It was 5:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, I got up as I do on every other Sunday morning to spend some quiet time in final preparation for that day’s church services. I noticed that there was a different glow outside the high window in my bedroom, so I went to the window to take a look. When I looked out the window, I saw the yard and street covered in a blanket of beautiful snow. I took a moment to enjoy the beauty of the freshly fallen snow that had left our town looking like a postcard, and then suddenly the wonder and beauty of the snow changed to uncertainty and unease. As the pastor, everyone would be looking to me to make a decision about whether to have church that day. One side of me said, “I can get there, and I should just be there for anyone who wants toshow up.” The other side of me said that if I have the services, some people will come, and if even one of them is hurt in a car accident or falls in the parking lot, it wouldn’t be worth it.

As pastors and churches, we place a high priority on spiritual matters, as we should. On this particular Sunday, I was forced to weigh the importance of physical safety against the importance of spiritual things and weekly worship.

My tendency as a pastor is to hold the spiritual things as having more importance, yet on this Sunday I chose to cancel church as a means of protecting God’s people from bodily harm even thought it meant missing an opportunity to worship and grow spiritually. While spiritual things are of great importance to us, we are also called to be good stewards of the bodies that Godhas given us. Too often we try to separate body and spirit when in fact they are two parts of one creation.

As God’s people, we must take care of our bodies as a part of Godly living. After all it is the body that we use to do God’s work, to speak the good news, to care forthe poor, and all the many other things we do because our spirits are connected to God our creator.

In fact, I consider it a spiritual practice to care for our bodies through eating right, exercising, getting proper rest, working hard, playing hard and not abusing our bodies with things that are harmful to them. I have not always felt this way and have not seen my body as something I should care for as I do my soul. Because of this I let myself get overweight and out of shape and because of this I did not have the energy I needed to do God’s work. In the last couple of years, I have begun to work on my health and to see it as part of a Godly life. I have started to exercise and eat better, and I have lost 30 pounds in the last year and a half. I still have a long way to go, but changingmy understanding of my body as a gift from God has helped me do a better job of taking care of it.

The United Methodist Church has been helping us see this through a new program called “Holy Healthy” which provides many resources for those wishing to make positive health changes and for congregations wanting to create or expand a health and wellness ministry. The Web site, holyhealthyumc.com, is available to anyone wanting to live a more healthy life.

This is the time of year for resolutions and pledges to take better care of our bodies, and I hope that you will see your body as a gift from God that is as important as your spirit when itcomes to doing God’s work in this world. It’s not spirit OR body but rather spirit AND body. That’s why, ultimately, I decided to cancel church that snowy Sunday morning.

Church, Pages 2 on 01/13/2010