I am not a vegetarian. Maybe I should rephrase that: I am not a vegetarian yet. I had been flirting with the notion of becoming a vegetarian for a year or two now, but I never could bring myself to commit. You see I like meat too much (or so I thought).

However, with my schedule at the church with meetings, confirmation, and campus ministry stuff I often found myself picking up a quick bite to eat from a fast food joint since I didn’t usually have time to go home and eat a meal with my family. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this was very unhealthy and very costly. Looking back I was spending between $5-13 a day eating out. That means I was on pace to spend between $1825-$4745 a year to ruin my health. Awesome! Or not.

So last week Sunday as we were grocery shopping, I finally made the leap and told Stacy I was going to commit to being a vegetarian with two exceptions: enjoying Buffalo Wild Wings on my birthday and the first day of March Madness. So began my practice in being a vegetarian.  I use that very intentionally because I am not a vegetarian…at least not yet.  When I see meat (especially sausage) I still desire to have it and can almost taste it and if I were not committed to the practice of being a vegetarian I would choose to eat it every time.  I don’t believe I will fully be vegetarian, but I think eventually by continuing the practice I will get to a point where I my desire to eat the meat will decrease when faced with the choice and slowly vegetarian will become my default choice so that I could consider myself vegetarian.  But I am not there yet, not even close.  To sum it up…I can for a whole year choose to not eat meat, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I will be a vegetarian…really all I might be is a non-practicing meat eater.  There has to be a change in my desires and I think this will come from the practice of living a vegetarian life.

Steve Chalke and Alan Mann in their book Different Eyes: The Art of Living Beautifully talk about virtue ethics and the importance of character and vision.  The speak of how the character of God gives us a vision that leads us to want to reflect that character (or image).  A big part of this is the importance of formation of habits and practices.  In discussing the difference between rule based ethics and virtue ethics, they write:

The Pharisees were worried that if you give up on the rules – on the positions you held – you would be giving up on discipleship.  But discipleship is not primarily about rules; it’s about the development of habits and practices.  You learn a skill when you are inspired by a vision.  Kids become great footballers because they dream of being like their heroes.  It is this vision that drives them to spend hour after hour kicking a ball up against a wall or learning to juggle a ball. (pg 76-77)

That is what is happening to me, I have seen a vision of being a healthier individual and it has inspired me to practice that life. The interesting part of this is that it has such powerful translation into discipleship.  How often do we hear the so-and-so is a good person because they have never (fill in the blank) or would never (fill in the blank), but is that true?  Does that really make them a good person just because they don’t do an action?  They could be a good person, but it doesn’t necessarily follow just like it doesn’t necessarily follow that I am a vegetarian because I now never eat meat. They just as well could be the meanest people on earth who find it beneficial to their own self interest to not do those things but still in their heart they are something else.

Is this something that is plaguing the life of disciples?  Has the church become a place that is again about following rules or not breaking rules instead of a place of inspiring vision to help us strive to be something more?  Is the church a place where we hear the message: you need to tithe. you need to do this. you can’t do that. etc. instead of a place where we see the abundance of God’s love and provision and are so moved that we want to become people pouring out abundant love and provision by entering into the practice?

Is your experience of church one that inspires you to want to be something better or is the experience something else?  Have we lost the heart of the matter? Can the inspiration to live a vegetarian lifestyle be a message to help rethink what church is to be?