By Jeff Brumley
Health and fitness facilities and ministries are being eyed by churches seeking their ministry niches. But the missional use of wellness is nothing new in American Christianity.
“The early forms were churches like Walnut Street Baptist Church in Louisville,” said George Bullard, a South Carolina-based church consultant and president of the Columbia Partnership. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Kentucky church built a six-story health facility that included bowling alleys.
And it worked.
“They had the clientele and they opened it to the transitional community” in which they were located, Bullard said. Soon other churches followed suit, but often without the financial or ministry success that Walnut Street enjoyed.
“The problem is that many churches built gymnasiums to survive, but they built them on the ‘Field of Dreams’ model — if we build it, they will come,’” Bullard said.
Health ministries, with or without dedicated facilities, have been making a comeback as a variety of social and religious trends in America converge. Whether it’s limited to a group of church members setting weight-loss goals together or a congregation seeking its ministry niche in the community, the wider obsession with health and exercise is merging with churches’ search for missional meaning.
“There is absolutely an opportunity for new forms of church centered around fitness,” said Travis Collins, the director of mission advancement and Virginia regional coordinator for Fresh Expressions US.
Spiritual, physical awareness
Health-focused ministries and programs regularly get headlines and even accolades from secular organizations that promote fitness.
Most recently, Houston-based nonprofit Health Fitness Revolution released its listing of the “Top 20 Fittest Churches in Texas.”
“Spiritual awareness is one of the key components of healthy lifestyle that impacts the whole body and rejuvenates the spirit,” Samir Becic, the organization’s founder, said on its website about the list. “Physical fitness and healthy nutrition allows that spirit to flourish to new dimensions and many people experience a closer relationship to God.”
Half the churches on the list are Baptist and located across the state in cities like Abilene, Amarillo, Houston and Plano. Most have a combination of fitness classes, nutrition and senior programs, sports leagues and often host runs of various distances. They also have facilities dedicated to fitness and health.
Why it’s important, Becic told Texas Monthly, is that “smart fitness, good nutrition, social well-being, and some form of spirituality can change your body, maybe even change your life.”
That’s also the view at Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta.
“People who use the Family Life Center are provided with the opportunities to grow physically, mentally, socially and spiritually,” the church says on its website.
The 70,000-square-foot facility includes a large indoor pool and track, weight room, cardio center, gymnasium, racquetball courts and personal trainers. There are programs for children, caregivers and others.
“It is our desire that all who use our facility or participate in our activities will have the opportunity to hear that Jesus Christ loves them and desires to have a personal relationship with them,” the church website says.
Second-Ponce is an example of a church where the physical and spiritual needs of its members and others who use the facility are met, Collins said.
“That place is hopping,” he said.
The wellness trend
But the convergence of health and spirituality isn’t limited to churches with dedicated fitness facilities. Another wave in recent years is that of church members, often led by pastors, uniting to lower blood pressure, drop pounds and tone up as a team.
In an article titled “The Fitness-Driven Church,” Christianity Today reported in 2013 that churches from Indiana to Virginia were taking fitness pledges. About 250 members of Central Baptist Church in Northern Virginia reported shedding 12,000 pounds, collectively.
Perhaps most well-known is Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren’s Daniel Plan. It combines exercise, diet and fellowship as a way to tackle weight and other physical problems.
But it’s only one of several Bible-based fitness programs that have appeared on the market in recent years. Others include Bod4God, Body Gospel and Firm Believer.
“The Christian wellness trend has unfolded amid national debates about health care, childhood obesity, government-banned large sugary drinks, and who or what is to blame in a country where about 1 out of every 3 adults … is clinically obese,” Christianity Today reported.
‘Broad-based wellness’
The other current informing these trends is the ongoing struggle of churches to discern and live out their callings in a postmodern age.
And as some have found ministry to local schools, homeless people and artists as their purpose, others are zeroing in on health.
“The key is whether the church has its program and intends it for itself, or for community outreach,” Bullard said.
Congregations considering this route must make the facility about treating the entire person, not just the physical side through free weights or cardio.
“If a church combines a broad-based wellness program, and also a parish nurse, that becomes a proactive approach that helps the church reach out to the community,” Bullard said.
Collins said it’s also important that churches not try to go head-to-head against organizations like the YMCA, which may already be providing low-cost gym memberships in their communities, he said.
However, they might have something to offer by providing memberships to people who “can’t afford membership in fancy centers,” Collins said.