The Fat Church (edited!!!)

I am sorry if the tone and phraseology of my blog was flippant and hurtful please forgive me. I guess I was just trying to say that we have these christian hot potatoes and we almost seem to ignore other issues. My intention was never to imply judgement, shaming or ridicule I tried to be humorous and it didn't work, I guess I am not as funny as i think I am. Enid Blyton used to always talk about the naughty children in her books as the type of people who would laugh at their own jokes!! Thats me, sorry.

I have seen harsh things said from the pulpit about all kinds of sin and weakness but never this issue, I guess I was just trying to highlight what I perceive to be the hypocrisy of it all. As a cigar smoker (who by the way hasn't smoked for 3 weeks!!) I have often felt judged because what I do is visual and you can smell it on me, when there is a whole lot of other hidden stuff that people can just get away with.

I am not trying to make exscuses just letting you know the thinking behind my comments.

You're in a church service and someone says "there are people here struggling with there sexuality", no one bats an eye lid, or "there are people here struggling with addictions", no one bats an eye lid. It's like these are acceptable sins, we expect people to be struggling with them and we want people to deal with them.

Heres another scenario, what if you stood up and said "I can see there are a lot of over weight people in the room can you all please come forward for ministry" this would be horrific and humiliating. I remember a guy doing it to me once when I was not walking strong in my faith, something like "there are people here who need to get straight with God" he then called out our names and made us stand up, if I had have been older I would have walked but I just stood!! and needless to say didn't go back to church for a few years.

You see we have acceptable and then we have unacceptable things, every stone you are overweight is like smoking a few cigarettes a day. 30% of the USA and 23% of the UK are obese!!! No one challenges it.

In proverbs it says:"Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control." when is someone going to get up and preach that?

When we going to hear a bit more about gluttony? Who is going to preach the "Say No to one more donut" sermon?

What I am getting at is there is a lot of same old, same old stuff out there, everyone knows what we think on certain issues, but other issues that are really LARGE amongst the church, get skipped. It's almost like we can focus on all the things that don't really affect us.

The thing is as well with obesity you can see if people aren't dealing with it, it's hard one to hide and kid people that you have got it under control. The church should be out raising awareness to this issue. People need to find healthy ways of coping and dealing with life, rather than using food as a comfort. Obese people can't hide their pain as well as those struggling with alcohol or drugs. They literally wear it on their bodies. Obese people are treated horribly by the "world".

I guess we have to find a way of sensitively dealing with these issues. People, no matter what their issue (addictions such as drugs, alcohol, over-eating / or dealing with issues about their sexuality) deserve to be treated with DIGNITY AND RESPECT. Sorry if this post didn't quite reach that level, forgive me.

There is an obesity epidemic spreading throughout Europe and America, what's the church doing about it? I know!! lets provide donuts on a Sunday morning to make everyone feel welcome.....