{"id":221769,"date":"2025-06-28T16:33:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T16:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/221769\/"},"modified":"2025-06-28T16:33:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T16:33:13","slug":"church-servers-put-through-their-paces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/221769\/","title":{"rendered":"Church servers put through their paces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An Edinburgh church has turned to an unexpected source for help in perfecting its worship: the gym.<\/p>\n<p>Altar servers from St Michael and All Saints, a Scottish Episcopal church known for its elaborate, centuries-old Anglo-Catholic liturgy, took part in a specially devised training session on Saturday led by personal trainer Stuart Lane.  The workout was designed specifically to meet the physical demands of serving at the altar.<\/p>\n<p>The church Rector, the Revd Oliver Brewer-Lennon, said the event is a novel response to a need which is real and genuine.<\/p>\n<p>He said: \u201cThe church\u2019s liturgy, or form of worship, is intricate, beautiful, and highly choreographed \u2013 and that places real physical demands on the servers. They carry heavy objects, genuflect, kneel for extended periods, and move in precise, synchronised patterns. It\u2019s physically taxing in a way people often don\u2019t realise.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe idea was sparked half in jest, when someone remarked that serving resembled a kind of liturgical workout. But the joke led to a serious proposal: why not train intentionally for it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Personal trainer Stuart Lane, who previously worked with Father Oliver as a weightlifting coach came from Glasgow specially to run the event. He lead a one-hour session in the church, and encouraged all those taking part to concentrate on core strength, mobility, balance, and stability with exercises tailored to the movements of sacred ritual.<\/p>\n<p>The idea was received warmly by the serving team of fifteen, who bring a serious commitment to their role in the liturgy and are open to new ways of preparing for it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know if this makes us innovators or just slightly mad,\u201d said Father Oliver, \u201cbut the aim is genuine. This is about supporting people in what they do for the life of the church \u2013 and maybe having a bit of fun along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/4E5A2FDF-C5D9-4A9D-9031-2197F090B392-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-603642\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/8D92B809-A658-4231-BC99-AA2D00C5B62A-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-603643\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/3880BB6C-4F40-4566-977D-031C8B2A6F22-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-603644\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/B0DD360E-F987-4012-BC35-BE680E43C377-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-603645\"  \/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/theedinburghreporter.co.uk\/2025\/06\/church-servers-put-through-their-paces\/?print=pdf\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1750780513_960_pdf.png\" alt=\"image_pdf\" title=\"View PDF\"\/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/theedinburghreporter.co.uk\/2025\/06\/church-servers-put-through-their-paces\/?print=print\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1750780514_137_print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"m-a-box-avatar-url\" href=\"https:\/\/theedinburghreporter.co.uk\/author\/phyllis-stephen\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Phyllis-Summer-2022-100x100.jpg\" class=\"attachment-100x100 size-100x100\" alt=\"\" itemprop=\"image\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.<br \/>Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.<\/p>\n<p>Like this:<\/p>\n<p>Like Loading&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"sd-link-color\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Edinburgh church has turned to an unexpected source for help in perfecting its worship: the gym. Altar&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4154,4155,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-221769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-edinburgh-local-news","11":"tag-edinburgh-news","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}