What a Kettlebell Class Taught Me About Making Disciples
by C. Lee
Photo by Richard R on Unsplash
I don't exercise. I want to be upfront about that.
So when one of my cell members — a woman who had taken up kettlebells for her health — came to me and said, "C, you've got to do kettlebells," my honest first reaction was: “I really don't.”
I'm just not an exercise person.
But then she said the other thing. "We're going to invite people to come to kettlebells." And that was it, that was the lever, because when it comes to engaging with people, I will come.
Something ordinary was about to become something else entirely.
The Monday Morning Invitation
Another cell member opened her home. They set up the equipment. And every Monday morning, a group of women gathered to exercise — mothers from the local kindergarten and school, neighbours from the estate, whoever was willing to show up.
One of our other cell members had gotten a dog during COVID and spent two years building friendships through walks around the neighbourhood — dog owners are a community unto themselves, and she'd slowly become part of it. She brought those connections along too. So the group that formed on Monday mornings was genuinely mixed: different backgrounds, different reasons for being there, held together by kettlebells and the simple fact of showing up in the same place week after week.
None of us sat down and planned it as an outreach strategy. But we chose to be intentional to invite others along, that it wasn't just an exercise time for our little friendship group. It naturally grew like that.
Sowing Wholeness And Community With Kettlebells
One of the women who started coming was from the neighbourhood, and she was barely making it outside her house.
She'd been suffering really severe panic attacks — the kind that make a room full of strangers feel impossible, where just leaving home is already a major achievement. Coming to the kettlebell class was a significant step for her. She came anyway. After we exercised, we'd have breakfast together, and somewhere in that time we'd take a moment to pray with her, look through Scripture with her, just be present with her in what she was carrying.
She's doing much better now. But, I guess, she has kind of put God on the side for now — so we keep praying, and we stay open, and we trust the Lord with the timing.
No dramatic stories, yet, but it is a space pregnant with relationship and opportunities to love our neighbours and create opportunities for them to encounter God.
Sent To America
The woman who started the class in the first place is originally from America — white American, but honestly, she's probably more Singaporean than many Singaporeans. She really loves Singapore. So when she felt the Lord calling them back to the US, it was a major thing for her.
I'm going to get a bit emotional even now, because knowing this woman and her husband for almost two decades — to see where they were and where the Lord had brought them — it was not a small thing to feel that call.
Her husband is Singaporean. For him, too, uprooting and moving to America was genuinely hard to hold. He really, really wanted to know: is this of God?
Together as a team, we prayed with them. And the Lord did what the Lord does — revealed his direction so clearly that they both came to the same certainty, without any shadow of doubt, that this was where he was leading them.
We prayed for them and sent them forth. That's really the only way I know how to say it.
It Travelled With Her
The updates started arriving — and I keep marveling at them.
She went back to study, working toward an education qualification because her heart is for American youth and she wants to get into schools and connect with young people. They found a small church that had no youth group, and she started one with her kids. And then, not long ago, I heard that she'd started kettlebells again — with her neighbour, a homosexual couple, who are doing it with her husband and herself.
The same thing. A shared activity. A recurring gathering. A relationship forming around something ordinary, with room for prayer and presence and whatever the Lord wants to do next.
That's what I keep thinking about when I try to explain what DMM actually looks like from the inside.
It's a way of living that travels with the person
— and it finds the same shape wherever it lands. It crossed an ocean. It arrived in a new neighbourhood, with new people, in a completely different context: someone opening a space, someone showing up, something beginning.
Knowing her for almost two decades, watching the Lord grow and mature her — and then letting her go — it's like watching your child fly. You miss them. And then you get the updates and you think: yes. This is exactly what was supposed to happen.
A Monday morning in Singapore became a Monday morning in America.
Getting practical
As you think about God's vision for your city and/or affinity group:
Read John 4:35–38. Jesus tells his disciples to look at the fields — they are already ready for harvest. One person sows, another reaps, and both rejoice together. What does it mean that the work is already underway, and you may be joining something already in motion?
What ordinary, recurring activity in your life — something you already do — could become a point of connection with people around you who don't yet know the Lord?
The American woman took the kettlebell model with her when she moved. What have you learned about engaging people that could travel — to a different context, a different neighbourhood, or a different person on your team?
C Lee is happily married with three sons. She leads a cell group based in a church setting and volunteers in a school community with a focus to support parents of children with educational needs. Her heart is for making disciples to reach the lost and broken.
© 2026 C Lee. All rights reserved.
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