A Message from Reverend Andrew M. Emison

​Dear Friends,

As I approach Christmas and contemplate Christmas dinners and the odd mince pie or two (hundred) I will stare anxiously at my waistline! In the New Year that follows, new or renewed gym memberships will spike as many of us resolve to get fit for 2020. Rightly so! Christian faith teaches us that our bodies matter. In Genesis, God creates them and declares them to be not just good but “very good”. When our bodies don’t work as they once did or when we become poorly, it is not what God had in mind.

Christmas teaches us that God takes on our body and becomes fully human; that amazing fusion of body and spirit that is our true humanity. At very least all of this inspires me to take the dog on longer walks! I know that for those who exercise regularly, if they don’t get exercise they begin to crave it. They long to “feel the burn” of a good workout.

Medical science teaches us that our wellbeing and health is improved with regular exercise. The odd walk once a month won’t make any difference but regular exercise will.

If that is true of our physical bodies, it is also true of our spiritual life.

Over the last eleven weeks at our 09:30Live! and 10.45 services we’ve been exploring the “Holy Habits” of the early church as recorded in Acts 2: 42-47.

You can see the ten Holy Habits in the pictures opposite. Just as our bodies need exercise to be healthy, so does our spiritual life. Those of us who exercise the Holy Habits regularly know the need to engage in all of them regularly.

I wonder if we recognise this?
Do we crave the exercise of the Holy Habits?
Do we long to “feel the burn” in our lives?
​
Andrew

Rev'd. Andrew M. Emison
Minister