Peter SmytheA Different Kind of Word Preacher

Some years ago, I took my son to a family pool party. Some time during the hundred or so times I threw my son in the pool (only a slight exaggeration), my mother snapped a picture or two. Weeks later, at yet another family something or other, I went through a stack of pictures lying on the kitchen table and stopped dead on the pool photograph. How in the world did I become so fat, white, and pasty? When did that happen?

At that “coming to myself” moment, I decided then and there that I didn’t want to die as a fat, white, pasty man. Consequently, I embarked on a pretty ambitious fitness routine. That routine caused all kinds of havoc on my suburbanite lifestyle. Instead of topping off steak and fries with Ms. Smith’s pies and cakes, I was hitting the gym at 4:30 in the mornings and munching down protein bars in the afternoons. The stringency worked as my waist shimmied down four or five inches.

Over the past four or five years, I have continued my early morning workouts, protein shakes, and passing up opportunities of living large, but this year I’m facing the “creep.” While I’m “thin,” I’m not as thin as I was. In taking inventory, I see a few things have crept in and are cramping my style. My weight-lifting form has deteriorated. Protein bars and shakes are still on the menu, but so are nuts and chips here and there. I also see that my meal portions have gotten super-sized from a year ago. All this has resulted in a 5-8 pound “creep.” In order to combat this creep and lose the weight, I’m having to go back to Day One and start all over again.

In American Christianity we’ve had a lot more creep than we care to admit.

Earlier this year, some missionary friends of ours related a story about their Singaporean nationals. They had been preaching in Singapore for years, but decided that it was time to relocate to another country. In preparing for the move, our friends recommended several nationally-known American ministries to encourage their followers in the faith. After a short while, the Singaporeans came back to our friends and asked:

These ministries preach that they tithe on all of their receipts. Where is that in the Bible? Where in the Bible does it say that a ministry is supposed to tithe on its donations? If we want to give to one of their supported ministries, why we wouldn’t we send the donations directly to them? Why must it go through this other ministry? Where is that supported in the New Testament?

Our friends asked us, “How do you respond to that?” (They are a lot more cordial than I am.)

In another off-the-cuff example, a reader recently wrote to us saying:

I recently read a statement by a well-known WOF minister that basically said, a life without purpose is a life not worth living.

What?! If you don’t do Rick Warren’s stuff, then you should just call it quits? If you don’t carry around a life mission statement in your wallet then your life’s kaput? (How in the world did the Galatians make it through without a Purpose Drive Life?)

I’m not interested in dying as a white, fat, pasty man in my spiritual life either. This year (as we did last year) we’ll be cutting out the Zingers and going back to Day One in order to whittle down the creep (and the first creep will be the guy who declares himself to be my spiritual covering).

Note: The wife said I needed to let ‘er rip this year so 2008 will be more Galatian than Ephesian.