Season 2 Episode 18: Physical Fitness

Welcome to the Small Town Church Podcast, the weekly podcast where we discuss all aspects of being in a small-town church. Whether you are a member, on staff, or have just begun attending a church in a small town, this is the podcast for you. 

In this week's episode, we discuss the importance of physical fitness in the role of pastor.

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Transcript

Zach Leonard 0:02

Jim Elliott, when preparing for missionary expeditions in college, joined the wrestling team and explained his reasoning as I quote, I wrestle solely for the strength and coordination of muscle tone that the body receives while working out, with the ultimate end that that of presenting a more useful body as a living sacrifice. Welcome to the Small Town Church Podcast, the weekly podcast where we discuss all aspects of being in a small town church. Whether you are a member, on staff, or have just begun attending a church in a small town, this is the podcast for you. Welcome back to the Small Town Church Podcast. We are glad that you are here. We are almost done with season two, which is kind of crazy. Um, but sorry, the uh the intro quote was a little clunky. Um I realized that uh the uh as I opened my mouth to read it that the quote was a little bit out of context if I didn't actually explain why in the world that got wrestled so on the fly give an intro to the quote, which is something that I don't normally do. If you haven't figured it out, we're talking about pastors joining the wrestling team. No, I'm just kidding. We're talking about um physical fitness and all of that. So um I'm joined as always as uh with with my partner in crime, Brad Borgren. Brad, how are we doing this morning or afternoon?

Brad Borggren 1:28

Yeah, I'm doing good. Good to be here.

Zach Leonard 1:30

Good. It's it's good to it's good to be back on with you. I'm hoping that soon we can record an episode in person with each other. I haven't seen you in a while, and I keep looking at your face through a Zoom call, and it's kind of sad. I miss miss hanging out with you.

Brad Borggren 1:41

Um at least your video's working this time.

Zach Leonard 1:44

That's true. Yeah, last time I had man, I had all the problems. Um I don't know what was going on, but I couldn't get my FaceTime camera to work on my computer, and it was a whole thing, and I finally just gave up because I'm only I'm only technologically inclined enough to make me dangerous, not really to actually get any get anything done. But as we uh are on the pent ultimate episode of this season, we are talking about physical fitness and talking about the benefits of exercise for a pastor. And we want to say from the onset that um we are kind of talking about this in basic terms. We're not talking about workout plans, we're not talking about diets that we go on or anything like that. We're just talking about the benefits of keeping someone healthy, uh one's body healthy to be better effective in ministry. So, Brad, I'm gonna kick it over to you, and why don't you just kind of open the episode? You can talk about your thoughts on on physical fitness and uh your kind of own regiment and that kind of stuff, and we'll just kind of go from there.

Brad Borggren 2:44

Yeah, I think for me it's been something um I I grew up playing sports. I played baseball. I think baseball was no, soccer was the first sport I ever played. I played that for one season. And then I played baseball. Um basically little league into I quit in Pony League. Basically, I quit playing baseball when I was big enough to shoot on a 10-foot basketball goal. Back in the 90s, we didn't have the ones that go up and down. It was like either play on a 10-foot goal or or you don't get to play. Yep. And so um once I was actually able to to make it up that high, I kind of switched to basketball. And I played that pretty much every day um through high school. Even I didn't play for college, but I played basketball while I was in college just for fun. And um so exercise for me has always been something that I've enjoyed. I feel bad when I don't get to work out. Um although now it's kind of been scaled down from college I was running a lot. Never did marathons or anything, but 5K's, 10ks. Um and now I've like, okay, I'm in my 40s now, so I'm gonna walk. And sometimes I wear a backpack with weight in it, you know, while I walk. But you know, still I still just get a uh I get not really a sense of accomplishment, but I just feel good, you know. Even sometimes I can be um I can leave the office or if I'm working at home working on sermon prep and and I just leave with a whole bunch of thoughts jumbled up in my head, um, trying to make sense of a passage, and then I'm like, I'm just gonna go exercise. And then something magical happens, it just kind of works itself out and it makes more sense after I sweat for a little while. And so um not that that's gonna be the case for everyone, but for me, it's just uh I need to exercise probably as much for my mental state as I do uh physically. Um of course when you think about tying it to scripture, there's really not a whole lot in the Bible about physical exercise. You know, of course, Jacob wrestled with the Lord, um, but that I don't know that that's really uh one of those that's a descriptive texture. Not a prescriptive one. Um and of course the one we all know, you know, from Paul telling Timothy uh that I can see it without my glasses.

Zach Leonard 5:21

I've actually got it pulled over here that physical training is good, but training for godliness is better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come. First Timothy, that's blurry.

Brad Borggren 5:31

Uh four? Four-eight.

Zach Leonard 5:33

Yeah, four eight.

Brad Borggren 5:34

Yeah. Yeah, thank you. And so there, yeah, there's that it is beneficial, right? It it's good not to have a heart attack when you're 50. And not that exercise is gonna cure that or prevent that, but it it gives you a better chance. So um also thinking like I got into ministry overseas as a missionary, and uh the Southern Baptist Mission Board, the International Mission Board, like they don't it's not the military or anything, but they do have physical standards. Like your your BMI has to be within a certain range. Um basically because they pay for all of our health care um out of pocket, they don't really want to send people over there that are gonna have major health problems. Sure. So uh exercise was encouraged, diet was encouraged, and so that. Um again, that didn't that wasn't a shock to me. But it's just um the the first ten years or so in ministry, that was always one of the things in the back of my mind, like, okay, I'm gonna have to go I'm gonna have to go get a physical and just make sure that like hey, everything's everything's relatively in in line. Um And being overseas, man, like you They don't even have I don't even think we had access to Diet Coke. We were just drinking coke out of the bottle with real sugar.

Zach Leonard 7:02

Yeah.

Brad Borggren 7:02

Um but because you walk everywhere. Like there's no um at one point we even had a vehicle, but you just you just walk a lot and food is different in other nations. Like there's yeah, there's processed stuff, but it's not as heavily processed. And there's like we get back to America and like, man, we're we're unhealthy, and we don't feel like we're doing anything different, it's just a different environment. Uh and so you have to be I find my house I find myself having to be more vigilant um to stay on top of exercise. And if I have to do that as someone who enjoys it, like I know there's people out there that that not everybody's cup of tea is is exercise. Sure. So absolutely. But yeah, Zach, you jump in there and I'll talk about what I do later on.

Zach Leonard 7:53

Okay. Yeah, so my my relationship has actually been the same for a good portion of my life. I I played sports all growing up. Baseball was my big thing growing up. I mean, I was man, I loved baseball. Um it it was there were two seasons in life for me. There was baseball and off-season baseball. And and I actually aged into basketball and football when I aged out of basketball. Because in in Texas, I mean, we have classifications for schools, and 1A is the smallest. And 1A is you've got basketball, you've got football, you've got track, you got tennis, volleyball. It's your basic core sports, but you don't have base, you don't have baseball and you don't have, you know, all these other things, you know. There's rarely a golf team. There are more now, but in the 90s, there, you know, wasn't anything like that. And so when I aged out of the Babe Ruth League and I couldn't play that anymore, I set my sights on on junior high sports and played football and basketball through junior high and then switched to solely to basketball when I had like a six-inch growth spurt and was pushing you know, seven foot. Um, you know, I'm 6'8. And basketball coaches said, you need to just do basketball, you know, and so I did that. But I was always really healthy through high school, um, worked out intermittently uh after I got out of high school and college, same kind of thing. I just to kind of keep myself healthy. I was always moving, worked for the railroad for a while, and then joined the army, and I'm just in really good shape in the army because they just forced you to get up at four o'clock in the morning and run every day, you know? And I actually got out of the army um because I I had a back surgery, and that changed how I exercised a lot. Um, and it was mostly mental. Um, I allowed myself to gain quite a bit of weight, and I am just now getting into the point where I'm working on becoming healthier. I've changed my my eating habits, changed um kind of how I exercise, a lot of walking for me as well. Um my wife and I, Becca, who y'all met on the Thanksgiving episode last season, um, she and I have started walking first thing in the mornings, and it has become my favorite part of the day. Um, it's just her and I walking around the neighborhood, just spending time together. Just sometimes we talk about nothing, sometimes we talk about deep stuff. It's just a time for us to just kind of clear our heads and and get a good start to the day, but also kind of moving our bodies to start our days. And and it's been good to get back into the habit. And I've got uh when we moved, I actually outfitted our garage and basically turned it into a gym. Um, you know, I've got a a rower and a treadmill and put a full-on weight rack with barbells and you know um plates and all that, and I've got a cold plunge and a sauna, and I like I went, I I it was kind of excessive, to be honest with you, but I know my own idea of I'm not looking to become the next, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger or whatever. I'm kind of dating myself when I do that. I don't know any current bodybuilders. Um, but I I also knew that it was going to be hard for me to drive to the gym every day. Um, you know, I'm just kind of not wired that way. Um, and so I I kind of made it at home to make it more easily accessible and to allow my children to get into the habit of health and that kind of stuff. And we don't work out every day. Um we don't. I mean, I'm um I I am I the idea for us is just to do better than we did the day before and trend towards health. But for me, a lot of the idea is I came into ministry later in life. Um, I've been in ministry for three years now, and or two and a half years, and um I realized that my clock does not have as much time on it as someone who went into ministry in their 20s. And so for me, the hell thing, uh, the idea of uh is I want to do as much for God as possible before He calls me home. Um, and so I am I am trying to make the most of the time that God has given me each day. Um, you know, and and I'm I'm again I'm only 43, and by today's standards, there's I could by God's grace I could very well be preaching another 40 years. But I don't want to take for granted the fact that I am starting this later, you know, and I I have this kind of feeling about me where I really want to just give God my best in everything. And for a long time I didn't equate that to health. Um, I uh I just equated that to Bible reading and exegeting the text faithfully and being godly in my mannerisms, you know. Um, and never really occurred, um maybe it was my American mindset, never really occurred to me to look at that from a health standpoint. Um and, you know, if I'm if I'm morbidly overweight and telling people to treat their body like a temple, that's not really a good message that I'm sending to the church. And so my youth and I talk about that all the time. Uh we I'm very open about the fact that I'm trying to lose weight and trying to get more healthy, and it's for that reason, so I can be of better service to God, who has given me everything, and I the least I can do is give him my best in what I do. Um my I will say my I'll kind of talk about my habits um and then I'll kick it over to you to kind of talk about yours. Um mine are pretty intermittent because I'm still learning, um, you know, getting back into it. Um and so there are days that um I've started habit tracking because I'm just into that sort of thing these days. Um and so I've got I got a little notebook that I've charted out what I do and you know everything. And it's not all health. I mean, it's you know, Bible reading and studying and journaling and drinking coffee, and I just want to see how much coffee I drink. I just want to see, you know, track it and water and that kind of stuff, and tracking my sleep and that kind of stuff. And and on there is um is a place for what I did for a workout that day. And sometimes it's a walk, sometimes it's a walk in the cold plunge, sometimes I lift some and I'm working on the just doing something every day to get to the point where the habits build up to where it is more of a routine. Um, and so for me, it's really just trying to set an example to my flock, to set an example to my children, um, and just realize that in being called to ministry, I am I am called to be, I'm not gonna be perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I am called to be as well-rounded of a Christian as I can. You know, I'm I'm supposed to set the example in all things as a pastor, and so I need to be doing that, and that includes health and what I eat and and all of that. So why don't you kind of talk about your habits and and kind of how you approach that and go from there?

Brad Borggren 14:26

Yeah, that I I'm kind of similar, like I I'm not an everyday exerciser, uh, but I do try to shoot for four to five days, like to do something, right? That you know, and I'll usually I will try to at least walk, you know, five, six days a week. And then also we our family has a Y membership, and so I'll I'll go to the Y and some days it's total body, sometimes it's um cardio. It just kind of depends on basically what I did the day before. Uh and I'm not looking to get big, just looking to to stay in shape and really looking to I mean we would all probably like to lose 10 or 15 pounds. Sure. Uh and so we never seem to really lose 10 or 15 pounds, but we always want to. And so uh for me exercise is you know three three to four or five days a week is something that I'm I'm usually either in the gym or a Big Spring. We've got the Big Spring State Park.

Zach Leonard 15:35

Oh yeah.

Brad Borggren 15:36

There's a mountain that we live near, and I can actually walk up from where we live and then go up the mountain and and get a good little hike in. So that's um especially now that it doesn't get dark till nine o'clock at night. Sometimes that's it's easy to squeeze things in. Sure.

Zach Leonard 15:56

If you ever find yourself in the Big Spring area, I highly suggest going checking out the springs. It's a cool area. I took my kids on a hike there last year, and it's it's a neat I'm that's complete, utter aside, but it, you know, it's a cool thing. Also, I would say look for opportunities to do this with your family. Um, set the example with your family too. And it doesn't have to be specific exercises. You know, it doesn't have to be a big workout plan. Maybe you guys live near a state park. When I lived in Massachusetts, there was this place called the Quabin, um, which I always thought was an interesting name. And basically what they did was they they raised um like R A-Z-E raised four or five little towns and moved them and created a man-made lake to supply water to Boston. Um and they've got a running trail through there, and it is just gorgeous. I mean, trees everywhere, and um, you know, it's it's stark contrast to West Texas, but I made a point to get out there um and and just walk through that area as often as I could because that's the other side of things is adding exercise with being out in God's creation is going to just change your overall mental state, you know. Um that's one of the reasons why my wife and I walk outside. Yes, we live in a city, but it's a really it's a pretty neighborhood. There's lots of trees, lots of, you know, just it's a quiet neighborhood, and so we can get out there early in the morning before people grow up, and we can just spend time together, spend time with God, just walking amongst his creation, and we there's kind of multiple benefits. It sets the tone for our day, and it also gets us the exercise that we need to remain healthy. And I think that's important to remember is that, like you said, we're not looking to set any records. Um, I joked before we came on the air that we're not setting off any lunk alarms at Planet Fitness. Um, I don't know if y'all know the Planet Fitness thing, but they've got this giant alarm on the wall. I've never seen it go off, but apparently I've heard of stories where the some they'll actually set it off if you're like a big like meathead type, you know, weightlifting type guy. And I'm not saying all weightlifters are meatheads. Um, Taylor Fields, if you ever listen to this, you are very muscular and you are not a meathead. You were a very intelligent man. So, um, but it's that sort of thing that you know that I pick stuff up, I put them down, sort of, you know. Um, we're not doing that. The idea is just to understand that this is the only body that God gave us, and we need to be equipped to be able to do the job. Um, in La Misa a while back, this was several years back, there was a big storm and it blew a bunch of trees over. And one of the churches in town banded together and got a bunch of chainsaws, and they spent the day cutting these trees up and getting them off of cars and houses and moving the wood and serving people. And I remember thinking, how hard would that have been if people weren't in shape to be able to do it, you know? Um, if God forbid anything happens, excuse me, if anything happens, you know, persecution-wise in America, or you know, you have to do something physically demanding to escape persecution or something. I mean, and I that's an extreme case, and I get that. But we don't really know where life leads us, and so it's in it's it's in a good mindset to be capable. I think that's the big focus. We don't want to be just athletes, but we want to be capable. Um sorry, I kind of rambled there. I'll kick it back over to you.

Brad Borggren 19:26

No, and I think discipline's a key uh key thing there. Just we've got spiritual disciplines, of course, and it's it's not that uh exercise is a spiritual discipline, but any time that we uh we say no to what's easier and do something that's harder, uh better equips us to do the same thing in our spiritual walk, whether it's forsaking sin or just being disciplined and and prayer, uh Bible study, uh those things, it it just yeah. You don't see usually you don't see a bunch of undisciplined people changing the world. Like it's people who are who are pretty focused. And uh I'll say diet is a big one because you know, y'all know you you can't outrun or outlift a bad diet. Yep. And that's just as eating healthy, uh, or eating as as healthy as you possibly can uh is just as important, if not probably more important, uh than exercise in the sense and and that's my week's like I could eat I could eat a buffet of bread. I love bread, I love bread and cheese ice cream, uh cheese. And Jesus is the bread of life, right? Right. Crystal, my wife tells like all the people that go on carnivore diet, she's like, you know, Jesus is not the meat of life, but he's the bread of life. Uh there's gonna be bread and wine in heaven. Uh but um yeah, I don't have a I don't have a hard it's not hard for me to say yes to bread. Sure. Uh and so, but just everything in moderation, right? Keeping balance of not overeating, uh, not undereating, but you know, just yeah, being disciplined in all those aspects for the purpose of ultimately being being around for our family. We don't wanna we don't want to be unable to to be there for our family when they grow old and get married and have kids. Uh but also as Zach's mentioned, just we don't know what opportunities God is gonna bring our way. Uh and and we don't want to we don't want to do something that's gonna disqualify us of course spiritually, character wise, but also even from a physical standpoint. We want to be able to say yes. We want to be like Caleb, you know, saying at the end of his life, you know, give me that mountain. I want that mountain with all the giants. That's what he wanted for his inheritance.

Zach Leonard 22:02

That's good. Well, as we wrap up the episode, I I I will always say one final thing. Um we're speaking to overseers here in this season, and and this applies to everybody in the church, but I want to speak specifically to men um both in the overseer role or just men as you oversee your families. One of the trends that happened, and I'm seeing I'm I'm seeing a group of pastors faithfully trying to pull away from that, um, pastors like Joby Martin and people like that. Um there was a mindset in the 90s and early 2000s, and really almost into the 2010s in Christianity that somehow a strong, capable, alpha type, manly man was not welcome in a church. Um for those of y'all that have never met me, I'm six foot eight and have a giant beard and have several tattoos. I I don't I don't look like the beta male. Like I just don't, I just I mean, everybody walk if I walk into a room and tell everybody I'm an army uh vet, they're like, oh yeah, that makes complete sense. I mean, like we see that. Um and it's always bothered me in churches how many emasculated men, overweight men. I'm not saying that every man has to have a beard. I'm not, I mean, you know, it it I like beards and I think all men should have one, but if you don't want one, that's okay. But what I will say is that we need to reclaim our manhood, and we're called to be priests, providers, and protectors, and it's very hard to be the protector role if you're not in shape to be able to do it. Um, that's a whole nother episode for a whole nother day, and I'll just kind of leave it there at that. But I think it's important for us to understand that our role as men and how we further the kingdom is by setting the example in how we treat our bodies as well. And I think it's okay for us to say, no, God made men to be the warrior type that is also the the the lover, if you will. We love our wives well, we protect our wives, we protect those in the church, we protect those that are less fortunate, um the warrior poet to steal the you know YouTube channel idea. But there's this idea that we're supposed to be a well-rounded man, and for too long, churches in America drove men away from that. Um somehow, for you to be a Christian, it was all about the meekness and love of Christ, and we forget about that whole portion about him coming back on a horse and all you know, that imagery. That's not that's not weak male imagery when we, you know, whether it's metaphorical or not, or you know, when Jesus returns bodily and physically, it's not going to be a weak thing. He's going to return in power. And we are made in the image of God, and so as men, we need to live godly lives in which we, you know, I tell I tell my family all the time, you should never be in fear of me, but anyone that tries to harm you should understand there's a storm coming. You know, that's me. And and I think men should be okay with being that way, to understand that we are called to protect our families, and we have to be physically able to do that. Pastors, you're called to lead your flock well, and God forbid something happens, but you may need to protect them, and you need to be physically capable to do that. Um again, I don't mean to scare monger or anything, but I think it's wise for us to be the most capable people in the church. Um, being whether whether that's serving, carrying chairs, God forbid protecting someone, whatever it is that we need to do, we need to be the one that is the first line of defense in all things, both physical, spiritual, all of it. Um so that's kind of how I'll lead it is just let's reclaim godly manhood, and part of that is the protector role. Um well, Brad, I'll actually let you have the final word and and we'll kind of close out from there.

Brad Borggren 25:53

No, I I think you I think you ended it well. Our desire, you know, to be the best version of ourselves as we can be. Uh to be to be healthy, to have that longevity. And um yeah, not not for any of our own glory, but for the glory of God.

Zach Leonard 26:14

Amen. Awesome. Well, we thank you guys for listening to another episode. Uh, it's it's crazy to think that we've got two seasons in the books. We've got one more episode after this one. It's kind of our outro episode as we wrap up the season um and start looking forward to kind of what God has in store for this podcast. Again, we've said this before. We're we're kind of in a in a state of prayer, if you will. Um a we're a posture, that's to be the better word. Oh, it's Sunday when we're recording this, and I don't know why two pastors decided to record a podcast on Sunday, but we're both our brains are shot. Um we we're looking forward to what God has in store. Maybe that's season three, um, maybe that looks like some other output. Um we're just we are trusting God as He leads. So um with that being said, though, if you think that um, you know, if if you have something more that you think needs to talk about, um, shoot us an email, shoot us a uh a message on, you know, leave a comment on any of our the where you ever listen to the podcast, and and we'll get that and we'd love to uh continue the conversation, whether that just be a conversation with you one-on-one or it morphs into a new season of of um the Small Town Church podcast. We'll just kind of see how it goes. We uh we are gonna do one more episode next week, and then we are gonna take the summer off, um, the latter half of June and all of July. And if we do come back with a season three, um we will let you guys know that. But regardless of what we decide over the summer, we will do one final. If we decide to not pick it up for season three, we're not just gonna like leave y'all hanging like um like a sitcom that gets canceled. Um, we'll come back on and we'll just kind of talk through why we're making that decision um and and you know, kind of where we think God is leading us and move from there. But um, but as always, we thank you for your listenership. We thank you for for your willingness to tune in each week as we have these conversations. And if you think that this um helps you in some way, please feel free to share with somebody. That's that's uh the biggest compliment for us is you know when when we hear, hey, uh somebody told me about this episode, this podcast that y'all are doing, and and I love that. Uh in fact, there's a member at my church that is one of my best friends. Um, he when he first told me about the pod that he was listening to the podcast, he told found out from someone that went to a completely different church um that called him and was like, hey, did you hear about what your youth pastor was doing, which is always a great way to start a conversation, right? Um like he thought I was up to no good, but um but you know he he found out word of mouth. And so if you uh if we just want to keep the conversation going in this area that is underserved. So as we wrap up the episode, we thank you. Uh we thank you for your your dedication and your willingness to listen. And and this has been another episode of the Small Town Church Podcast. We'll see you next week. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Small Town Church Podcast. We pray that you have found this episode useful. If this episode has blessed you in some way, please share with someone else who might benefit from it. If you would like to partner with us, leave us a review so the algorithm can share this podcast with other people. If you have a question, please email it to thesmalltownpod at gmail.com, and we will do our best to answer it either in a later episode or in the QA episode at the end of the season. Also, if we can partner with you in prayer in any way, email us so that we may have the honor of joining you in that prayer. Until next time, we pray you delight in God's mercies, which are new every morning, and remember to stay faithful to your small town church.