Sunday at RRBC

Happy Turkey Day (on Thanksgiving Eve Eve)

I hope you and yours have a good Thanksgiving. I might end up getting a blog post or two up before tomorrow, but then again, I might not.

The average person consumes about 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving Day. Just sayin'. I'll try to keep mine to a minimum, as it would take running a few 5K races to get rid of my gobble after that kind of eating.

We'll have a first within our family this year at Thanksgiving. For the first time since in married life, we'll be at home on Thanksgiving Day. Some of Mandy's family will come over and we'll enjoy Thanksgiving lunch together. Mandy plans on taking advantage of all the good deals on Black Friday, so the kids and I will let her get up before the roosters. Of course, she could take a nap Thanksgiving afternoon and start shopping at midnight, as at least one retailer will open their doors the first second of Friday.

Friday afternoon/early evening we'll head northeast on Highway 25 in route to Starkville. We'll stay in Louisville on Friday night, hence the reason we're waiting until Friday afternoon/early evening to head out. Ever spent a lot of time in Louisville? There's not terribly too much to do. But there were absolutely no hotels in Starkville when I checked over FOUR months ago.

The reason there are no hotels is because there's a pretty big game in Starkville on Saturday. The popular "Egg Bowl" gets kicked off at 11:21 Saturday morning. I've never attended this heated rivalry between Mississippi State and Ole Miss, but I've heard many tales about it. I plan on sitting back and enjoying the game, but I have a feeling that I'll end up watching the actions (many of them alcohol-induced) of the fans more than I'll see the action on the field.

Enjoy your long weekend, and have a great day with family and friends. I would encourage you to be thankful, but hopefully you already are.

A Good Snyopsis from a guru in the SBC on boycotts, Christmas, and culture

I posted my article about Boycotts, Christmas, & Culture a few days ago and thought I would have a mixed reaction to it. There would be some who would be "Yeah, buddy! That's exactly what I think, too. Let's go tell 'em about it." I also thought there would be some responders who sent a quiet email, asking me how in the world we are going to win the world if we do not stand up against worldly and ungodly events in culture. (Granted, I don't know that you can find a theological basis for exposing spiritual idolatry when the "exposure" involves a sign that reads "Happy Holidays.") And I thought that I might get really, really lucky and have a few - just a few - respond by going, "Hmmm. Now that makes me think." And that is the goal of all of my teaching, preaching, and blogging. I want to get you to think so that YOU come to a conclusion for YOURSELF instead of just accepting any and ever preacher's opinion.

I have no intention of beating a dead horse (not any of the horses that were at the manger scene anyway), but I'm also not gonna just say that and leave it at that. I think a far better picture of spiritual idolatry is the one that will be seen in many homes when kids get up on Christmas Day and "bow down" to the god of The Christmas Tree, whether it came from Wal-Mart, Target, or somewhere else, in the position of bowing down to this tree, this dispenser of gifts, to see what gifts that other idol of the north region - the one that you know is coming but for some reason never get to see - has left for you.

No, I don't actually believe that we are committing spiritual idolatry against God when that occurs. But I think that a situation like that is MUCH more likely to encourage the idolatry that many of the Banner Boycotters are saying will occur if "Merry Christmas" is not spoken or referenced in your local Wal-Mart, Home Depot, GAP, whatever.

But anyway...that's not the intention of this late night Sunday post, where my mind is beyond frazzled and unable to produce rational thoughts (the rational thoughts thing might be more related to the Ambien I took a few minutes ago).

My whole reason in starting this article was to point you to another one who said things that I said, but the wisdom in which he said them far surpassed mine...which it does every time. If you can't tell, I REALLY REALLY LIKE this guy. He does an awesome job in writing - I've read a lot of his stuff - and in dialogue - I've listened to him speak several times.

Ed Stetzer, in a recent blog post about the Advent, had this to say towards the end...

Our advent celebrations should find their embodiment in work similar to His. He spoke the truth--so should we. He cared for the outcast--so should we. He sacrificed personally--so should we. It is not complicated to emulate a living example...

We have a message that is worth conversing about over coffee. There is no need to protest in the streets over the manner of holiday greetings. There is no need to snarl back at the cashier who says "Haply Holidays" with a grumbled "Merry Christmas." Our task is not the be the lawn lingo lawmen of culture. We need not employ the protest as our major method of evangel. The gospel surpasses the mundane manner in which the world speaks about their vacation time at the end of December...

Our return to the simplicity of the gospel is a necessity this advent season as it is in every moment of the year. The gospel never needed tinsel to look good anyway.

And to that, I say, "Amen." You can read the entire blog post by Ed here.

See, people at Ole Miss do love Jesus

All joking aside, I was very impressed with the video below. It's the testimony of Ole Miss running back Dexter McCluster. Not only is he a very impressive athlete, but he also has a great story of faith to share. This might even cause some of the MSU faithful to cheer him on (just not on Egg Bowl). Miracles do still happen, after all. *grin*

How to Get Fat: Just Follow the Preacher

This is part three of my journey to get rid of the excess weight I was carrying around. It's a journey that is still in progress, but I'm reluctantly offering insight into it since people are always asking. I figure it's easier to just lay it out there in print instead of repeating the same story over and over. Maybe I should print the entire story and just hand it to people when they ask. Not like they're paying attention to the sermon anyway. *grin* I've written an article about obesity in general (Part 1) and an article on why I decided it was time to do something about my own obesity (Part 2).

When I decided to do something about my weight, I had a much better idea of what would NOT work as opposed to what would work. As a disclaimer, these are things that just wouldn't work for me. That's not to say that what wouldn't work for me wouldn't work for you. Based on past experience and me knowing my weaknesses, I knew good and well that some things just wouldn't work.

For example, I knew that a fad diet wouldn't do the trick. Been there. Done that. And I never even got a t-shirt. The reason that diets don't work for me (and the reason they don't work for a lot of people) is because we approach it in the wrong way. For a diet to be effective (remember: you're not reading the words of an expert), it takes more than a simple change of food or amounts of food over a particular time. It requires a change of how a person lives in relation to food for the long haul.

When diets are time-limited they seldom work for most people, and they never work for me. For example, if a person is 20 pounds overweight, they might say, "I'm going to cut out sugar until I get down to x number of pounds." So they forsake the sugar until they get down to that weight. Then the diet is over. Guess what happens nine times out of ten? They begin the sugar rush again and, before you know it, they're 20 pounds overweight again.

So I knew that just eating less of something for a particular period of time wouldn't do the trick for the long haul. It would take more than that.

Long story short, when you are in the shape I was in, you need some expert help and some extreme help. When I made my first visit to my doctor, I weighed in at 240.2 pounds. Surprised? Most people are when I tell them that. I wore shirts that were a couple of sizes too big to mask the mayhem that was supposedly my stomach, although it could have been referred to as the asteroid that fell from space and destroyed the earth.

The reason I weighed so much was simple: the lifestyle I lived fueled fatness. Losing weight boils down to two basic things: (1) what you eat and (2) what you do to exert energy, also known as "exercise." And I wasn't doing either one well at all.

The exercise aspect is very easy to explain. I simply wasn't doing anything extra to exercise. There was nothing going on beyond the occasional playing outside with the kids or doing some projects around the house. My job requires me to be on my feet for 1 1/2 days per week, on average. Most of the time is spent sitting in a car, sitting in a chair behind a desk, sitting in someone's living room or in a hospital room, sitting here, sitting there, sitting everywhere.

But even more than the exercise part, it was the food part that was killing me...literally. Take a look at the graphic below (which I did just for this blog - don't you feel special?). Tip: If you can't see it clearly, try clicking it and it will appear larger in a new screen. Print it out and you should be able to easily see it.
The graphic is a composite sketch of predicting my health. The standard measure of health as it relates to weight is the Body Mass Index (BMI), or, as it was in my case, the Bad Mess Index. BMI is dependent upon two things: (1) a person's height and (2) a person's weight. The formula for the BMI is taking a person's weight and dividing it by the square of a person's height. Now that takes some arithmetic, and math was never my strongest subject. So I turned to this website and used their absolutely free BMI calculator.

What you see in that graphic is the sketch of my health. The top row (labeled "BMI Score Range") consists of the possible scores that a person can get on their BMI. The middle row (labeled "Health Type") is a description of what kind of health each score represents. For example, if your BMI score is between 18.5 and 24.9, your weight is clinically classified as "Normal."

The bottom row (in blue, labeled "Weight Range") is the varying weight that corresponds to the BMI score for me. That number is based on my height, 5 foot, 10 inches. So, if my weight is between 129 and 173 pounds, that's clinically "Normal." Now recall my weight when I first went to see the doctor. It was 240 pounds. As you can see, for a person of my height, I was at the deep end of the "Obese, Level 1" category. A few more pounds and I would be in the Level 2 category of obesity. (As a sidenote, if you get to Level 3, they go ahead and call the funeral home.) Now if I were 7 feet tall, 240 pounds wouldn't be an issue. But at 5'10, it was a major issue.

And it's not difficult to understand why I had gotten to that point. It was the combo of no exercise and horrible eating habits. Let me flesh out the horrible eating habits I had, just to give you an idea of how bad it was.

The FDA recommends that a person take in 2000 calories a day (that's why you always see the 2000 calorie diet reference on food labels), 65 grams of fat per day, 20 grams of saturated fat a day, 300 milligrams of cholesterol, and 2400 milligrams of sodium. Too many calories leads to becoming overweight and obese. Too much fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, or sodium increases the risks of certain chronic diseases (i.e., heart disease), some cancers, and high blood pressure.

Needless to say, I did not follow these guidelines. It's not that I ate gobs and gobs of food all day. In fact, I hardly ever ate breakfast. I'd have a sensible lunch. Dinner time was the biggie, but it wasn't the biggest. The biggest culprit was the late night eating. Add to that the fact that what I was eating wasn't very nutritious or that I ate enough for a small army, and you've got a obese dude.

Let me give you some examples. On Wednesday nights we almost always get something to eat from a fast food place. With the way Wednesdays go, I don't have time to eat before church, and by the time I get home it's time for the kids to get to bed. It's much simpler to just go grab something on Wednesdays, and that's what we do. (We still do today, but I approach it much differently. More on that later.)

One of my favorite spots was Sonic. Being a good Baptist, I like routine, and I always ordered one of three things that composed my meal. Now remember, this is for ONE meal. Those three choices were (1) a cheeseburger, large onion rings, and a 44-ounce cherry-vanilla Dr. Pepper, (2) an extra-long chili-cheese coney, large onion rings, and a 44-ounce cherry-vanilla Dr. Pepper, or (3) a bacon-cheeseburger toaster sandwich, large onion rings, and - take a guess - a 44-ounce cherry-vanilla Dr. Pepper.

Are you ready for this? Regarding calories (FDA recommends 2000 per DAY, not MEAL), meal option 1 has 1774 calories, option 2 has 1812 calories, and option 3 has 1815 calories. Regarding fat (FDA = 65 grams), meal 1 has 62.4 grams, meal 2 has 70 grams, and meal 3 has 70.1 grams. Regarding saturated fat (FDA = 20 grams), meal 1 has 17.4, meal 2 has 20.2, and meal 3 has 19.8. Regarding sodium (FDA = 2400 milligrams), meal 1 has 1969 milligrams, meal 2 has 2688 milligrams, and meal 3 has 2275 milligrams.

And that's all for ONE meal consisting of THREE items: an entree, a side of onion rings, and a drink. And by the way, meal option 1 from Sonic was what I had as my "last meal" on August 17th (I began the battle on August 18th). And that doesn't count the DOZENS of times that I would drop by Sonic to just get a 44 ounce cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper. Sometimes I would get one TWICE during the same day, and often I would get one every day for a span of 4-5 days. Just that drink itself has 504 calories. That's one-fourth of the daily recommended calorie intake...in ONE drink of 44 ounces.

There were times that I would eat half a package of Oreo Double Stuf cookies in ONE sitting. And I'm not exaggerating. I could down half a package with a few glasses of milk over the course of an hour. That little exercise put 1260 calories in my body, not including the milk.

On other occasions I would make a run to the border of Byram and grab Taco Bell. My selections were more varied there, but usually I landed on the grilled "stuft" burrito, which weighs in at a mere 700 calories (typed sarcastically), followed by a double decker taco of 330 calories, and washing it down with a 250 calorie drink, bringing that meal total to 1280 calories.

I could give some more examples (like the 5-6 pieces of pizza I could eat, which equals about 1200-1300 calories), but what I've already written is sufficient to explain why I was a puffy pastor. Since this post is a bit longer than I anticipated, I'll save the good part about exactly what I'm doing and how things are going now for a later time.

Sunday at RRBC

Boycotts, Christmas, & Culture

Is it just me, or is Thanksgiving getting a fairly fast pass this year? According to the status of many people on Facebook (Would you call those "stati"?), trees are already up, lights are already strung on rooftops, and all presents are already bought, half of them now wrapped. I thought it was a universal law of humanity that no Christmas decor could go up until the turkey had at least come out of the oven and those uncles that no one likes had snored for a few hours in dad's favorite recliner.

And it's not just the external evidences of the Christmas season that are coming a tad earlier this year. Already, even before the week of Thanksgiving, we're getting the message to boycott certain companies. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I begin to see several Facebook "stati" that encourage me to avoid shopping at this store or that store because - enter big gasp - they refuse to use the word "Christmas."

I wrote about this last year on the blog. And I'll probably write about it again this time next year. But it merits a mention now as well. And, per the nature of these types of blog posts, a disclaimer or two is needed.

First, I'm not against boycotts. I think they can accomplish some things and send a message when needed. The way you grab corporate America's attention is by clinching your wallet/purse tight in your hand. Without the dough, they cannot go. Financial boycotts are not sinful; therefore, I have no biblical or theological problem with them.

Second, I'm not against people (Christian or non-Christian) who boycott. I have met a few over the years who could easily have "Boycott" as their middle name. I don't think they are sinful or evil or ignorant or less spiritual than anyone else.

Now, with that being said, let me throw my two cents in on what I feel boycotting business that do not use the word "Christmas" accomplishes. And, I remind you, that what you read here on this blog is exactly worth what you paid to read it. My opinion is just that - my opinion. If you have a different one, then that's great and I'm fine with it. But, just as you are entitled to your opinion and the right to "air" it in whatever way you want, so do I. And here's mine...

I simply can't see the value of boycotting a business because of their refusal to display the word "Christmas." That's the "bottom line" of my opinion. But I don't want to just leave it at that. Allow me to flesh it out a bit by explaining why I don't see the value of doing so.

First, I can't expect "the world" to believe like I believe. If the Southern Baptist Convention came out and said "We encourage all our churches to stop celebrating Christmas in their services and, instead, to celebrate the 'Holidays,'" then I'd be at the front of the line at the offices of the Executive Committee. Why? Because I expect a group of people who claim to love Christ and serve him to honor and celebrate his birth. I have that expectation because we are, after all, CHRISTians.

However, I simply don't expect the world to embrace Jesus Christ. It's my job as a believer to pray for them to embrace Christ and to seek opportunities to present Christ to them so that he can be embraced. But to expect the world to want to celebrate Christmas in the spiritual sense doesn't make sense. And, to be honest, I don't feel that an employee will be any more likely to make a decision for Christ if the banner reads "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays."

That would be like us going to a football game and asking them to boycott a baseball bat. The baseball bat has absolutely no sway to a person who is only dedicated to football. They could care less about whether a baseball bat is there or not. If I were to convince them of the value of the baseball bat and that they should love the baseball bat, then we have a different story. But until then, expect them to care less if a baseball bat is boycotted or not.

Second (and there are only two points), I think we get real close to that line of hypocrisy when we start to boycott businesses on the basis of the use of the word "Christmas." Let's be honest: Does the average Christian celebrate Christmas in a way that makes it CHRISTmas? In other words, is Christ really at the center of the stage of Christmas? Think about it. We will spend countless hours searching for the right gifts. We'll spend hours going back and forth from house to house, eating Christmas goodies and shredding wrapping paper like it's nobody's business. We'll stuff ourselves so much that WE would barely fit down the chimney. We'll cook, clean up, cook, clean up, and do it all over again.

Offering a 20 second prayer in the midst of all that coming and going, thanking God for the birth of Christ, does not constitute making Christmas CHRISTmas (i.e., all about Christ). Don't misunderstand what I'm saying: I believe it's possible to make Christmas Christ-centered, and I believe that there are some people who make it about that. But, on average, I don't believe you'll see a major difference in how the Christian and non-Christian "celebrate" during Christmas.

At the end of the day, I think our energy could be better spent in ways to engage our culture for Christ instead of opposing our culture on the basis of Christ. Yes, we need to take stands in culture and let the world know what we believe. I just don't know that boycotting businesses over the word "Christmas" is the most productive means of doing that. That is especially true when the ones doing the boycotting are red in the face with anger and spewing condemnation to those reprobates who don't use the word "Christmas."

But that's just me. My opinion is one of many. What say ye?