me and offered to be a friend along the journey. That was incredibly motivating for me, though it was still incredibly hard to hear. Please don’t ever tell an obese person you care about their reputation or credibility (even if you believe it to be true). Tell them you care about them. Check to see if there is a deep love for that person that is driving you speak the truth to them about their health. The conversation will be hard, but that is okay. Love and empathy cannot be faked.

 Why I disagree with Gary, but he is still right

Though I may think differently about some of the premises in Gary’s blog post (I guess I need to read his book now), he is absolutely dead on in his conclusion. Fat preachers need to lose weight. But it has to be for the right reasons. I want to lose weight for the Lord because I am convinced he wants me to. I want to lose weight for my family because I want to be able to live a long life with them instead of dying of a heart attack in five years. I want to lose weight to gain victory over something that owns me unnecessarily and fully enjoy any blessings God in His grace might send my way. Because the truth is right now I can’t. I miss out on so many things because of my health.

Time to lose some weight. Time to go climb Mt. Everest.

P.S. I have read a lot of books on marriage. Some of them can be pretty bad to be honest. Men, if you want to find a good book on marriage, ask your wife. My wife loved “Sacred Marriage ” by Gary Thomas.” Another book I actually have not read—okay Gary, will read Sacred Marriage ASAP!

The 300 Pound Pastor: Guest Post from theologian and author, Gary Thomas

Today's guest post comes from Gary Thomas. Be sure to follow him on his Twitter feed. Before I met Gary, he had already had a profound impact on my life through his book, Sacred Marriage, which is the best, most helpful and practical marriage book I've read. I read through multiple of his other books and found them insightful, eye-opening and profound. Then I met Gary in person, when I took one of his seminary classes at Western Seminary. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Gary is not only insightful, but deeply spiritual and someone who practices what he preaches. Gary has consistently shown generosity, patience and kindness toward me, and his deep love for Christ is evident to anyone who has spent time with him. This post relates to his newest book, Every Body Matters: Strengthening Your Body to Strengthen Your Soul. Enjoy!

The 300 Pound Pastor

When Mark Bejsovec, a youth pastor, saw the scale creep over 300 pounds, he gulped.  During his high school football playing days, he carried just 186 pounds on his six-foot-two frame.  In his early thirties, however, Mark started gaining weight steadily. At first, he rationalized it and even began using it like a tool. It made him seem funnier. He could push out his stomach until he looked like he was pregnant, and the kids in his ministry would laugh: “You look like you got twins!”

When he hit 300 pounds, though, Mark began to sense God speaking to him about his physical condition.

“I looked into Scripture, specifically at the men in the Bible who assumed leadership roles, and wondered how they must have looked. I couldn’t find anyone in leadership who was overweight.”

This wasn’t about vanity, but rather about being a better steward of his body and his calling: “If I was addressing only spiritual issues but not the physical ones, I considered I would be less useful to the Lord in my ministry. If I was going to remain in ministry, I needed to honor God with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and also all my body.”

By definition, we can’t be a leader in secret.  Somebody is following us.  And the bodies we are leading with aren’t hidden.

A friend of mine, who works as a senior director for a major Christian development organization, recently shared with me the battle he faces with eating and exercise.  On a recent business trip, he ate twenty-four restaurant meals in a row. He’s concerned about his health habits, and like many, he lives with a constant sense of failure that he could be doing more about his weight. What he doesn’t see are spiritual leaders taking this struggle as seriously as he does.  “We’ve been taught in the evangelical tradition about adultery and lying and stealing and coveting,” he says, “and about lust and alcoholism and smoking and drug abuse. But many evangelical pastors who preach against these things are visibly overweight or obese. I don’t say this to judge them—I struggle with the same thing. But sometimes I wonder. Sure, they may have conquered the online porn, but it seems like they’re ‘medicating’ with food; I get that, because I do the same thing.”

For his part, Mark decided to quit his former eating habits cold turkey. When his weight started coming off, Mark experienced a rush of positive energy. “I started feeling more affirmed, my self-esteem went up, and my relationship with God grew. It’s not that my previous life didn’t honor God, but now it felt like I was living like God designed me to live.”

When I asked Mark what changed most about his life since he lost seventy pounds, he responded, “Let’s be honest: there were times I was discredited because of the way I looked. When I talked to kids about self-control in other areas, they could look at me and understandably ask why I wasn’t addressing my issues with food. But now, when I share my story, there’s an added inspirational element. If I can do it, anyone can do it, and my weight loss has become an effective tool in my ministry.”

As a writer whose most prominent books relate to marriage, I take it as a personal challenge to maintain the integrity of my own marriage.  I can’t write and teach on marriage if my own is falling apart.  As a pastor, however, when I talk to the church about self-control; when I preach on the necessity of personal discipline, good stewardship in all areas of life, and, above all, when I teach out of 1 Corinthians 6:20: “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” I am going to completely undercut my message if I’m preaching out of a body that denies this.

It would be convenient if being a leader didn’t require also being an example, but that’s not the case.  Paul writes, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” (1 Cor. 11:1)

Leaders, let’s ask ourselves, “Is my body serving or thwarting my message?”  If you’re a pastor, you may well have accepted financial sacrifice for the privilege of being in the ministry; if you’re a leader of any type, you have readily accepted the sacrifice of your time, tranquility, and even reputation, as leadership assaults all of these.  But will you also accept bodily sacrifice—watching what you eat, and putting in the effort to get appropriate exercise? Will you recognize that the body out of which you lead can either support or undercut the message that you carry?

I am not suggesting that we pick leaders by how thin they are, or that we make a direct connection between a person’s BMI and his holiness. That would be ridiculous, ignorant, and unfair—some bodies aren’t designed to be thin, other bodies seem to naturally stay thin regardless of how they are cared for or fed, but leaders, we know our own journey, we know whether this area of stewardship is feeding or hindering our maturity and ministry. Don’t all of us feel better, stronger, more energetic, when we’re being faithful in this area?  And don’t we all know that there are negative consequences when we get careless?

So, in a spirit of encouragement and grace, let’s admit that this is something we need to start talking about. Just as we seemed eager to denounce the opulent affluence and money-raising scandals of the 1980s televangelists, let’s not be blind to our own contemporary challenges at the dawn of the 21^st century.

For more on this topic, check out Gary’s book Every Body Matters: Strengthening Your Body to Strengthen Your Soul.