My own experience of overweight and a member of the Adventist church hasn't been negative and only since coming to Andrews University have I begun to think about the social aspects of being overweight in my church. For those outside of my faith group, health reform is a fundamental belief of my church in which healthy lifestyle choices including diet and exercise are strongly encouraged. In particular four instances have led me to reflect on the matter:
A family member who has always had weight issues recently disclosed to me that she rarely goes to church in part because she feels like any time the topic of health comes up people tend to look at her and hurt her feelings by treating her as if she's the only one who needs to work on her health because she's obese.
A coworker who is a pastor told me that since working in our ministry and traveling a lot he's found it hard to stay on top of his health. One weekend after preaching at a local church, one of the members came and told him he couldn't even listen to the sermon because he was so shocked that an Adventist pastor could be overweight.
In our small groups we were talking about judging others and somebody in the group disclosed that he was guilty of judging people who were overweight.
A few days ago I came across a link on twitter that referred to a blog with quotes from the Bible about behavior and statements from Ellen White about the importance of Adventist ministers to adhere to health reform. The implication of the post was clearly taking a stand against employing pastors who were obviously not living in line with health reform (i.e. overweight). Sadly I've lost the link to the blog and would post it if I found it. My own nature would lead me to look at the context of all of the quotes to see if they were in line with the intent of the authors and I haven't had a chance to do that. My gut feeling on at least the Bible texts was that proof texting was being used and the quotes from Ellen White provided good food for thought.
By weight and height I fall into the obese category and I have only these four recent points of reference to reflect on the matter. I hope the experiences of people who struggle with weight within our church is that they predominately encounter loving followers of Christ who support them regardless of their clearly visible challenges.
I also believe that our church is blessed with a wonderful health message that has the potential to allow us to drastically reduce many of the diseases and ailments which plague western society because there is a cause and effect relationship between what we eat as a society and the diseases that are common in the United States and Europe. I want to make choices that will lead me out of obesity not for the sake of physical appearances but that my quality of life would be better when I'm older.
And while some may correctly or incorrectly associate adherence to health principles as a requirement for ministry, it certainly is not a test of membership in our church. While I am actively seeking to make health changes in my own life that is a challenging and deeply personal decision that may include underlying issues for others in our church that we can't even begin to comprehend. I hope to be an encouragement to people who are overweight regardless of success in making changes. I also hope the name of my blog doesn't offend anyone as I seek to explore issues related to being overweight and the health message of Adventism.
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