GRAPEVINE, Texas--Fellowship Church is recruiting soldiers to fight a war on fat. According to an ABC News report, churches are joining state governments, schools and scientists in a new effort to curb the curves of large America.
Fellowship member Jay Johnson combines military training with biblical principles to encourage church members to keep moving and stop eating.
"What I try to convey to them is to take that hard right instead of the easy wrong," says Sgt. Johnson. "And that parallels with Scripture."
The war on fat has changed the environment of the church. Workouts at Fellowship Church have replaced doughnuts on Sundays. The congregation is part of a fitness program called "Body for God."
"What does God say about our body? He says he values it," said Laura Strickland, manager of the program at Fellowship. "So how can we be good stewards of the health that he has given us?"
Attendance at exercise sessions has quadrupled in two years.
"I just think that you need to be healthy," said Debbie Holtmeyer, a church member, "and that God wants you to be healthy."
