Taking an imaginary walk to Bethlehem during the Christmas season is how one local church is promoting spiritual, mental, emotional and physical health.

"You walk to Jerusalem during Lent and Bethlehem during Advent," said Lori Floyd, the parish nurse at Gainesville First United Methodist. "It also is tied to a devotional that goes along with the walk."

The event kicked off on Nov. 11 but there still is time to take part.

Those interested do not have to be a member of the church.

"It’s not just in the Methodist Church, it is kind of nondenominational," Floyd said. "Every church adapts it to their own congregation. We have a weekly walk on Sunday afternoons, but a lot of it is on your own or in a group that you regularly walk with."

Floyd added that you can easily adapt the program to your own life.

"It’s designed so that anybody can participate, even for people that aren’t able to be physically active," she said.

The goal is to walk the distance to Bethlehem, which is 6,458 miles from Atlanta. The current mileage, added between all the participants, stands at 3,646 miles.

"Everybody sets their own personal goal, but the church hopes to get there by Christmas," she said. "Last week we were still walking on water. Hopefully now we are at the African coast."

The program was created at St. John Health, a hospital in Detroit, called Walk to Jerusalem, which occurs before Easter and the Walk to Bethlehem in the fall.

"It’s like anything else, what you put into it is what you get out of it," Floyd said. "People are completing the devotional that goes along with it and I’ve heard a lot of good feedback about it."