As you walk into one new gym in the Archdiocese of Denver, the first thing you'll notice isn't the equipment. A large crucifix hangs on the wall above a Bible, while a nearby whiteboard is covered with prayer intentions. The gym's workout equipment fills the rest of the space.
Grow the Kingdom gym opened in 2025 in the former Augustine Institute building in Greenwood Village, Colorado. Founded by Jayce Rastrelli and Hayden Dalton, the gym aims to integrate faith and fitness, teach the importance of taking care of the body as a way to serve God and family, and equip individuals to be servants of God.
Rastrelli and Dalton, who are best friends, felt inspired to open the gym after experiences they had working out at a secular gym, where they were surrounded by music, conversations, and attire that they considered immodest and inappropriate.
"I realized I had been lifting in an environment that just wasn't beneficial to my faith," Rastrelli told EWTN News in an interview. "It was like a battle ground."
Each had a background in personal training and sports. After prayer and discernment, the two friends decided to open Grow the Kingdom as a "safe space to glorify God," where individuals "get to lift with the right purpose and know that you couldn't do without God."
The gym serves people of all ages and demographics — from preteens to older adults — and even local parish priests.
Rastrelli said the gym's members all have the "understanding that God needs to be at the center of everything that you do."
The gym incorporates faith into fitness in other tangible ways.
"The first thing you see is going to be Our Lord giving his body for us on the cross. And then you're going to get to come in here and work on your body for God," Rastrelli said.
Across from the crucifix is a large whiteboard covered with people's names. This is the gym's prayer intentions board, where members are encouraged to write the names of individuals they're offering their workouts for and are keeping in prayer.
"Having that [intentions board] up there is, I would argue, the best way to automatically take yourself out of it. You're now doing it for someone else. You're building someone else up," Rastrelli explained. "You're allowing God to take your workout and transform it into a prayer and send it back to someone in the form of grace. So, no more ego lifting. You're not doing this for yourself. You're doing it for the names on the board. You're doing it for the person you put up there."
The gym also enforces a modest dress code and plays "clean and appropriate" music.
A common obstacle many face when working out, according to Rastrelli, is falling into vanity and focusing too much on one's ego. Rastrelli said he has seen this too and admitted that he has also struggled with it in his own fitness journey.
He said he uses Scripture to explain that people's bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and gifts from God, and that they work out to build those bodies and use them to their fullest potential.
With that in mind, Rastrelli said there are "going to be great bonuses that are going to come along with that," and even if "aesthetic appearance" is part of those benefits, he suggested people ask themselves truthfully why they are training: "Is it just for that ego, that vanity? 'I want to look big. I want to have this appearance.' What are you going to use that for?"
While Rastrelli said he believes there's nothing wrong with working out a specific muscle group, for example, but the danger "comes down to your intent."
"It's OK to want to look good for your spouse … but if your intent becomes too inwardly focused, that's where the danger really comes," he said. "'I want to look good for my spouse.' That's a beautiful thing. Know that it's from God that you're able to do that. Praise God that you're able to do that, that you have a body that is capable of pursuing difficult things."
Rastrelli emphasized that the key is "refocusing people['s minds] into 'Your body is built to serve God.'"
He pointed out how this mindset can be beneficial in various aspects of a person's life.
"To have results in the gym, to actually better your body, is going to take consistent work," he explained. "When you're not feeling it, you have to show up. You have to stay disciplined. So you start building on these routines and habits and they start forming into these great virtues."
Rastrelli also noted how an understanding of delayed gratification is also developed through working out. "I think that's a huge one for us in our current culture. Everyone wants something immediately — myself included. In the gym, there's no immediate; it's consistently built," he said.
"It's the same thing when we're walking with God. We want that immediate fix. 'Lord, just take this sin away from me right now. I don't want it anymore.' That's not how it's going to work. You face that battle over and over, consistently, for you to build up those tools with God to then be able to deny it, say no to it, have that self-mastery. So I think the correlation is just so strong and it can be so evident that you're proving with God's grace that you can do difficult things."
Beyond the weight room
As the gym approaches its one-year anniversary, new programs are being planned to foster more growth among the community. Currently, the gym offers basic, open access as well as group training classes, which are split into an adults' class and a class for 11- to 21-year-olds.
Soon, Rastrelli said, he will roll out eight different training programs he created, which members can access on an app. It will lead them through each exercise with a video demonstration as well as include numbers of sets and repetitions. In addition, Rastrelli will offer individualized programs created for members' specific needs.
Grow the Kingdom will soon offer a mentorship program for 11- to 21-year-olds that will focus on "vice versus virtue training," Rastrelli explained. The program will include a course that takes them through the four cardinal virtues as well as monthly Bible studies, virtue talks, Q&A sessions, saint studies, live seminars, and a 24/7 live community in their age group. The program will be offered to young men first until a female coach is hired.
The idea behind it is to "build this community — let's get them into the gym. Let's get this well-rounded mind, body, and soul all together and have them understand you're not walking this alone. We're actually walking with you," Rastrelli said.
Rastrelli said he hopes the gym will help its members "get to know their worth in God's eyes."
"I just think there's so much in our culture right now that is … infiltrated with a lot of false narratives," he said. "Coming in here, I would hope that they get to see how much God loves them. He … gave his body for us, so can we not do the same?"
