Why I eat less Fast Food

Anyone who has hung out with me since this last summer knows that I’ve been eating very little fast food.  I wouldn't say I was eating a ton of fast food before -in fact, I began to actively reduce my intake a few years ago in an effort to facilitate better blood health.  But reading a book by Joel Salatin titled “The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs” has made a veritable impact on me and our family.

I’ve always loved fast food; I used to work at McDonalds and I’ve been a notorious advocate* for Taco Bell.  In fact, even recently I would dream and scheme about how cool it would be to run a fast food restaurant! I used to scoff at people who got over emotional about how “nasty” or un-healthy fast food was.  In my heart I felt they were mostly driven by a desire to appear sophisticated and set themselves apart from the masses or else they were weak minded people who got worked over by the “Super Size Me” documentary. I would often challenge people to be less picky and be open to more fast food if only for the sake of table fellowship. Suffice it to say, i was never looking for an excuse to stop eating fast food! And, while we haven’t completely stopped eating it, I now try to avoid it for the most part. I’m thinking very differently about the fast food industry, farming, food production and nutrition.  And my change in thinking on these things is being facilitated mostly by theological discussion on God’s design for creation and for our bodies and even for human work.

Joel Salatin is an inspirational  guy who describes himself as a  "Christian, libertarian, environmentalist, capitalist, lunatic, farmer".   He’s fairly well known among permaculture and organic farming types. Joel not only runs a farm regarded as ‘beyond organic’ called Polyface Farm down in Virginia, but he writes books and gives lectures all over America.  (He actually came and spoke at Cornell a few years ago and unfortunately I didn’t really know who he was at that point so I didn’t make a huge effort to go and hear him. If he came back, I would try and hang out with him all day!) 

Joel is a passionate educator who mostly helps people learn how to farm in ways that are sustainable, healthy and ecologically beneficial.  Even though most of what he promotes seems like old fashioned common sense he’s often considered a “radical” and a revolutionary. He is certainly creative and innovative.  Joel takes a lot of heat because he’s an outspoken critic of industrial farming practices and food systems driven by greed and sustained by exploitation. But I think Joel is  helpful because he labors to farm in ways that are fundamentally glorifying to God. He makes a point not to divorce his theology and his understanding of God from his farm work and business practice.  Again, that sounds like simple Christian integrity, but when you step back and realize how un-thoughtful we can be about God’s design and how He would have us interact with animals, produce food and take care of people, you can see that most of us are carelessly  hypocritical and un-Biblical!

One of Joel’s newest books is titled “The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs.”  Most of what he writes (I think) are practical “how to” books about how to farm under girded by theology and the Christian worldview.  But this book is a theological treatise with farming and food production in view. It’s a challenge written specifically to American Christians addressing Creation care and stewardship of the earth.

In my next post, I’ll share with you one of my favorite parts of Joel’s book.  For now, I just wanted to tell you how much I’ve been impacted and recommend it to you!  

*On top of eating at the Bell throughout my life, I've incorporated Taco Bell into most 'special events' in my life. My wedding, the birth of my children, mission trips, tourist journeys. I also claim to have "invented" the 'Double Loco' Taco with my kids. LOL

We Do Awkward Things

Often times when talking about the way that Cru staff like us go about raising their funds -whether we are talking to student leaders, people at church or even some of those who actually support our ministry, people will say something like: “It seems really awkward to ask people for money.”   Implicit is a sort of “I’m glad I don’t have to do that” and sometimes there is a general “You shouldn’t do that either.” sort of vibe.

In response, we can talk about the Biblical precedent for missionary fundraising or cast vision for the amazing way that “ministry partner development”  enables more people to actively engage in Great Commission work. We can rightfully highlight the way that the work of fundraising builds faith and even galvanizes  conviction in the heart of the missionary. We can explain that what people give is ultimately an offering to God -it’s supposed to engender true worship and God-dependency.  But with all that, I have no qualms admitting: It is awkward!

It’s awkward -uncomfortable, odd, sometimes even humiliating to initiate a conversation with someone and ask them to give money.  But when you get down to it, most of our job is awkward. Raising funds to work on campus is just the beginning!

After we get done with that we spend time sitting down with random strangers in dining halls; we strike up a conversation and trust God to help us talk about spiritual things.  (In Asia, we didn’t even have the necessary meal card so for every meal we had to ask a stranger to swipe their ID just to get us some food so that we could then sit down at the tables and make new friends.)   We set up tables in high traffic locations and invite students to fill out spiritual interest surveys or interact with deep spiritual topics. During the afternoons and evenings we sit in rooms and open the Bible prompting people to talk about their shortcomings, weaknesses, sins and need for God -in short, we host awkward conversations.  We plant ourselves in residence halls -believe me, as I get older, this is only getting more awkward! We hang out in fraternity houses. We set up tents and signs, we send emails and facebook messages where we identify ourselves with Christ and ask people to interact about God. We do awkward things.

One of the main reasons I believe in Cru’s ministry partner development model is that it prepares people for the awkwardness of ministry.  A person willing to endure the awkwardness of support raising will probably be ok stepping out on campus. Doing evangelism in our culture is awkward. Asking somebody who is having a hard time if you can pray for them can be awkward. And yes, raising funds the way that we do is awkward; it's not only awkward, but that's part of it.

As we proceed in ministry I can only ask that Jesus give us the courage and humility to press into the awkward space.     

"Wartime Walkie-Talkie"

In 1988 Pastor John Piper* delivered his sermon titled “Prayer; the Work of Missions.”   Even amid a long list of famous messages I’m pretty sure this is one of his most well known.  The sermon is full of great theology, inspiring insights and a powerful exhortation to pray! Prayer is a gift from God -it’s a direct line of communication with our heavenly father and we are missing out on all kinds of help when we forsake it.  ( We try to listen to at least parts of this talk every single year with our student leaders.)

In the sermon, Piper spends a lot of time talking about spiritual battle and unpacks scripture to explain that “life is war”.  One famous punchline in the talk is this: “Until you believe that life is war, you cannot know what prayer is for.” He contends that without a “wartime” mentality we will ultimately overlook the vital importance of prayer and miss out on all that God has for us in it and through it.  

Piper compares prayer to a “wartime walkie talkie”.  In the midst of our spiritual battle, it’s a life altering, gospel advancing means of communication with our heavenly father.  When we fail to recognize that life is war, we inevitably don’t pray, or we use prayer as though it were a “domestic intercom” system that we might use in a house to call for more pillows in the den.  We end up self-centered and misdirected, there’s no intensity, and it lacks power in our lives.

At our Ironman Men’s time we play paintball on a course we set up about 8 years ago.   When we host paintball events we try and not only facilitate a really fun time, but also make it as purposeful as we can by having a short ‘debrief’ at the end.  We have the students play different games and in the end we gather up around some food and have a discussion. (We use basic experiential process learning skills.)  The discussions are not sermonic, but they are places where we can introduce spiritual concepts, interact about worldview and hopefully help people to understand the glory of life in Christ more adequately.  

This year, in order to talk more about prayer and the spiritual ‘wartime mentality’  we invented a paintball game we called “Wartime Walkie Talkie.” Through victory in another competition, one of the teams was given an actual walkie-talkie.  Then we placed our intern Scott up in tree in a deer stand right in the middle of our paintball course. Scott is a very good paintball player because he played on the Cornell club team.   Scott also had a walkie talkie.

The team with the walkie talkie was able to communicate with Scott and ask him to shoot guys on the opposing team or provide cover fire as they advanced.  The opposing team was not allowed to shoot Scott -he was invincible. Scott had the ability to survey and see the whole course from his elevated position and was easily able to take out the enemy.  Likened to the way that we as Christians can easily speak to God and ask him for help, the team with the radio was able to take advantage of Scott’s power.

It was a pretty powerful object lesson that one of the teams was really able to benefit from.  Having Scott up in the tree raining down paintball’s a was clear advantage, and when Lucas Raley's team had the walkie talkie they asked Scott for help and achieved victory without even losing a player. Depending on Scott was a wise move! Another one of the teams however -even though they had the walkie-talkie didn't use it at all! It was crazy! Watching it was painful and almost maddening! They had access to this definitively "game-changing" advantage and they were just scampering through the battlefield un-assisted with the walkie-talkie in their pocket!! It was unbelievable -except that that's pretty much how we live all the time!

Josh is a student leader who happened to be on the opposing team and he was also deeply impacted by the situation. The game taught him about having a righteous reverence or fear of God. He said: "It gave me a better idea of what Biblical 'fear of the Lord' is like. I wasn't scared because Scott was mean and unpredictable; I was scared because he was so powerful and could light me up if he wanted to! In the same way, even as God is loving and merciful and just, I should fear Him for how powerful he is." The game provoked Josh to think about what it means to sin against God. Josh said "Sinning is like shooting at Scott -which is clearly a bad idea!" Why do we think it's ok to flippantly and defiantly offend God?

Picture Credit: Christina Thomas

*We really appreciate the ministry of John Piper and we highly recommend his resources which can be found at https://www.desiringgod.org/