I heard a statistic by Regent College professor, Charles Ringma. He stated that a few years ago Christians in North America spent $8 billion on weight reduction programs in one year, while only spending $2 billion on mission efforts. Now combine the $8 billion with the additional money spent on the excessive food to necessitate spending the money on weight reduction. Yikes!

I wonder where programs like this and this fit in the statistics. Just kidding.

Seriously though, it raises the issue of the connection between a less consumerist and even ascetic lifestyle and a missional one. Or as Mark has asked before, “Can a person be a true apprentice of Jesus and live by the values of North American culture?”

What sucks is that I’m neither thin nor very missional…