Treating his body as his temple
Young Chang
A guy once walked up to the Rev. Richard Menees at the gym and asked
him how he got so big.
They were both working out, and the young lad seemed to be intrigued
by not only the reverend’s biceps, but the fact that the biceps belonged
to a 52-year-old man with white hair.
“His question was, ‘what was the secret of your longevity?’ said
Menees, an associate rector at St. James Episcopal Church in Newport
Beach. “I said, ‘I can tell you how to live forever. Very simple answer.
Jesus Christ.”’
The boy didn’t ask any questions. The encounter ended.
“I’m not gonna say he enlisted as an altar boy or as a missionary to
Zimbabwe, but I hope I gave him a chance to think about something maybe
he hadn’t thought about,” Menees said.
As known among his congregants for his heart as he is for his brawn,
Menees weight trains to both reach his goal of bench-pressing 500 pounds
(his current record is 385) and to keep with the spiritual reasons for
staying in shape.
“Ministry is a lifelong thing, but if you let your body decline,
you’ll be too weak to use your body and experience,” Menees said. “The
Bible teaches that the body is the temple that God’s spirit dwells in. I
have a Christian personal trainer friend who teaches classes on temple
maintenance.”
The rector’s goal, through bulking himself up, is to become the
“strongest Episcopal priest in the world.”
Weight training has also helped him evangelize.
“The interesting thing about it is, people ask me,” he said. “I go in
and out of the gym with my collar and black suit on ‘cause I’m going from
one job to the next, but it’s not like I wear a big cross on my neck or
carry a Bible.”
Still, people start up fitness conversations with Menees and, often,
it leads to spiritual territory.
As a missionary in Zimbabwe years ago, the rector had exercise and
weight equipment imported into the country to set up a home gym. He knew
all the teenage boys there wanted to “get big.” The gym drew them to his
home and, eventually, to church.
Cathie Young, director for spiritual “equipping” at St. James, said
Menees’ biceps earn him almost instant credibility with the younger
crowd.
“Father Richard being buff serves as an opening door into
conversations,” she said.
A Christian since his college days at Stanford University, Menees has
always been devoted to staying fit. During seminary school at the
Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., he ran marathons. While
serving as a missionary in Italy, Africa and other areas of the world, he
weight trained.
Currently, as a rector at St. James and while working for his
doctorate at Pasadena’s Fuller Theological Seminary, he lifts more than
he ever did before.
“When I came to St. James, I had not bench pressed more than 255
pounds since I was 21,” Menees said. “But on my last birthday, Oct. 18, I
successfully benched 385 pounds. And I’ve gained about 40 pounds of
muscle, and muscle really does weigh more than fat.”
Menees said he has no plans to slow down when it comes to working out,
serving God or combining the two.
“In the ministry, you do the best work, the older you get,” he said.
“The longer you live with the Lord and pay attention to him, the more
useful you are to him and others. I expect to go at it till 80. It’ll be
the last 20 years that are the most productive.”
Young, who says she’s been around pastors all her life and not seen
many who look like Menees, adds that the melding of his physical and
spiritual qualities serves as a tool.
“He has a wonderful, soft pastor’s heart, and you combine that with
the desire to look big and strong and it’s a good combination,” she said.
“I think God has really used that in his ministry.”
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