Intentional Health and the Evangelical Alliance are passionate about making Jesus known, strengthening the church and ministering to society, so we’re coming together to think about a healthier culture.
There’s an injustice that many diseases including obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes could be prevented, or better managed, by adopting healthier lifestyle patterns. We know these diseases impact individuals, society and the NHS, but what does this have to do with the church and can we help?
It is well documented that Jesus healed people and Christian pioneers shaped the provision of health over the centuries. Could the church do something like this again to prevent needless suffering and premature deaths?
The apostle Paul says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world”. The Message version puts Romans 12:1 – 2 like this: “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.”
When did you last stop to think about your lifestyle as an offering, or how your behaviours are adjusted to the cultures you live in? Let’s think about some of these for a moment…
Sleeping
Our culture encourages, even rewards us, for pushing through with little sleep. However, “Regular poor sleep puts you at risk of serious medical conditions, including obesity, heart disease and diabetes – and it shortens your life expectancy.” (NHS, Live Life Well)
Eating
Marketing everywhere encourages us to eat whatever we want. Fast food is cheap and convenient but has little nutritional value. We crave it because food companies spend millions creating the exact balance of fats, salts and sugars that lead our brains to feel better and are becoming more dependent on it than is helpful. The excess fat, simple carbohydrates, and processed sugar in these foods contribute to obesity, cardiovascular disease, and many other chronic lifestyle health conditions.
Going-to-work
A never-ending digitally connected, ‘switched on’ and ‘deadline orientated’ work culture promotes a constant state of poor health, with stress, anxiety, and little room for rest or margin.
Walking around
Our culture encourages us to be less active, not walking around. We take the car, sit behind a desk, or watch a screen for hours on end. The benefits of regular walking could equate to a ‘super pill’, while physical inactivity is thought to be responsible for more deaths than smoking.
These lifestyle patterns combined – lack of sleep, eating quickly and with poor nutrition, sitting stressed for hours behind a desk in front of a screen, and then not prioritising sufficient rest or margin – all highlight the lifestyles that mean almost 9 in 10 people will suffer or die early in the UK (World Health Organisation).
These are the patterns we are choosing to fit into without thinking if we are not being intentional about our health.
Paul says the alternative is: “Place these before God as an offering, as part of our Christian worship. Then… Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognise what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you” (Romans 12: 2).
This means, God helping us, we can all be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We can be intentional, learn healthier lifestyle choices, and lead a life in all its fullness. We can introduce our neighbours to a counter-cultural, whole-person approach to health that includes teachings from the Bible, yet is suitable for people of all faiths and none. We can complement this with robust evidence and use government guidance, that helps the NHS, as GP’s could signpost their lifestyle health patients to their local church.
Intentional Health makes all this possible without the need for health experts. We partner with pioneering Christians so that together, we can be transformed and create new healthier lifestyle cultures around the country.
In 2020, the Evangelical Alliance will be hosting new opportunities for Christian pioneers to attend training to deliver Intentional Health in and around the London area. Together, we’ll be making Jesus known while transforming the culture around us and saving lives.
Want to join in?
Visit our website to join our next 30-minute webinar on Tuesday, 28 January 2020 to find out more (www.intentionalhealth.uk/partnership-webinars).
or visit www.intentionalhealth.uk/training-london to find out about our training opportunity at the Evangelical Alliance in April 2020.
