During the 2020 COVID-19 quarantined Peloton sales increased 66%. With everyone staying at home, lots of people decided they would spend more time biking at home. People drop $2,200 for the bike plus a $39-a-month subscription. If they want their treadmill, they pay $4,000! But Peloton is not about the bikes or the treadmill, but it is the classes that are streamed into your home while you are on the bike. Group cycling, running, yoga, and strength training are all streamed from Peloton's studios right to your home.
Peloton's instructors are not just fitness instructors, but they are also self-help gurus. One of the popular instructors named Ally Love was asked about how she was handling the quarantine. She said, "
"So, there's been something that I've been saying to myself and to others, is that it's okay not to be okay. I don't know what the future looks like. I allow myself to feel all the feels."
She is not the only instructor that sounds spiritual. And according to Peloton's CEO John Foley, that is not an accident. He said,
"I was noticing that organized religion was on the decline statistically," he said. "And I did see that, with boutique fitness, in general people really embrace it. And the congregation and the community and the ritual somebody talking to you from a pulpit for 45 minutes, it's a healthy religion. I mean, you get the endorphins, you get the community, you get the connection."
He sees his biking business as a replacement for church. And he said in this interview that he sees his church growing.
"I see tens of millions of global subscribers and members," Foley said. "It feels like we are Amazon in 1999."
(From an interview with Nancy Jiles on CBS Sunday Morning on May 31, 2020 - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/on-a-ride-with-peloton/ accessed 06/02/2020)
Application
The world believes that instructors riding bikes streamed into your home is a replacement for the true Body of Christ, the Church. John Foley essentially said that congregating and listening to someone from a pulpit for 45 minutes is what the church is all about. But the Body of Christ is more than getting together and fitness and spiritual guru giving you positive platitudes.
There is no replacement for the true body of Christ. The world rejects Christ and mocks those who have committed to Christ and His Body, the Church. But they are constantly finding cheap substitutes, and sometimes expensive substituents, that will never replace the unity that if found in the bond of the Holy Spirit through Christ.