Twelve years ago, believing that God called him to Jacksonville, Stovall Weems founded the evangelical, nondenominational Celebration Church. As it grew to more than 10,000 worshipers a week, at 12 campuses, he always preached a combination of fasting and prayer for spiritual growth.
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Mr. Weems’s followers are drinking in his gospel. All 10 worshipers I met after Sunday’s service are fasting somehow. One put me in touch with a friend, Laura McElroy (above), who is subsisting for three weeks on just water.
Ms. McElroy first did a water fast last year, after reading about it in “Celebration of Discipline,” by Richard J. Foster.
“I knew the minute I read it, I knew that’s what God wanted me to do,” Ms. McElroy said.
When we spoke, she was on Day 8. Saying the discipline of fasting helps clarify God’s intentions for her, she pointed to Matthew 17, where Jesus recommends prayer and fasting to his disciples.
But she does not say fasting is easy.
“I have small children,” said Ms. McElroy, 27, a preschool teacher and mother of two. “Making their dinner, serving food, being around it — if I don’t drink enough water, I get kind of weak. And in those moments when I think, ‘O.K., God, I can’t do this,’ I rely on his strength.
“I might suck on some hard candy if I need something in my mouth. But other than that, I have no temptation, because I know why I’m doing it.”
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