Weight lifting ministry

It's interesting that you mentioned weight lifting as a ministry.
I know a Christian Brother who opened a Christian Martial arts facillity in Portland, OR. He is doing quite well in this ministry.

As you probably know martial arts is based on eastern religion.

Yopu might try going on Google to find the name of the group of Christian weight lifters.

 

You might be thinking of "The Power Team". I saw them several years ago.

 

Actually, martial arts are not usually based on eastern religion, even if you define "martial arts" as only being the Asian kind. In a more general way, though, boxing and wrestling are martial arts, and both were mentioned without criticism in the Bible.

I have done the martial arts as a Christian for 39 years, starting with wrestling. Most of those years I've also done the Asian martial arts as a ministry, and seen many brought to Christ. I've practiced karate, judo, jujutsu and kung fu all under Christian teachers, and never felt that I compromised my Christian convictions, and I have Christian friends in both Japan and Hong Kong who also practice the martial arts without compromising.

I think a Christian weightlifting ministry is also great.

Don't mean to argue or criticize here, just inform. God bless!

 

May I make another suggestion. I am not a huge "Power Team" fan.

On the other hand the folks at "Team Impact" are really great to work with.

 

In my last church, we hosted a week long Power Team event. The house was packed each service (about 800 came...our normal Sunday AM attendance was around 150) and the aisles were packed during each invitation. The long term impact seemed minimal with the exception of the local youth wanting this spectacle to return each year.

Being a very, very, very amatuer bodybuilder at the time, I got along great with these folks. But by the end of the week, it seemed as though they needed to increase the magnitude of both their feats of strength, and in some cases, their testimonies.

The jury is out, in my opinion, on the real effect of these events on Kingdom advance.

But what caught my eye about the original post was the concept of a ministry around weight lifting/strength training/body building. I think that such a thing would be excellent for the local church. There are men's groups who meet at 6:00am for donuts/coffee/about 15 minutes of bible study and prayer. Why couldn't there be men's groups getting together at 6:00am (or earlier) at the local gym for a 15 minute devotion and 45 minutes of serious "pushing steel"? Think of the accountability issues that could be overcome by a group of God seeking men getting stronger together. Think of the transforming power such would have in the fitness community (a community that is, in most towns, dreadfully in need of God).

[ December 29, 2005, 08:46 PM: Message edited by: Jonathan ]

 

We had a group like this (I don't know if it was the Power Team or not) come to our (public) school a while ago. I think it was when I was in Jr High School. It just seemed odd to me that they can swap the message that "God has given us this power" with "not doing drugs has given us this power". It's either one or the other.

 

Jonathan, the GMAU (www.gmau.org), of which I am a part, is an organization which specializes in local church ministries built around the martial arts. I would think that something similar could be done with weight-lifting. By the way, I have a pastor friend here in Japan who does both at his church! He has a "shoot fighting" (kind of like modern jujutsu) gym in his church, and also participates in weight-lifting competitions.

 

The Power Team does a good job presenting the Gospel.