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.”