“We’ve been getting an amazing response and results with ActivPrayer. What I say to everyone regarding prayer is, ‘It’s like breathing. We all do it, somehow.’ We help
guide students with a construct and purpose to give a greater result.”
Nick Morris, owner, Pineapple Fitness, Los Angeles
teacher. “I know if I go to this class, I will do my prayer and think about the things that matter.”
Enlarged Perspectives While everyone is encouraged to set specific physical fitness goals, the greater results are often intangible: people chang- ing attitudes, taking up a prayer life or, in some cases, con- tributing to community services for the first time. Community service is a key component of ActivPrayer, as participants collaborate on organized projects with local nonprofits at least once a week. Members earn one free workout for every five hours of service; in one recent month, 80 percent of Ac- tivPrayer’s members participated in its service programs. “Before coming to ActivPrayer, I wouldn’t have thought
to volunteer, and some of the places we’ve gone I would have been scared to go on my own,” says DiNenna. She now regularly volunteers with the Special Olympics and says, “It’s
all opened my eyes and helped me to grow as a person.” Because charity begins at home, Burgis is putting the prin-
ciples he preaches into practice in his own business. ActivPrayer is helping to create free wellness programs for churches, initially working with interested faith communities to pull together a local team of nurses, doctors, nutritionists and fitness instructors to run a wellness ministry for their congregations. With backing from an angel investor, ActivPrayer is on
its way to establishing its own flagship club in Las Vegas, and hopes to have clubs in a few other major cities by the end of 2011. While Burgis eventually seeks to establish a class for every major religion, make ActivPrayer as ubiquitous as yoga and get its classes on the schedule at major fitness chains, he approaches the project with humility, anticipating that its development will evolve organically. Much like his fitness goals, Burgis’ goals for ActivPrayer are
not growth for growth’s sake—he promises investors he’ll never draw more than a modest salary—but to spread the good word about what adding soul to fitness can do for people. “When you learn to see fitness not as a means to an end,
but as a way to grow spiritually, you are adding a dimension to your life that can never be taken away, no matter what your physical condition,” he concludes.
For more information, call 888-594-5382, visit
ActivPrayer.org or email
info@ActivPrayer.org.
April Thompson is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C. Connect at
AprilWrites.com.
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