How Superman is like Jesus

If you have not had the chance to see the new movie "MAN OF STEEL" you may not want to continue reading this blog post. If you don't care about spoilers you have been forewarned.

********SPOILER ALERT******************
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This past weekend I went with my wife's side of the family to see Man of Steel for my Brother-in laws birthday and for Fathers day. I thought the movie was overall pretty good outside of a little too much fast action with special effects. But I loved the relational context they put Superman in for this film.

They made Superman like Jesus. Without saying it they threw in a whole bunch of allegorical and visual references.

Let me give you a little of the rundown.

1) He is not from this world but was sent by his father to bring hope and salvation for humanity.

2) He grows in Strength and wisdom, even though it was always inherently within him

3) The symbol on Superman's chest is not an 'S' rather it means hope. How about the wounds Jesus carries as a symbol of hope.

4) Superman wins over the bad guy because of his love for humanity. God defeats Satan as a show of power and love.

5) Just watch the movie and look in the background as Superman is in a church posing just like Jesus, or how about when he stretches his arms out like Christ on a cross. This movie has some many visuals that bring that to the forefront of our minds.


I really loved how they did this. It wasn't overt and in your face, but it was subtle and can send a powerful image. I love when you can take pieces of Hollywood and use them for teaching people about Christ!

Obesity and Christian Leadership

Pizza nights, Slurpee runs, late night runs to McDonald's, loads of chips and pop. 
These sound like some of the awesome things that make a fellowship fun in youth ministry. Donuts, coffee, pie, potlucks, these are the things that make church fellowship excellent.

Looks gross, but we've all had those weeks

People bond over food and drinks. Look at your house, people congregate around the kitchen. Look at a party, people are where the food is.

I don't know about you, but I love food. Now I don't think you could call me a true foodie (largely because I'll eat anything from fast food to fancy food) but you can certainly bet that if something delicious is out I'm not far away.

As a youth pastor I am constantly around junk food, and pop. I love the stuff, but I have to resist eating it.  This past January I was hit with the harsh reality that I was seriously overweight. I had always known I was a little on the "husky side" but I had pushed beyond that and gone into a category all of its own "obese". Now I hate the word, because many people can't get around it but the fact of the matter is that I hit that level on a medical chart. So I decided I would do something about, I started exercising more and trying to eat better. Since January of last year I have lost 35lbs, slipping back down into the category of "overweight". That isn't crazy fast weight loss, but it is great because I have still been eating what I want( for the most part) and I haven't regained even when my exercise or eating have spun back out of control for a day or week or two.

So why am I talking about this. I am not talking about it because I want praise, I am not talking about it because I think that I have gone from HUGE to tiny. I am talking about it because when I look around at the many youth pastors and church staff I know as a whole, I see a lot of overweight people. We have a calling to work with people, our jobs require us to be at a desk often working, studying, emailing and praying. These are parts of the job that are required, so we can't put them off. But what is going on with our waistlines. Its scary they are ever growing!

I feel like it needs to be said: "Youth workers, Pastors, friends we need to lose some weight". There are a few reasons why I think we need to lose it:

1) We are called to be good stewards in life
 This is a stewardship of our ministry, our family life, our money and yes even our own bodies. If we don't take care of our bodies, we are actually hampering our ministry. Whether we like to admit it or not, being overweight will eventually cause what we eat to come back to bite you. (pun intended). We will have health problems directly relating to our eating and body weight.

2)  We are examples to those we work with 
 We are examples to the people we work with. As christian leaders we strive to show good habits of reading scripture, worshipping God, treating people with respect and leading a life of health and balance. But when it comes to the pastors I know, we often have a bit of a problem with eating and self control. If we want to be good examples, we should strive to have balance in every aspect of life.

3) For your Families sake
Do it for your wife, your husband, your kids or your grandchildren. I currently have no kids but I do have a wife and my weight directly affects her. It affects her in my level of energy, since I have been exercising more and eating better I have had more energy to go do fun things with her. And I have even been able to serve her better because I've been cleaning and cooking with some of my spare energy!( I'll tell you that she loves it!)
While I am still young I can't help but think of the long term, I hope to be a healthy and active grandparent one day. I look at my grandfather and because of obesity we never went out and did much together. But when I look at my wife's one set of grandparents they are in their 80's and go hiking weekly and we go sailing together often during the summer. It is truly a joy that I hope to be able to experience when I am in my 80's.
If I don't take care of myself now though, I certainly won't have the health and fitness to be able to go for fun trips with my grand kids when they are in their 20's.

I think we should start a challenge amongst the Christian Leadership network for weight loss. Let's get the ball rolling.

-Kyle

Non-Essentials

I have been reminded lately of my non-essentials.

God, family, friends, work these are my essentials. They are the things that I value, in that order. But what are my non-essentials.

At first it is an easy answer, obviously everything that is not one of those four things. But sometimes I don't live my life in that order. There are times when I put entertainment high above those other things. People who know me well, know that I like social media, blogging, a lot of movies and tv shows. But the problem is sometimes far too often I put entertainment in front of spending time with God and reading my Bible. I put entertainment in front of my wife. I am not saying that watching a movie with your spouse is bad, I am saying that there are more times than not when I should have a conversation or go for a walk, but instead I choose the easy path of just chilling out.

When you are reminded of the essential things in life, you need to fight hard for them. Even as I am writing this post, I had to stop and take a break. I started writing this short post while my wife was getting ready to go shopping for some veggie plants for the garden. I said I'd come with her, so when she came out ready to go I had to put the laptop down and head out for a day gardening.

Now that it is day number two of this post, let me tell you. If I hadn't got up and gone with my wife to the garden store I would have missed a super fun day filled with moments like getting ice cream, going to a movie prop store, and just having a great day.