For the past 40 days I have been taking a 60 day online study called The Lord’s Table at Setting Captives Free. Later I will discuss how I have benefited from the course. For today, I would like you to meet the Executive Director of The Lords’ Table, Jason Chamberlain.

1. Did you go through The Lord’s Table course? If so, how did it impact your life?

Yes. I previously had gone through the Way of Purity course to deal with sexual sin. My whole Christian life felt like a battle between gluttony and sexual sin. It felt like one would get worse any time I dealt with the other. The Lord’s Table helped me finally to enjoy victory in both areas by giving me a perspective that I needed to submit everything to Christ.

From a practical perspective, as I age I am in better and better physical condition all the time. At 33 I am much healthier than I was at 23 or 13. It’s a tremendous blessing that comes from being obedient to the Lord, which has only been possible by His sanctifying grace in my life for His glory.

2. How long have you served as the Executive Director of The Lord’s Table, and what are your general ministry responsibilities?

Since November of 2005. I serve as a liaison between the Board of Directors and those who serve in the ministry. I mostly work directly with the Mentor Coordinators who in turn have mentors serving under them. I primarily answer questions and provide accountability. I also interact with mentor candidates as they go through the application process. I try to make myself a “one-stop shop” for any questions that anyone in the ministry might have. I submit to the leadership of the SCF Board of Directors and am often thankful for their direction.

3. I am currently taking The Lord’s Table course. It has been very encouraging, convicting, and often very enlightening. Can you briefly describe the course and its underlying mission?

We want to see Christ exalted in all things. Like all of the courses we offer, The Lord’s Table is designed to help the student learn how to enjoy God more than sin so that God may be glorified. People come with the goal of losing weight and they will certainly meet that goal if they apply what they learn. However, The Lord’s Table is more than that. We like to think of it more as a “God gain” course rather than simply a “weight loss” course.

From a practical physical perspective, the course is designed as 60 interactive Bible studies that the student will do online. Each lesson will ask the student to interact with Scripture and accompanying teaching. A mentor will read the lesson submissions and respond periodically. The mentor is also there to answer questions, provide encouragement, and pray for the student.
We provide two eating plans to help students develop discipline in their eating. The first is one that incorporates a variety of days where the student eats different quantities of food. Some days the student eats three normal portions. Some the student eats three meals with half of the regular portions. Others ask the student to have liquids such as fruit and vegetable juices for two meals, but with one normal meal. Finally, one day a week is spent doing a traditional water-only fast.

However, we recognize that not everyone can fast because of medical reasons. We also realize that this is not a good idea for someone who has struggled with starving or with binging and purging (what the world calls anorexia and bulimia). Therefore, we also offer a plan where the student eats three small meals every day, but cannot eat until there is a perceptible sensation of hunger.

The overall goal with both of these plans is to help the student realize that the body doesn’t need as much food as it might want. Some would call this learning the difference between real hunger and “heart hunger” where we just want to eat for the sake of eating.

We also emphasize the need to become physically active. We don’t expect everyone to immediately start training for a marathon, but we do ask that everyone start to push themselves as they are able. For some people that may mean getting back out on the road and running or cycling. For others that may mean something as simple as a walk to the end of the driveway to get the mail. We will meet you where you are. After all, that’s what God does with us, right?

4. To whom would you recommend The Lord’s Table ?

I would recommend The Lord’s Table to anyone who wants to take an honest look at his or her eating and exercise habits from a spiritual perspective. Frankly, I would recommend it to just about anyone in the church. The church in America tends to wink at gluttony as a sin. I like to illustrate this with a hypothetical story.

Imagine a church had to find a new pastor. The search committee interviews a guy who seems like a good speaker and well-grounded theologically. However, they discover that he drinks alcohol with every meal and even has a bottle in his car. They probably wouldn’t hire him.
They interview another guy and he seems to meet all the qualifications, but they discover that he has been having adulterous relationships with several women. They certainly would not hire him.

Then they interview a third guy who seems to meet all the qualifications. However, he is 5′ 10″ tall and weighs 300 pounds. How often would that stop the hiring process? I would maintain that gluttony probably is not taken nearly as seriously as the other sins, though I would submit that it should be.

I realize that this likely sounds very radical. I invite anyone who wants to know more to try out the course and see what we think Scripture has to say on this matter.

5. The course emphasizes the importance of fasting. If you have ever struggled with habitual overeating; how has fasting contributed to your perseverance in fighting it?

It helps me to realize that my body does not need as much food as my soul wants to eat. I think of Esau when he sold his birthright over a bowl of soup. He made the statement that he was going to die. I find it highly unlikely that he was truly so close to death, but he was very short-sighted. I think that if Esau had practiced regular fasting he might have had a different perspective on the ravenous hunger he felt.

We lose weight by burning more energy than we consume. Part of that means that we are going to feel hungry at times. Fasting helps us to embrace hunger as a normal part of how we were fearfully and wonderfully made.

6. What is your current weekly exercise schedule?

I typically run 4 times/week and lift weights 2 times/week. I typically run approximately 13-15 miles/week altogether.

7. What is your favorite healthy snack?

I really don’t snack much anymore.

Pictured: Jason with his wife Amanda and daughter Lily. For more information please visit Setting Captives Free at SettingCaptivesFree.com.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 1:11 am and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.