Feisty, Fit, & Faithful – Meet Patrice Schaffer this Testimony Tuesday!

Patrice is a true light in our City of Charlotte. She’s fervently using her gifts and talents for the Lord, serving her family, her city, and her church with excellence. She’s also become quite the example of how to live a FiT life, inspiring others around her.

 

Feisty, Fit and Faithful - Meet Patrice Schaffer, headshot, grey jacket over black top with braids

 

“I think that we can’t be as effective spiritual if we do not invest in our wellness and fitness. As pastors, we give so much and eat so much with all the after church dinners, lunch meetings and the list goes on, we never think of the wear and tear that just the consumption is doing to us. Then, we add the stresses of ministry and headaches not even to mention personal struggles, life, children, family, spouse and the list is huge! The scary truth is that if we do not invest in our health now, we will wish we would have invested when we had the opportunity. As ministers, we can still operate without a healthy lifestyle but we will only operate at optimum levels and thrive when we are healthy.”

 

…….

My name is Patrice Schaffer. I am the wife of Pastor Theo Schaffer and mother of two awesome children, Theopelis IV (4) and Ryleigh Grace (2). We recently relocated to Charlotte after accepting the offer of being Senior Pastor of a local church. In addition to pastoring, we are active in our community, both work full time jobs and are still trying to master the work-life-church balance. About 6 months ago, we felt the leading of the Lord to leave our initial church assignment within the city and follow God in establishing a new church plant, Grace Church. After much prayer and research we moved on the word of God, with our 2 young children and a handful of believers. I have since that spiritual transition become a work from home mom and now my job description has expanded beyond my wildest dreams and expectations. Serving as a social media consultant for several major city police departments including Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police, as well as managing my own Multi-Media Consulting firm, Executive Pastor of Grace Church, PTA Vice President at our child’s school, plus mom, wife and the list goes on. My struggle is definitely work-life-church-and everything else balance. When the idea of MissionFiT was brought to us, I immediately thought, I cannot add another thing to my plate; especially not fitness. Short answer: I was wrong! MissionFiT helped to re-introduce some awesome fitness opportunities which helped me personally and of course has overflowed into my new routine. MissionFiT has truly changed my life and helped provide clarity in more than just the fitness scope of my lens.

 

Feisty, Fit and Faithful - Meet Patrice Schaffer, Patrice in a blue top standing with her family smiling

When you think of your fitness journey, what 3 words come to mind?

“Unconventional, Intentional, Exciting”

 

I was very athletic in my youth and played many sports. It was upon entering college that life and pounds began to attack me! LOL! I would always see a picture of myself and then be motivated to lose weight. Do really good on a fit journey whether solely nutritional changes or mixed with exercise. My worse habit is that once I saw progress, I would get relaxed and have a “cheat” day that turned into a “cheat” week and before you know it, I was right back where I didn’t want to be. Then adding the stress of life, ministry, motherhood, wife-dom, remaining consistent has always been a struggle. So in short form, my past fitness journey has always been up and down and undesirable.

 

Feisty, Fit and Faithful - Meet Patrice, black and white pic of patrice and her fam at the pulpit

 

However, now I love the flexibility and convenience of MissionFiT! They took away all room for excuses. It also helped that an expensive gym membership was not required to participate and see results. The program has helped me re-calibrate my fitness journey and I have been working out consistently since we began with MissionFiT. Talk about a MIRACLE!

 

Also, it has ignited excitement in me for fitness once again and that excitement has spilled over into our circles where I am currently training with 3 other people. I always tell them “Kelsey did this to  me!” LOL! Seriously, I never imagined I’d be a personal trainer yet alone ever be interested but, this newness and excitement in fitness is definitely something I’m appreciative of and consider a huge win.

 

 

Favorite movement: Anything but Bear Crawls!

Least favorite movement: Bear Crawls

 

Feisty, Fit and Faithful - Meet Patrice, headshot

 

Overall health and the self-confidence for a woman who is satisfied with being in her own skin is my motivation. Sometimes as busy women, we learn to accept what we perceive we cannot change (pounds) but we never realize we are unhappy or discontent with our current until we see or are offered something better (fitting into the small waist dress). This happiness and joy that comes from being able to do more and expend more because you have more to give, which is great. It keeps me going and of course in ministry that’s our underlining wiring anyway. Through this, my husband has been great support though. I didn’t realize how much he really enjoyed working out together and seeing my workout tenacity. Kelsey is a huge huge fan as well. She had a habit of seeing and believing I could do much more than my head allowed me to see. Rockstar teammates!

 

I think that we can’t be as effective spiritual if we do not invest in our wellness and fitness. As pastors, we give so much and eat so much with all the after church dinners, lunch meetings and the list goes on, we never think of the wear and tear that just the consumption is doing to us. Then, we add the stresses of ministry and headaches not even to mention personal struggles, life, children, family, spouse and the list is huge! The scary truth is that if we do not invest in our health now, we will wish we would have invested when we had the opportunity. As ministers, we can still operate without a healthy lifestyle but we will only operate at optimum levels and thrive when we are healthy. You can even preach longer. LOL! Seriously, your entire life will shift and you’ll begin to wonder how did I do all of this without a healthy lifestyle?!

 

Feisty, Fit and Faithful - Meet Patrice, Patrice sitting with her husband smiling with a red and yellow scarf

 

I think that a part of our spiritual responsibility is to take care of the temples that God has loaned us. We cannot take a rental car back to the owners with trash, uncleaned, no gas, a complete dump and expect not to run into consequences (ie. large fees). I don’t think we should as people of God esteem a rental car higher than our own bodies which God calls His temple. Paul says we have to present ourselves as living sacrifices to Him. God required a certain kind of sacrifice and it was without spot or blemish. We aren’t perfect but I do believe that it is in our best interest for the sake of living an acceptable life for Christ and also for being effective Christians, that we take care of what God has loaned us, it’s our reasonable service.

 

I think the most effective way in inspiring others is your own story. I can show you transformation pictures all over the web and make you become inspired and motivated for the moment. But when I tell you that my marriage has benefited, my children have benefited, our ministry is benefiting and our connections are benefiting because of the investment we made in our fitness journey. That’s real life. I feel that I am more efficient, effective and inspiring because you can see my journey up close. No, it’s not perfect and it’s not an overnight thing, which makes it beautiful because it’s a journey that I’ve learned to embrace.

 

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