The Chicago Tribune ran a story about a health club that has a unique niche: they reach out to people who normally don't feel comfortable joining a health club. The article opened with the following story:
Tara Lawton says she quit going to her health club in part because she sensed she didn't fit in. People always seemed to be staring at--and silently judging--her 280-pound body. Then Lawton stumbled on the Facebook page for Downsize Fitness, a discreet new gym in Chicago's West Loop that's designed exclusively for people who want to lose at least 50 pounds.
"I want to cry sometimes at how it has changed my life," said Chicago's Lawton, 42, who now works out five days a week and has lost 20 pounds since joining in October. "My body is responding positively to being pushed .... The hardest thing [was] getting through the door. But now I'm moving forward, and there's no way I'm going back."
The article then explored why Downsize Fitness is helping people like Tara Lawton. Although people are joining health clubs in record numbers, the clubs usually feature attractive young men and women with perfect abs and toned bodies. The article reported: "The industry is often perceived to cater mostly to fit, educated, and middle- to upper-class clients."
But according to one fitness expert, most people don't buy that picture. "They know it's not realistic and don't think they can achieve it. So the fitness industry, in a way, is its own worst enemy."
Unfortunately, many fitness clubs alienate the people who need the most help. But Downsize Fitness is different: they welcome extremely unfit people and then walk beside them as they work through a program to get healthy and shed pounds.
In many ways, the story of Downsize Fitness provides a good way to assess a church's approach to ministry. Are we perceived as catering mostly (or only) to those who are already spiritually fit?
Do we welcome the spiritually unfit--people who may feel embarrassed to enter a church?
Are we ready to walk beside spiritually unhealthy people as they pursue the path of spiritual growth?
The answers to these questions are not always easy to look at. If we pattern our lives after Jesus though, we come to the quick realization that He reached out to people from all walks of life...not just the ones that looked like good candidates for the kingdom.
God is not willing that any should perish...but that all would come to a saving knowledge of Him.
Am I reflecting that attitude with those that I meet today?
What if I started seeing EVERYONE as a candidate for heaven today?
Have a great day and God bless!
Pastor Mike / The Open Word
