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What to do on “Fat Days”

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fat days

Most you know my journey of losing weight. I once weighed close to 300 pounds. Over an 18 month time span I was able to lose 130 pounds and I have kept it off for the last 3 years. I’ve talked more about that here.

Even after losing all that weight I still have “fat days.”

Everyone does, right? I assume so.

What do you do in those moments? Regardless of your weight and size you have moments and days that you feel fat. You may not actually be fat, but you feel it.

Feelings of guilt, shame hit you. You think back to what you ate over the last day or two and maybe beat yourself up for that extra serving at dinner, that late night snack or dessert, ordering the venti 3,000 calorie drink at Starbucks instead of the tall skinny water. And on and on it goes.

You maybe even vent to a friend in hopes that they’ll tell you that you don’t look fat but that doesn’t help because you feel fat. And let’s be honest, what we feel is what drives us.

Yet, as a mentor told me, what we know trumps what we feel. 

Here are some ways to handle “fat days”:

  1. Uncover why you feel the way you do. It is okay to think over the last few days, but go further back than that. Not to document what you’ve eaten but what has happened in your life to make you feel the way you do. For many people, food is an addiction like drugs, porn or smoking. Have you experienced abuse in your life that drives you to eat? Are you prone to worry when things get out of control and that drives you to eating? Is there something underneath the comfort that comes from eating? Until you understand why you eat what you do, it is unlikely you will find freedom from eating as a god you go to for comfort.
  2. What does Jesus actually say about you. The next thing is understanding what Jesus says about you. If you are made in the image of God as the Bible teaches, your body is not an accident. Sure it is frustrating that some people can eat at taco bell 4 times a day and lose weight and you gain a pound simply by walking by a McDonald’s, but God made you that way. I get it because I’m that way. If I don’t watch what I eat I gain weight fast, that is my DNA. If you need some ideas on eating, here are some things I eat.
  3. Do you need to make changes to your diet. Practically speaking, you might need to make changes to your diet. While eating is a spiritual thing and can be an addiction and a sin, it is also a practical thing. Keep a food diary, write down everything you eat. You will often be surprised at what you put into your body and how that adds up. We often eat mindlessly and very quickly, which leads to weight gain. Most Christians can quote 1 Corinthians 6:19 about our bodies being the temple of God as a way to say drinking and smoking is bad and then go to the next potluck and gorge themselves on dessert.
  4. What image do you have in your head that you aren’t living up to, how accurate is that image? When you think about your perfect body or the body that makes you feel “fat”, how healthy is that image? Is that the way God made you? Again, if you and I are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), then we need to see ourselves as made the way God intended. This becomes a trust issue with God. We also need to identify the sin of coveting that comes as we page through magazines or put workouts together in an effort to be skinnier or more muscular.
  5. Stop weighing yourself. On the days you feel fat, you weigh yourself constantly. Every 5 minutes to see if something changed. Did I lose weight in the last hour because of all the water I drank and all the food I didn’t eat? The amount of times we weigh ourselves show where our god is and what we find our identity in. Weight gain, weight loss and exercising can be a tricky thing and not always accurate to what is happening in your body. Recently, I’ve gotten into crossfit and have gained some weight. At first, I was frustrated by this. Then I started to wonder, my jeans still fit. I measured myself and found that my waist was still the same size it was just my chest and shoulders that have grown. Translation, that isn’t fat that led to weight gain. It is important to understand where weight gain comes from.
  6. Go easy on yourself. You can very easily beat yourself up, starve yourself or heap guilt and shame onto yourself. If you are a follower of Jesus, there is no guilt and shame to be had. That was nailed to the cross with Jesus and when he walked out of the tomb, he conquered the power of sin, guilt and shame. Now, followers of Jesus do feel conviction and sometimes this comes in the area of food, how we think about our bodies and how we look at ourselves. This is the Holy Spirit helping us become who we are created to become. If it isn’t from the Holy Spirit, go easy on yourself.

“Fat days” come no matter what size you are. But the gospel transforms those days.

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This is the End (Why Most Sermons Fail)

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Every week, pastors work on their sermons. They stand in front of their churches and preach (hopefully with passion). Yet, very little change happens because of those sermons. Most people leave, unchanged. If you look around the world, very little impact is being made by Christians. Most stats show that those who attend church are just as likely to live and act like those who don’t attend church.

Why is that?

I think the problem rests in the end of sermons.

Most sermons are not clear. There is not a time when a pastor clearly articulates, “because this passage is true, here is what this means for us today.” There is little challenge to change or live differently.

Put another way, most pastors fail to help people imagine what their life would be like if they applied the Bible.

Here’s what I mean: if you preach on giving, how do you help people imagine what their life would be like 1 month, 1 year from now if they applied the verses you preached on. How would their life be different?

If you preach on marriage: how do you help couples see how their marriage will be different if they applied Ephesians 5. Pastors are usually good at saying what the Bible says and being prepared in that way. But struggle with, “now what.”

Before you pray and close your Bible to end your sermon, help your people see how their life would be different if they applied your sermon.

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The Importance of Organizational Culture

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organizational culture, analysis and development concept

What an organizational culture does to a church:

  1. Culture shapes our lives and all our beliefs.
  2. Culture is vital to effective ministry.
  3. Our culture affects the way we conduct our ministries in the church.
  4. Culture helps us understand better the different people we seek to reach for Christ.
  5. Cultural understanding is essential to leaders if they are to lead their established churches well.
  6. Cultural understanding is essential to leaders if they are to lead their planted churches well.
  7. Culture may cannibalize strategic planning.
  8. Understanding culture helps the church cope with changes in its external environment.

From Look Before You Lead: How to Discern & Shape Your Church Culture by Aubrey Malphurs.

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12 Things Great Public Speakers Do

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Nancy Duarte is an expert in presentation design and principal of Duarte Design, where she has served as CEO for 21 years. Nancy speaks around the world, seeking to improve the power of public presentations. She is the author of Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations as well as Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences and the recent HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations. Her books are must reads for communicators but many pastors don’t know who she is. So, as an introduction, here are 12 of my favorite quotes from her:

  1. Designing a presentation without an audience in mind is like writing a love letter and addressing it “to whom it may concern.”
  2. The people in your audience came to see what you can do for them, not what they must do for you. So look at the audience as the “hero” of your idea—and yourself as the mentor who helps people see themselves in that role so they’ll want to get behind your idea and propel it forward.
  3.  Give people insights that will improve their lives.
  4. People don’t fall asleep during conversations, but they often do during presentations—and that’s because many presentations don’t feel conversational.
  5. Before you begin writing your presentation, map out that transformation—where your audience is starting, and where you want people to end up.
  6. Ask yourself, “What new beliefs do I want them to adopt? How do I want them to behave differently? How must their attitudes or emotions change before their behavior can change?”
  7. Presentations move people to act—but only if you explicitly state what actions you want them to take, and when.
  8. The quality of your presentation depends as much on what you choose to remove as on what you choose to include.
  9. The most persuasive communicators create conflict by juxtaposing what is with what could be.
  10. Never deliver a presentation you wouldn’t want to sit through.
  11. Transparency wins people over.
  12. For an idea to spread, it needs to be distinct and stand out.
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Books on Adoption & Parenting

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I’m often asked about book recommendations when it comes to parenting or adoption. Everything from how you get your child to eat the food you give them to organizing your day to not go crazy and everything in between. Below are some of the books that I have found to be the most helpful and useful, with a little bit about each book so you know which ones to get for your family.

Wounded Children, Healing Homes: How Traumatized Children Impact Adoptive and Foster Families by Jayne Schooler & others

A great book with an overview perspective on parenting traumatized children- less of a how to and more of a why things play out the way they do. MANY books are referenced, and there is an extensive appendix of additional resources and support groups/aids. There is an honest look at extreme abuse/trauma cases but doesn’t talk through cultural/language differences or more mild cases- though I would assume it is much of the same. There is a good section on how adoption affects the “original” family; including siblings already in the home.

Just Take a Bite: Easy, Effective Answers to Food Aversions and Eating Challenges by Lori Ernsperger

As a mom of a resistant eater this book covered many things that don’t apply to our specific situation ie. a healthy son who refuse to try new foods, but is has some great ideas to help include a wider variety of foods into a resistant eaters diet. The book provides a middle ground that I could not see- not acquiescing to whatever your child will eat and not forcing them to eat which can promote negative attitudes toward new foods. There seemed to be many ideas for kids with special needs who need help developing a wider diet.

Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child: From Your First Hours Together Through the Teen Years by Patty Cogen

For a soon to be adoptive parent of an international child this book is a must. It gives so many practical tools and games to connect with a child who needs help bonding and also gives clues into what your child is feeling based on the type of play that they are engaging in. The book uses a few “stereotyped” kids to talk through typical reactions for different personality types and coping methods for kids from hard places. This book does not need to be read in one sitting, but can be read incrementally because it is written in chronological fashion.

A Mother’s Rule of Life: How to Bring Order to Your Home and Peace to Your Soul by Holly Pierlot

This has nothing to do with adoption, but I know that a solid routine for kids from hard places is very helpful. This book is written by a mom, who gets at the heart behind a schedule- namely mortification- self-discipline to promote Godliness.

Beyond Consequences, Logic and Control: Volume 1 by Heather Forbes

Is a how-to book in dealing with specific issues experienced in adoption. The premise of parenting from a place of love instead of fear is very freeing. I think that this book is a good first step to many of the behaviors addressed, but I would guess that there needs to be a certain amount of self awareness from the child to be able to have the discussions used as examples in this book. The biggest take away from this book is that children are not trying to be manipulative, but their behavior is the only way they know how to express what is going on inside.

Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids by Kim Payne M.Ed., & Lisa Ross

Again, this book is not about adoption, but deals with… simplicity in schedule, stuff, and making sure that there is a solid connection and grounding for children. The thing that was an eye opener about this book lies in the introduction; the author talks about how he was doing some work at a refugee camp in Africa and was treating kids with PTSD, then after that he started a private practice in the states. Through his practice he started to see that children in the US were exhibiting some of the same behaviors as the children from the refugee camp… mainly because of the pace and disconnectedness that so many children grow up with in their homes. My fear is that many children are adopted out of their original culture, and then through another environment do not give them the connectedness and grounding that they need, so the underlying issues are not addressed just masked.

The Connected Child : Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family by Karyn Purvis

This is one that I am planning to read along with the workbook by Karyn Purvis; found here http://empoweredtoconnect.org/created-to-connect-study-guide/.

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Look Before You Lead: How to Discern & Shape Your Church Culture

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bookEvery Tuesday morning, I review a book that I read recently. If you missed any, you can read past reviews here. This week’s book is Look Before You Lead: How to Discern & Shape Your Church Culture (kindle version) by Aubrey Malphurs.

I can’t even begin to describe how good and helpful this book is. The appendixes alone are worth the price of the book as they essentially give you Malphurs consulting toolbox.

The struggle many pastors have when it comes to leadership, making changes, preaching, leading their staff, working with volunteers is that they don’t understand the culture they work in. They are simply trying to put ideas into place, move things forward or make a difference. Until you understand the culture you have as a leader, those you lead, the world around your church and the world inside your church, you won’t be able to move anything. This book is particularly helpful for pastors about to move to a new church as Malphurs has an entire checklist of questions to ask a church board who is interviewing you. I found that extremely helpful from the other angle as it gave me questions I need to know for Revolution and questions I would ask a leader to determine if they fit our culture.

The reality is that every church is different. Every church has a different history, different set of leaders. So what works in California doesn’t work the same way in New York. In the same way that what works in one part of a city doesn’t work in another part of a city.

But what is culture? According to Malphurs, “The church’s congregational culture as the unique expression of the interaction of the church’s shared beliefs and its values, which explain its behavior in general and display its unique identity in particular.” And, “a primary responsibility of today’s strategic church leaders is to create, implement, and re-implement an organizational culture that rewards and encourages movement toward the church’s mission and vision. Every pastor must understand that to a great degree his job is to lead and manage the congregational culture, but if he doesn’t understand that culture as well as his own, he won’t be able to do the job.”

Here are a few other things that jumped out:

  • The organization’s beliefs and values intermingle and are seen in the church’s behavior or outward expression of itself. This is the first layer that is represented by the apple’s skin. Churches express themselves through their behaviors and outward appearance.
  • The behaviors and outward expressions are what an observer, such as a visitor, would see, sense, and hear as he or she encounters a church’s culture. Some examples are the church’s physical presence (facilities), language (multi- or monolingual), clothing, symbols, rituals, ceremonies, ordinances, technology, and so forth.
  • Churches are behavior-expressed but values-driven. The inward values drive and explain the church’s outward behavior. These values explain why the church does what it does at the first behavioral level and why it doesn’t do what it should do. When a church culture acts on its beliefs, they become its actual values. Until then they are aspirational in nature and inconsistent with the church’s actual observed presence and expressed behavior.
  • Churches are behavior-expressed, values-driven, and beliefs-based.
  • These three elements of organizational culture—beliefs, values, and their expression—work together to display the church’s unique identity.
  • Congregational culture as a church’s unique expression of its shared beliefs and values.
  • “The most important single element of any corporate, congregational, or denominational culture . . . is the value system.”
  • A ministry based on clearly articulated core values drives a fixed stake in the ground that says to all, “This is what we stand for; this is what we are all about; this is who we are; this is what we can do for you.”
  • An organization’s core values signal its bottom line. They dictate what it stands for, what truly matters, what is worthwhile and desirous. They determine what is inviolate for it; they define what it believes is God’s heart for its ministry.
  • Core values are the constant, passionate shared core beliefs that drive and guide the culture.
  • The key to understanding what drives you or your ministry culture is not what you would like to value as much as what you do value.
  • To attempt change at the surface level is problematic and disruptive. People persist in their beliefs and resent the change because leaders haven’t addressed it at the beliefs level. Thus the leader or change agent must discover the basic beliefs and address them as the church works through the change process.
  • Every thriving, spiritually directed church is well fed and well led.
  • We cannot do anything we want, because God has designed us in a wonderful way to accomplish his ministry or what he wants. Only as we discover how he has wired us will we be able to understand what specifically he wants us to accomplish for him in this life, whether it’s through pastoring a church or some other important ministry.

As I said, if you are a pastor, this is an incredibly helpful book to work through.

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“I Don’t Feel God’s Love”

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In talking with many people, I’m convinced one of the biggest roadblocks to faith, to living the life God created you to live (John 10:10) has to do with God’s love and accepting God as Father.

For many, this comes from their relationship with their earthly father. It is hard to see God as a good, gracious and loving Father if you experienced a father who always broke his promises, abused you, hurt you, was emotionally absent or walked out and abandoned you. Yet, in John 10, Jesus tells us a lot about God as a Father.

He tells us that he knows us (vs. 27), that his children follow him (vs. 27), that God gives his children life and that they will never perish (vs. 28), and that his children sit in the hand of God and no one or nothing will be able to snatch them out (vs. 29).

The image of sitting in the hand of God is so important. It gives us a picture of how close we as followers of Jesus are to God the Father. It shows his great care for us. It shows his protection of us. It also shows us that everything that comes our way must pass through the hand of God. 

Whether sin, temptation, suffering, pain, etc. All of this must pass through the hand of God to get to us. Not all of that comes from the hand of God, but it does not catch God by surprise.

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How we Spent our Time in Ethiopia with our Son

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Many of you have asked what our time with our son was like while we were in Ethiopia. In 2 words: too short, but in actuality we spent everyday with him at the transition home, usually twice a day for a few hours in the morning and then for a few hours in the afternoon. Most of the time we were busy doing the different activities that we or another family brought to help create opportunities for bonding and occupying the time. We also spent some time with him in his classroom, watching him interact with the other children his age and just planting ourselves in his world. Here are a few pictures to show you what our time was like…

If you’d like to help us bring our son home and raise the $5,000 we still need for airfare, you can give a tax deductible gift here.

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How to Find Rest in the Midst of a Busy Life

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I talked this past Sunday about the idols of the heart and what drives us to do what we do. Yesterday after breakfast, Katie pointed something out to me in Isaiah 46.

While our idols drive us and only the gospel can transform our hearts to be driven by Jesus. We also look to our idols to carry us, to give us rest, to complete us.

We look for achievement to give us rest. When we’ve accomplished enough, we’ll have enough. When we have enough school, we’ll be enough. When we’ve taken enough vacations, we’ll have enough experiences.

When we have enough power, we’ll have enough control. We’ll have enough followers, enough employees. We’ll be important and feared because we have power.

When we have enough stuff, we’ll be able to slow down and rest. We’ll be able to sit on our new deck furniture, watch our huge TV from our plush chair.

We’ll finally be able to rest, because our idols will carry us.

Except. We lose employees. This year award becomes next year’s forgotten winner. That degree becomes not enough in 5 years when someone else gets one more degree than you. That vacation next year will be a distant memory when you hear about a new place, a new resort, a new experience. That power will fade as your company gets bought out or a new boss comes in and the game changes. And stuff rots and falls apart and last years most amazing TV becomes next month’s “last season’s model.”

Our idols fail. They do not carry us. They do not give us rest.

Isaiah 46:8-9 says:

Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.