I don't know where I was first introduced to XXX Church, but they've always had a presence at Cornerstone, the music festival I volunteer at as a photographer and general web wrangler. In fact, here's a photo of the XXX Church Porn Bunny I shot this past year at a Family Force Five concert. (you can't see that there's a big stage in front of him with the band)
(and my friend Jerry happened to take a photo of me at the same show)
anyway, enough about me, back to Craig. Pulpit Rock Church, the people that run the Real Men of Genius group I belong to, also do something called We Do Things. A few months ago, they decided to bring in Craig Gross and Ron Jeremy for their "Great Porn Debate" as one of the We Do Things events. So, being morbidly curious, and also knowing they didn't have anyone shooting publicity photos, Ang and I dragged some friends.
There wasn't anything life changing about the event. You can see video clips over at You Tube... and I thought that Craig was a little bit too "Rock Star Pastor-ish", but it was an interesting event.
Anyway, back to the point. Sorry.
We've been talking about this fast for a couple of months now and I wasn't really sure that I could do it. I spent a lot of time thinking and praying trying to figure out if this was something that I could or should do. Two weeks ago at Real Men of Genius, we watched a documentary about Craig and one of the other XXX Church pastors going around the country on their Starving Jesus tour. Basically, the got in an RV and went around the country on a 40 Day Fast, petitioning the church to get out of the pew and into the world. That we're starving Jesus by hiding inside the church and refusing to change the world. It wasn't the greatest film but it was both inspiring from what their goal was and from being able to watch them go through this fast.
Today, wandering around Facebook, I noticed my friend Nate had joined a XXX Church group on facebook. I took a look at it and their message boards and noticed a link to the Starving Jesus site. Their was a sermon linked there that summed up one of the major reasons I'm doing this. I'm not as fat as I could be. (Here's a particularly depressing photo from earlier this summer)
In the sermon, which I'd encourage you to listen to, he talks about a pastor in Georgia that he'd been communicating with named Ollie. Ollie's doctor told him that if he didn't lose any weight he'd die. He also told Ollie that he was much too high a risk to qualify for gastric bypass surgery. One night, he stumbled on an mp3 of Craig preaching at Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, MI (Rob Bell's church) about fasting. Kind of inspired, he decided that he was going to fast. He didn't do it for weight loss, and he didn't lose much wait, but he found that it connected him to God and taught him self control in ways that he'd never been able to learn before.
I'm still working on the connecting to God part... I think I'll be working on that for the rest of my life, but I feel like over the past year, I've finally been able to build some better self control. I'm hoping that this fast will continue to help me with growing my self control.
Take a listen to the sermon. If you want to know more about Starving Jesus visit the site.
BTW, the end of Ollie's story finds him starting to walk for a mile a day at the end of his fast. That leads to walking five miles. That leads to him speed walking five miles. Eventually he runs his first 5k. He ends up dropping from over 430 to 250 pounds. None of that was part of the fast, but the fast showed him that he could do things he didn't think he could do.
I've done an ironman. I've cycled 200 miles in a day. I know there are a lot of things that I CAN do. But there are still things that I need to know that I can do, and I'm hoping that this season will be training as I head towards that.
More later.
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