Come join us! The Commission on Health launched its first initiative for the new conference year: “Make One Change,” an effort to move our congregation, one step at a time, into better health.

Right now, we're emphasizing walking as a way to better heart health. Each person goes at his or her own pace—the idea is just to get going, and to walk with one another in fellowship. People who are participating range in age from under two years to 80-plus!

In 2007 , the Spirit of Health newsletter was our primary mode of communication regarding the activities of the commission, and it provided education, tips, recipes, news, information, and much more for the purpose of empowering everyone who read it to obtain or maintain optimum health. To download editions of the newsletter, use the links below:

• Summer 2007, including “Not Just Another Weight Loss Article”
• Spring 2007, including “10 Easy Ways to Switch Up Family Favorites”

For our June 2, 2007 health fair at the church, we also published a handy “refrigerator reminder” with the top 8 easiest tips we found for healthy living:

• “8 Weeks to Feeling Great!”

Of course, health isn’t merely the absence of disease or infirmity, but rather achieving your optimum state of wellness. To repeat a cliché, it means ‘being the best you can be.’ I place the emphasis on ‘you’ because your optimum state of wellness is different from your neighbors’, spouse’s, or friends’; it’s about obtaining what you need to be healthy physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

We're free to become all we can be for the glory of God here on earth. That includes making our bodies, minds, and spirits into a lavish offering to him. So, join me on this journey of good health as God makes all things new in 2008 and beyond.

Deborah Bundy-Carpenter
Chair, Commission on Health