I recently read a book titled Desiring the Kingdom by James K.A. Smith, who is a philosophy professor at Calvin College in Michigan. The book was largely about what it means to be a human being, something that is not at all obvious.  

For some, to be human is to be a thinker:  

"I think, therefore, I am." - Descartes.  

For others, to be human is to be a decider:  

"I decide, therefore, I am." - Viktor Frankl.  

For still others, to be human is to be a believer:  

"I believe, in order to understand." - Augustine.  

And finally, some say to be human is to be a lover:  

"I am what I love."

Love (or desire) captures more of what it means to be human than just thinking, or deciding, or even believing. And this is why James K.A. Smith says Victoria may be in on a secret that the church has forgotten, or is unclear about. Listen to James K.A. Smith:

I suggest that, on one level, Victoria's Secret is right just where the church has been wrong. More specifically, I think we should first recognize and admit that the marketing industry - which promises an erotically-charged transcendence through media that connects to our heart and imagination - is operating with a better, more creational, more incarnational, more holistic understanding of human beings than much of the church. In other words, I think we must admit that the marketing industry is able to capture, form, and direct our desires precisely because it has rightly discerned that we are embodied, desiring creatures whose being-in-the-world is governed by the imagination. Marketers have figured out the way to our heart because they "get it": they rightly understand that, at root, we are erotic creatures - creatures who are oriented primarily by love and passion and desire. The church has been duped...because it has bought into a model of the human person, wrongly assuming that the realm of ideas and thoughts and beliefs is the core of our being. These are certainly part of being human, but I think they come in second next to embodied desires.

To be human is to live in a body. To be human is to be driven by our desires and our loves. And if we wish to be good followers of Jesus, we need to not only have our thinking and ideas shaped, but also our bodies and our desires! Victoria gets it! She doesn't aim at our heads, but at our bodies and desires!

At the beginning of January, I'm going to do a sermon series titled Fit for Life. As a church we will be engaging in a church-wide fitness campaign which will involve the following components:

• Physical Fitness - Vineyard Columbus will help you to put together a personal health plan for diet and exercise, if you would find that helpful.  We're also partnering with Lose It! to offer a smartphone app and a Vineyard Columbus-specific website to assist you in tracking your success.      

• Spiritual Fitness - Vineyard Columbus wants to help you to get the New Year off on the right foot by encouraging your devotional life. So we're offering a Basic Devotions class. And if you have a devotional life, but feel stuck, we want to help you to go deeper in a class titled "Digging Deeper."

• Financial Fitness - Vineyard Columbus is going to be offering, again, Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University which is a 9-week class designed to help you and your family gain control of your money, beat debt, give generously, and build wealth. We'll also be offering a Budget Workshop and Stewardship Class for Christians.

• Emotional Fitness - We'll be offering several classes dealing with worry, and depression, and we have a special 8-week support group for high school girls titled "Hearts, Hurts, Healing - What Jesus Has To Say."

• Relational Fitness - There are going to be a number of opportunities for Vineyard Columbus folks to both begin and deepen friendships in the context of a small group.

Here at Vineyard Columbus we think human beings are more than giant bobble-heads who just need to be stuffed with more information.   We believe, along with James K.A. Smith, that we human beings need to be related to holistically, having our desires shaped by God's Word, God's Spirit, and God's people, and that we need to become Fit for Life in all dimensions: physically, spiritually, financially, emotionally, and relationally.

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