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Ep 144: From Stage to Scripture (Part 2) - Pastor Steve Reynolds Continues on Faith, Weight Loss, and a Life Rebuilt

• Pastor/ Artist Fred Kenney Jr. • Season 3 • Episode 144

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"What if your health story could change the way your church lives, serves, & worships? Pastor Steve Reynolds continues with us to unpack how a hard stop on exercise, years of eating like an athlete, & a brush with serious disease turned into a faithful return to movement, a 130-pound weight loss, & a practical framework built from Scripture."

Pastor Steve Reynolds is back to take us behind the scenes of “Bod4God”—the sermon series that sparked a media whirlwind, front-page coverage, & books that meet people where they are with grace, honesty, & small, doable steps. We dive into the surprising places where faith and fitness meet: studying the word “body” across the Bible, embracing stewardship over shame, & seeing Genesis as a blueprint for daily activity—tending & keeping as purposeful movement. Steve’s mantra, “delay the decay,” lands with refreshing realism. No magic hacks, just consistent habits that restore energy, reverse risk, & extend our capacity to love, serve, & create. He shares candidly about still being an “average dude” who struggles, & why that authenticity helps more than perfection ever could. We open up about our own journeys too—returning to training after mission work left us winded on stage, & a 65-pound win through First Place for Health that reignited discipline at age 60. Performance ministry is physical, & we talk about the spills, the sweat, the headsets that take a beating, & the spiritual charge of treating art as athletic worship. If you’re looking for practical tools, you’ll hear about PastorSteveReynolds.com, the Losing to Live challenges, & accessible books like Get Off the Couch that help men & women build momentum without hype. Please, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs encouragement today, & leave a review with the one habit you’ll start this week. 
Pastor Steve Reynolds, Lead Pastor: Capital Baptist (website) • Capital Baptist (Facebook) • https://pastorstevereynolds.com/ Pastor Steve's Books: • Bod4God • Get Off The Couch • Taking God To Work • The Healthy Renegade Pastor: Abandoning Average in Your Health and Wellness • Wise Up!

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SPEAKER_01:

Let's do it. Lord, you know, let's see the place the best.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, and welcome to Plays on World Radio and Alive's work and play on the Word of God. Thank you for joining us on the 5030 today. Let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr., the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he has a deep dive into the Word of God.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, so I also had a couple questions that I did not know about that Sister Jackie Coles uh made me aware of when she came in here today. That I must apologize. I didn't realize that you were a fitness celebrity. Well, uh you are a fitness celebrating celebrity, and Jackie, Jackie, she brought the receipts. She was like, hey, he's got books out. And I was like, what? He didn't even mention this. What are you talking about? Tell me the titles in the books and what they're about. And we're gonna put a link in the show notes of this podcast so that if anybody wants to buy it.

SPEAKER_03:

Let's hear about this. Okay, yes. Feel free to cut some of this out if you need to. So basically, I struggled weight all my life. I weighed over 100 pounds in first grade. So that was 1963. The average first grader weighed 52. Yeah. I weighed 103. Okay, so I'm double the size. Okay. But I used my size to become, like I said, a decent football player, not a great one. Uh walked off third Saturday of November 1979. I don't know if you remember what you were doing. Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

1979?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, third Saturday. Probably about three in the afternoon. Okay. I was walking off a football field in Lynchburg, Virginia, saying, I am done with exercise. Okay. I'm sick of it. These coaches have been yelling at me since I was like eight years old. Okay. And so for 25 years I kept that promise, but I also kept eating like a football player. So I got about 350 pounds, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes. Literally feeling like I, you know, I'm going to die. Okay. And so I finally, I you say, I bet you tried 25 years, every once in a while to try to lose some weight. I did not. Okay. I couldn't care less. I couldn't care what you thought, or and truthfully, I couldn't care less what God thought. Okay. And he he knows it, so he's not surprised by me saying that. Okay. It was just one area of my life I was going to do what I wanted to do. Anyway, okay, so finally I'm going to thinking I got this beautiful wife and three awesome children and this great church I get to pastor. I I don't want to die. And I said, I said, okay, uh, what do I do when uh people have a problem or sin? Uh well I tell them to talk to talk ask God, what should I do? And I just feel like God said to me, Hey, you're always telling people look in the Bible. Why don't you look in the Bible?

SPEAKER_04:

Sounds like him.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, sounds like him, okay. And uh so I did. I like to study words in the Bible, and I studied the word body in the Bible. Okay, it's in there 179 times. And out of that I crafted four keys for me to follow, never ever expecting to talk about this or write about this, okay? Because I, you know, in my life I never heard a pastor talk about it. Okay, I never heard of nobody, a college professor, seminary professor, you know, you just didn't talk about this stuff in church. You just didn't bring it up, okay? But um, but I started doing this and because I was I was the kind of person that I I would, if you were healthy, I would make fun of you. Like I'd go out of my way to prod you a little bit, like go eat your salad or whatever, you know. I'm going over to the buffet or whatever, okay. Uh so I was, yeah, I you know, I can't so I here I am changing, and these people are saying, This isn't our pastor. What's he doing here? Oh, really? So I got up to about 70 pounds of weight loss, and that I've lost 130 total. But I got up to 170 70, and I uh and I lost diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Okay, and they're noticing a change in the weight. They're noticing changing, yeah. So so they're saying, You gotta tell us what you're gonna do, you're doing. Okay, so okay. So I said, okay, I'm gonna do a sermon series. Bod for God. Okay. Bod for God. Colossians 1.16 says we're made by God and for God.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, not just by Colossians right now.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, not just by, but for. Okay. So God's to be the He's the creator of our body, he's also to be the controller of our body. And so so a few times a year we do like a postcard mailing to the community. And a reporter with I sent out a card saying, Pastor Steve Rill is gonna preach on Bod for God. Have it all, Bod for God. And a reporter for the Washington Post got the card. And she called me up and says, Hey, I got your card here. She says, Can I come hear these sermons? And I thought, wow, you know, because the Washington Post is really not, you know, typically they're not really a friend, they're not a friend of Jerry Fall on Liberty, okay, number one. And they're gonna say, hey, there's one of these. But they're a big newspaper. Yeah, they're a big newspaper, okay. And I saw I thought they were gonna make fun of me actually or do something, but they didn't, okay. They actually put the article on the front page of the newspaper, and I didn't know how this stuff works, but they call it the AP wire system. Yeah, if you read the new I don't know if you know what newspapers are, they're these pieces of paper. These pieces of paper have ink on them first. Right, but but back in the day, okay, that was one of the primary so it ended up being, I think, in 500 and some newspapers, their articles. You picked it up. Yeah, they picked it up, yeah, yeah. And within a few days, I I had the media all over me. Uh local, national, international. Okay. I mean, I'm talking about like dozens and dozens. Check on me as a celebrity. Yeah, yeah. And so I ended up uh uh Fox uh Fox News uh Neil Cavuto at the the first interview uh I had, and um, and he called me the ant America's anti-fat pastor. Which I I they put that aside. I love it. They they said, okay, the America's anti-pastor uh pastor is gonna uh come up here next. And I'm thinking, I don't know, I thought I thought I was by myself. I didn't know another pastor was gonna be on here. Yeah, I found out he's talking about Nick. And bottom line is from there, it was just it's been unbelievable. So so I feel like at that point God wanted me to you know to do some some writing. So so I wrote the book, Bod for God, and you know, it's but sold about 75,000 copies. All right. And I think God's just I'm just an average dude. I still struggle with my weight, I'm nothing special. I'm not a I have, you know, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a trainer, I'm not a nutritionist. I'm just me, okay. And I just feel like God wanted to take some ordinary dude still struggling and help the body of Christ. Because Christians, we're the most overweight people group. Yes, we are. That's a fact, that's not just a joke. Or, you know, we are documented fact, and the Baptists are the fattest, okay? And I pastor a Capitol Baptist Church. So I recommend you not be a Baptist, okay? Okay, uh, but anyway, so that led to that book. Then I wrote another book called Get Off the Couch, and then I wrote another book with a pastor friend of mine, Nelson Searcy, a book for pastors called The Healthy Renegade Pastor. And then I wrote a book on Proverbs, I wrote a book called Taking God to Work. So, but yeah, five books.

SPEAKER_04:

So we're gonna try to put these links in the that would be great.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, pastorstevereynolds.com. Uh everything's on Amazon too. Pastorsteve Reynolds.com. I have uh you know the books, I have a um an online course you can take just for yourself, and we do what's called losing the weight loss competition here at the church uh three times a year, and you can join on site, but we also have people online. We have about 12 states in the current competition. People can can join us from other places. So so yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

So tell me about get off the couch. What's that about?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, it was geared towards men. Uh obviously. The publisher came to me and said, Did you mention a remote controller? Yeah, I did. Yeah, I sure did. I talked about my kids being my remote control because we had it, we didn't have that, but they were mine. Get up there and change the channel. Um yeah, so get so the publisher came to me and said, Listen, every book for men, men don't read, and if they read, the last thing they're gonna read about is health. But we believe if anybody can pull it off, this is what they said, okay. If anybody can pull it off, Steve Reynolds is the man. So we took a shot at it. And it did pretty good. Okay. But honestly, there's nothing in the book except a little bit of talk about if you're fat, sex is gonna be hard. Other than that, the book is for men and women. Okay. Yeah, that because we're we're you know, we've got the same bodies pretty much, okay, in general.

SPEAKER_05:

Amen.

SPEAKER_03:

More information than you ever want to hear.

unknown:

It's all good.

SPEAKER_04:

I I I love it. I love the fact that you know, yeah, I love the the health aspect. Yeah, this is real talk.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, this is real talk. Yeah, amen. I don't know. I tell you, I that's all I know is real talk.

SPEAKER_04:

So I we were on a mission trip about two actually two years ago, and um the Lord spoke to my heart similar because I I used to work out all the time. I used to love going to the gym and work out, and I just got away from it and was not eating, eating healthy or anything like that. And we went to this, we went when we went to Albania, I think the second time. And I remember I said, That's it. And I got to the point, I said, That's it, I'm done with feeling feeling like doing plays and feeling so beat up after a play.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, okay. And so you're like an athlete. You literally are, you're literally sweating, right?

SPEAKER_04:

And I was an out-of-shape athlete, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_04:

And I was starting to really feel, and the the Lord was like, Listen, man. Basically get off the couch. Right, right. And so I started I started going back to the gym and I started eating and approaching things and recognizing that uh I you do honor God if you take care of the temple, the body. You know, he yes, yes, we're getting new ones, but that doesn't mean you need to run this into the dirt.

SPEAKER_03:

No, no, I got I have a little statement. I say delay the decay. Yay! Okay, we're gonna decay, we're gonna die. Okay, but delay it as long as we can. Amen. So today I'm you know thankful not to have these diseases, and you know, so yeah, it's a blessing.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, and myself watching him, um, you know, I kind of got a little motivated too because I knew I really needed to lose weight. And even though he's up on doing a lot of work on the, you know, during the plays, I kind of tease him sometimes. But we do have the easy part, just throwing two hours up there. I'm running around taking pictures of all the stuff. But um, and it was actually Jackie Coles that told me about first place for help. Amen. And but the crazy thing is, two years it was two years ago I went to um one of the weekends with her. And I I always say this to people, you just have to be ready. Yeah. And it wasn't until this past January talking to Jackie, she said, there's another online, it's starting in a week, and I had just been praying that Lord, I I have to be able to keep up with it.

SPEAKER_03:

Right, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

This year I turned 60, and so it was like, okay, I have to do something.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and you ladies, it's harder to set it up.

SPEAKER_01:

So I jumped on to that in January and January, I've lost 65 pounds.

SPEAKER_03:

Um way to go. I'm a raving fan of first place. So yeah. So yeah, did you go to the um what event did you go to?

SPEAKER_01:

I went to the um, it was at Sandy Cove. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I've spoken to that. Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_01:

It was back in 23. I haven't been able to go back since, but I've done I've done at least, I think. Amen. Do they know about it? Three or four on the city. Okay, they ought to put you, you know.

SPEAKER_04:

They ought to put you in their publications. You know what the thing is, it not nothing happens until it until you know.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, now for me it's 25 years.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and then you were like, Okay, that's okay, and you know, I believe that comes from the Lord. I remember I also prayed for you to get you know, just get the hunger and the desire, and that's so she got she's got the hunger and the desire. So sometimes I'm like, I don't even feel like going to the gym. She's like, Oh, we're gonna we I'm going to work out. And she goes and gets gets on the exercise bike, works out, and I'm like, That's awesome. Wow, I'm a bum right now. I got I gotta get off the couch.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, again, right before that happened with Jackie, uh that was the prayer to the Lord. I can't do this anymore. I can't do it in my strength. Yes, you're gonna have to help me. And then plus she's weird.

SPEAKER_04:

Can you can you incorporate God in in your desire to exercise? Like bringing God in that's a that's a wise thing. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, I I believe you know I believe the Bible says before sin came and the curse, he says that he says you're gonna sweat. But before that, he said, I'm putting you in this garden, tend and keep it. Okay, Genesis 2, before the fall of man. And I believe, you know, I there's I believe there's a lot of uh practical in information there that God wanted them to move. Okay. So I don't know if you know anything about tending and keeping a garden. Uh uh sadly, I know too much as a child, okay. Um like I mentioned earlier, I was cheap, cheap farm hand back there. Okay. I'm just saying, I think God put him there, said to tend to keep this garden because you're made to move. Don't okay. You you you're supposed to be moving around. I made you to move. And then Genesis 3 got harder. He said, now you're gonna have wheeze, you're gonna have thorns, you're gonna sweat. You know, but it wasn't like you know, this is the beginning of movement. No, uh, you know, the more you move, the more you lose. If you don't if you don't move it, you're gonna lose it. Yeah, so that's that's for sure. So that's so important. Praise God, yeah. Praise God.

SPEAKER_04:

And it's when uh I know my uncle, my uncle and my dad both worked at uh Tuscan Dairy in New Jersey. They worked at the dairy, okay, and they knew guys that when the these guys they'd work at the dairy dairy for 20, 30, 40 years, as soon as they retired, these guys would drop dead because they stopped moving. Yeah, they would just go sit on the couch.

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04:

And I remember my uncle telling me one time he said the couch got me, man. I it uh he's and that's from that point on he went downhill as health. Went downhill. Yeah, movement is so important to um to keep athletes.

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely, yeah. But you're literally an athlete, okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Man, that's a workout, man. You're not kidding. You literally have sweat dropping off your yeah, it's amazing. Going down on the ground, absolutely, yeah. I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Our Genesis show plays like that too.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, okay. Yeah, when you're on the ground, yeah. Okay, that's amazing. Yeah, they flopped your body.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. We did one play where when Peter takes off, and he's uh after he denies the Lord, he starts running. And we did this one play, and they had a really high stage where we were. And I remember I wasn't thinking, I said, and and I and and I took off running and I I ran off the stage and I jumped off the stage. Wow. And in the air, I thought to myself, oh, this might not have been the smartest thing. And as the ground was coming closer to me before I landed, I said, I just said, I remember praying, Lord, please don't let me fall into like completely crumple up and turn into 20 different pieces of broken T 10 right now. Please let me hit don't hit the ground hard. Lord, I know this was a mistake. But if you get me through this, I won't ever do this again. And that was all that whole conversation. As I'm in the air like this, and I landed and I was like, okay, no pain, no pain, no pain. Okay. And uh he protected me in that buttons.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you were up in the up in the air, all I kept thinking was tuck and roll, tuck and roll.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it was high. Yeah, it was high. I want to say that the stage was like four or five feet. It was the stage was up here. Wow, okay. And I just didn't think it through, and I was like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I can I can see you doing that. Yes, right.

SPEAKER_04:

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, the scene where he kind of flops on the ground as if they they were dead at that point, right? Yes. I there was one time he was down there for quite a bit.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

That's one of my favorite parts of the book. He's resting. He leads to the rest of the rest of the rest. That's one of my favorite parts of the book because the ground feels so good. I bet it did. When I lay down, I go, we we when we heard that voice, we fell as if we were dead. And boom, I hit the ground. I'm like, the ground feels so good. Oh man, I could just go to sleep.

SPEAKER_03:

I uh man, yeah. Yeah, your microphone worked good too. I was worried about next thing you know, it was totally clear, it was fantastic.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, we need um I'm I need to to do some uh refurbishing on that mic, but that thing gets beat up.

SPEAKER_03:

That is an awesome mic.

SPEAKER_04:

You know, we jump around and and that's why I have to have the double headset. Right, yeah, yeah. But last week they I didn't I wanted to acquiesce to what they were doing, and they had they didn't want me to they didn't want to use my set. They wanted me to use theirs.

SPEAKER_03:

And I said, okay, no, I'm the other way around. And it was one of the things, I wanted to blame you.

SPEAKER_04:

So well, it was one, it was it was only one ear, yeah, and so I had to be careful.

SPEAKER_03:

No, no, no, that's it.

SPEAKER_01:

No, no, no, that was that but none of us knew you were distracted you know with it. It didn't come across that way, but I I know you, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely during the performance. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

So, Pastor Steve Reynolds, thank you so much for um taking the time out and and and actually being willing to have us come here. Well, we'd love to have you back, and yeah, amen. And thank you for letting us come here and serve and be part of uh the work that you're doing here. Because you know, there are a lot of pastors that don't want to, they just don't even want to take a chance on they hear like plays on plays on word. What is that?

SPEAKER_03:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04:

Play, I know we've had plays, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04:

And uh so I always like to thank the pastors that say, you know what, uh, if it's of God, cool.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. So thank you for letting us keep up the good work.

SPEAKER_04:

Amen. We're we're gonna try to come back. We we will put the links uh in the show notes so you guys can check out this guy's writing. Sounds good, and hopefully lose some weight. And maybe we'll put his contacts, you reach out to him if you want to talk to him directly.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, sounds good.

SPEAKER_04:

Um and will you close us in prayer?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, yes, yes. Lord, thank you for your technology. Thank you that we have a way to uh talk and spread the word, Lord, and just thank you for what you're doing through play on word, playing on word, Lord. I pray that you continue to meet the needs and Lord provide.

SPEAKER_02:

And Lord, just uh thank you for the calling uh of this ministry, and we pray your hand would continue to bless and use them. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_04:

All right, Captain Father.

SPEAKER_00:

This program was made possible by the Playsone Word family of supporters. To find out more, check out our website at plazonword.org.

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Fred David Kenney, Jr.

Host