Cempa Community Care, in conjunction with Orchard Park Church, Kingdom Partners, the Southeast Tennessee Health Consortium and Optimal Health, is recruiting teams from Chattanooga’s faith-based community to compete in the inaugural Healthy Church Challenge.
The Healthy Church Challenge is a 16-week contest wherein teams of 10 members each from Chattanooga area churches will compete for the title, “The Healthy Church.” Final rankings will be tied to a scoring system that assigns points based on contest participation, health screening improvements and performance in the culminating event, the Healthy Church Olympics.
“Getting and staying healthy is essential to leading a happy and productive life,” says LaDarius Price, Cempa’s Community Outreach manager.
“As we were thinking of ways to create a fun and competitive way for our fellow Chattanoogans to combat issues like hypertension, heart disease and diabetes, the Healthy Church Challenge seemed like a perfect idea.”
The competition kicks off Saturday, Jan. 25 at 9 a.m. with a Healthy Church Expo at New Covenant Fellowship Church, 1326 N. Moore Road, where teams will register, take part in an hour-long seminar and be screened for eight different health categories. The Healthy Church Olympics will serve as the conclusion of the 16-week competition. At this event, teams will be screened once again to see which participants have made the most impactful changes to their health scores, and teams will then compete in a series of events including the one-mile walk. Between the Expo and the Olympics, teams will take part in a series of six wellness seminars.
“Our goal for the Healthy Church Challenge is for participants to better their health in a fun, community-building way,” says Mr. Price. “But even more than that, we want them to learn how they can live a healthier lifestyle well beyond the 16 weeks of the competition.”