The Sweatiest Bible Class in America

Revelation Wellness puts Scripture at the center of its group fitness program.
After attending a few aerobics classes as a teenager, Alisa Keeton knew she needed one of those pink leotards. She begged her mom to outfit her newfound passion and never looked back. Fitness became her life’s work and her ministry.
Keeton, 46, founded Revelation Wellness ten years ago in Phoenix, just as CrossFit and other high-intensity exercise programs were taking off nationwide. But Keeton and her instructors saw that physical activity could go beyond weight loss or strength training. They maintain that holistic health focused on God, not self, enables God’s people to serve him better.
The ministry uses fitness as a pathway to freedom, encouraging participants to ditch what weighs them down physically and spiritually. Prayers and pushups go together. Scripture is preached as reps are counted. Together, healing happens. For Keeton’s team, physical fitness is not the end goal — it is merely a tool to proclaim Christ.
Wellness revealed
The landscape for group fitness classes looks a lot different than the shiny Spandex that filled Keeton’s first aerobics class in the 1980s. She has spent the last 25 years working as a fitness professional, watching workout culture grow simultaneously more intense (think “extreme” fitness challenges and races) and mainstream (Zumba at the YMCA and P90X videos at home).
Keeton’s launch of Revelation Wellness corresponds with a swelling interest in faith-based wellness nationwide.
Pastors led their congregations to collectively shed thousands of pounds, and leaders such as Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, launched programs incorporating the Bible, exercise, and diet. In 2015, the American Council on Exercise predicted an “increase in …Continue reading…