I would like to offer a straight-from-the-heart prayer occasioned by this reflection from Evelyn Underhill’s book, Mysticism:

“In the last resort, the doctrine of the Incarnation is the only safeguard of the mystics against the pantheism to which they always tend. The Unconditioned Absolute, so soon as it alone becomes the object of their contemplation, is apt to be conceived as Divine Essence: the idea of Personality evaporates. The union of the soul with God is then thought in terms of absorption. The distinction between creator and creature is obliterated and loving communion is at an end. This is probably the reason why many of the greatest contemplatives – Suso and Saint Teresa are cases in point – have found that deliberate meditation upon the humanity of Christ, difficult and uncongenial as this concrete devotion sometimes is to the mystical temperament, was a necessity if they were to retain a healthy and well-balanced inner life.” (Chapter 5)

My prayer:

“Divine Essence, without the rich, delicious flavor of the personality of God is nothingness-devoid of relationship. Where would I be without God’s hand of blessing on my head, His sense of humor, His healing, His leading, His graciousness, compassion, forbearance and great love? Where would I be without the image of the adolescent who stayed at the temple while His parents spent three frantic days searching for Him? The attender of weddings, feasts and fish breakfasts on the beach? The fisher of men?
Where would I be without the comfort of His hand in mine or the firm strength of His arm as He leads me in darkness? The smell of His skin, the dust on His feet? His pain and thirst?
Give me Divine Essence but never take away Jesus as the purveyor of that essence.
God Almighty, Savior, Friend-
Lover of my soul-
In Him (the person of God) we
Live
Move
Have our being.
The penetration into this lowly body, made of dust, by His divine Being, is what makes life on this plane whole, heavenly and real-
Ultimate reality, as best we can know it.

Blessings to you all!

Two powerful forces have been at work in my mind, body and heart for the past 6 years: Sabbath, a foundational part of the Judeo-Christian tradition; and Yoga, the product of centuries of discovery about the human body and how it is wired. While searching for the meaning of Sabbath I found the spiritual practice of yoga. It has been a perfect marriage. While still foreign to many American Christians, the practice of yoga is sweeping the country and filling a vacuum created by too much stress and a culture that is out of balance.

In seeking to recover balance in my own life and discernment about God’s promise of rest and renewal, I started to plumb the depths of Isaiah, Chapter 58:

The Lord says, “If you treat the Sabbath as sacred and do not pursue your own interests on that day; if you value my holy day and honor it by not traveling, working, or talking idly on that day, then you will find the joy that comes from serving me.”

Not traveling; not working; not talking idly. These words come to us from a time that seems so far removed from our modern lifestyle.

Yet, it is possible to get at the heart of what the prophet was saying and apply it in today’s world. Physical disciplines are involved in respecting the Sabbath commandment. There is also the call to submit one’s whole being to God in order to see clearly with the heart’s eye.

In her book, Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit, Donna Farhi describes a collective spiritual, physical and emotional suffering that ought to worry us as Christians. “We live in a time of extreme dissociation from bodily experience. When we are not in our bodies, we are dissociated from our instincts, intuitions, feelings and insights, and it becomes possible to dissociate ourselves from other people’s feelings, and other people’s suffering. The insidious ways in which we become numb to our bodily experience and the feelings and perceptions that arise from them leave us powerless to know who we are, what we believe in, and what kind of world we wish to create. If we do not know when we are breathing in and when we are breathing out, when we are unable to perceive gross levels of tension, how then can we possibly know how to create a balanced world? Every violent impulse begins in a body filled with tension; every failure to reach out to someone in need begins in a body that has forgotten how to feel.”

Numbness to suffering of others, violence within and without, powerlessness – these are the enemies in our spiritual battleground.

How many times have you asked or thought to yourself, “that person is out of his or her mind!” It could have meant many things, but it usually was not a good thing. You might even have had moments when you wondered, “Am I out of my mind?!” But have you asked yourself as often whether you might be out of your body? Is someone you know or love out of his or her body? What does that mean and how does it impact all of us when we fail to inhabit the bodies God gave us?

It should be considered every bit as dangerous to be out of the body as it is to be out of the mind. A fellow yoga teacher expressed it so well when she said, “Lots of people call me up and ask whether I can lead them in an out-of-the-body experience. I tell them that I’m really not sure I can offer an out of the body experience. . . but I just might be able to give them an in-the-body experience!” When someone is out of their mind we feel a great responsibility to bring them back to reality. We should all feel the same urgency to help people reconnect with the reality of being in the body, or in the spirit.

Yoga is the yoking of body, mind and spirit. It is the practice of postures, breathing exercises, and evenness of being that has been developed over centuries of study of the body. Prior to the development of a science-based western form of modern medicine, yoga was one way of restoring and maintaining well-being. It’s time to go back to yoga’s truths with our 21st century lenses and find out whether we are going forward or backward in refining a quality human experience.

Hungry bodies, hungry souls:
What does Yoga have to offer to Christians?

Yoga is the yoking, the union of body, mind and spirit. My mind and my spirit were on one track, the spiritual journey of following Christ, but my body was not along for the ride. A wise yoga teacher gently led me back into my body about 6 years ago. She did it by being non-judgmental and patient, and by trusting in yoga itself to reconnect body and spirit. I don’t even know when exactly I had lost my way and separated from my body but it’s awfully good to be home again.

You could say, my body was lost but now it is found – and reunited with mind and spirit in the worship of God! This is the story of one Christian who was captured by the practice of yoga. I am not alone.

When the Bible says that the body is the temple of the Lord, it means the body is the temple of the Lord! Not the church building, not the synagogue, the human body. Each morning we wake up with the opportunity and the need to reconnect to God. Yoga was developed as a spiritual discipline. A quick tour of Yogic philosophy is striking in that Jesus is revered as a great teacher and spiritual leader. It need not detract from our understanding of the unique and ordained message of Christ’s life and his death to view scriptures through a different religious and cultural lens. Rather we find new and meaningful insights that only deepen our appreciation of Jesus’ words. It is only fear that could keep us from seeking to know Jesus better and scripture teaches us that perfect love casts out fear!

Paramahansa Yogananda’s book, The Second Coming of Christ, brings new light to Jesus’ teachings from the viewpoint of a practitioner of yoga.

“We must know Jesus as an Oriental [Eastern] Christ, a supreme yogi who manifested full mastery of the universal science of God-union, and thus could speak and act as a savior with the voice and authority of God. He has been Westernized too much.

Jesus was an Oriental, by birth and blood and training. To separate a teacher from the background of his nationality is to blur the understanding through which he is perceived. No matter what Jesus the Christ was himself, as regards his own soul, being born and maturing in the Orient [East], he had to use the medium of Oriental civilization, customs, mannerisms, language, parables, in spreading his message.” (Pg. 90-91)

As a young Christian I was taught to spend time each morning to read the Word of God, pray, and be quiet as the spiritual foundation of each day. No one mentioned bringing the body into that quiet time. Physical exercise was not something my Christian teachers would have mentioned. Important, maybe, but not on a similar plane to the spiritual disciplines.

No surprise that our culture is introducing the same split to the practice of yoga that we have introduced to the practice of Christian faith, that is to divide the body and the spirit. Yoga is all the rage among actors, models, the rich and famous, not to mention stressed-out working types. Yoga is being taught in fitness centers and studios alongside nautilus equipment, aerobics classes, and the treadmill. It is regarded as a tool for a more beautiful body, a treatment for stress, or an alternative medicine. The practice of yoga in America has broken into the mainstream as the cover story of Time magazine.

Churches could lead the way but, rather than jumping on the yoga bandwagon and responding to the evident need, many Christians are reacting out of fear, immediately critical of yoga without knowing much about it. America has grown and flourished based on its ability to assimilate other cultures and traditions. The medical and scientific communities have begun to acknowledge the health benefits of yoga and to demonstrate the important links between the mind, the spirit and the body. Yoga is starting to pop up in places of worship, in our schools, in hospitals and sports training facilities.

It is time to liven worship liturgy with dance. It is time to energize our prayer lives with body prayer. It is time to teach our children to breathe, to calm their over-stimulated minds. An overweight, stressed and addicted society is crying out for meaningful rest time, for truth about the body’s connection to the soul, for the tools to quiet physical, materialistic cravings.

I teach an early morning class for Christians wanting to practice yoga. Recently, a dear friend and yoga student of mine who has attended many of my classes asked, “What do you feel the difference is between Christian yoga and the regular yoga we do?” I could tell by the sound of her voice that she was somewhat puzzled, perhaps unconvinced, that there was or ought to be a difference at all. I promised her that we would chat; in the meantime, I proceeded to ponder over why practicing yoga in a Christian context has made such a difference in my life.

First, I needed to explain to her that we are not practicing Christian yoga, but simply are Christians practicing yoga. Yoga is yoga. It needn’t be Christianized, made feminine, nor change color or ethnicity to suit its audience. Yoga is neutral and therefore it can benefit any who practice it, be that person a Christian, a woman, a black person or an Asian. The intention of yoga is to open us up to the possibility of union with God.

I was invited, or should I say challenged, to initiate a yoga class that would encourage Christians to come and practice yoga. “You could teach this wonderful science,” I was told, “with full devotion and commitment to your faith, and without the need to hold back.” These words made immediate sense to me, and I needed no further convincing to commence such a class.

I have been practicing yoga for 31 years, and have been teaching for 29 of those 31 years. I lived in a yoga ashram where I took a Sanskrit name. I followed the guru and I committed myself to the establishment and running of a yoga center in my country (Bermuda) for more than 20 years. I trained others to become yoga teachers because I believe it is a beneficial practice. In short, like many other long-term practitioners of yoga, I have run the gamut, sunk my heart and soul into this work. I have learned a lot about yoga for which I am grateful. What I did not know or learn was how to integrate it into my faith practice as a Christian. Hence as my practice of yoga wore on, my appreciation for “that good old time religion” which was in my bones and had lived in the flesh and bones of my ancestors long before I arrived, wore off.

As a long-term yoga practitioner I never stopped being a Christian. I have valued the practice of yoga and meditation deeply for the peace and experience of God’s nearness it gives me. After spending time and attending workshops with Fr. Tom Ryan, I found the piece that had eluded me both in the church and on the yoga mat, that lone puzzle piece for which I had been searching for many, many years. I just needed to bring the points of connection between the two to greater clarity so as to integrate the two harmoniously in my own lived experience. I have always been convinced that practicing yoga made me a better Christian, and now I feel I can better articulate it and share it with others as well.

So now I practice and teach with a new commitment both to yoga and to my Christian faith. When I first began teaching yoga, I felt that what I was blessed to receive I was duty bond to share as a gift to others. I continue to believe that, and will share it with others, like my long-time Christian friend, or the recent young adult female student who entered the class and said, “I am a Christian and I love to practice yoga. I am looking for a class that honors both parts of who I am.”

I was looking for ways to reduce stress when I first began practicing yoga about twelve years ago. I tried a few different classes, but felt I couldn’t do what the other people in the class were doing. The teacher’s voice across the room singled me out, saying, “wider stance.” My timid voice responded “This is as wide as I go.” After class, I rolled up my mat along with my bruised ego, and left. This experience brought to the forefront a very old message “You’re not good enough.” Little did I know that God was inviting me on a new journey of self discovery.

I come from a very traditional Catholic background; attending Catholic grade, high school, and college. I thought my spiritual life was just as it should be. I considered myself progressive, receiving regular Spiritual Direction, reading spiritual books, and making yearly retreats. I prayed, read scripture, took classes, and was active in my church. What else could there be?

Through my experience of spiritual direction, I learned to identify how God speaks to me. I can only describe this as a feeling of inner certainty, a realization about something where there is no doubt. About fifteen years ago, I made a directed retreat. It was a fruitful weekend. I felt comfortable and happy; God’s presence all around me. At dinner the second night of the retreat, I noticed how good my body felt. I did not have a headache, or body ache. My digestion was unimpaired and comfortable. I felt so physically well that I had to stop and take notice. This feeling of “well being” stayed with me as I resumed my regular schedule. Though the feeling gradually dissipated, it was not forgotten. When I discussed this experience with my spiritual director, her reaction was “Isn’t God wonderful, God wants us to be totally well in our bodies.” At that moment I understood that God’s will for me was that I be fully alive in my body.

Shortly after that my friend Bernadine and I met a man named Bob at a dance. Bob told us he was a Kripalu Yoga Teacher, holding weekly classes at the local Unitarian Church. I told him about my previous experiences, and that I had decided that yoga was not for me. But something in Bob’s gentle manner, coupled with his insistent invitation convinced both Bernadine and me to attend his class. Saying yes to this invitation changed my life.

Bernadine and I went to class religiously for six months. Bob’s style of teaching was so compassionate, I felt encouraged and accepted. One night after Savasana, I was overwhelmed with a sense of well being. This was stronger than the usual trance like state I had after relaxation. As Bernadine and I discussed the class, I remembered my experience on that retreat so many years ago – “God’s will is that I be fully alive in my body.” A connection was made between yoga and my ever evolving relationship with God. When I discussed my growing love for yoga with Bernadine, she would say “If you like it so much, why not consider teaching?” “My response was “are you kidding?, I’m not good enough!”

We continued our weekly classes. One night Bob told us Rodney Yee was coming to town, and invited us to a special class at a local studio. We decided to go; a big leap for both of us, leaving our nice secure class at the church, and moving into the larger world of yoga. Somehow I wasn’t afraid. We began class sitting cross-legged, my dreaded position, and of course Rodney zoomed in on my raised knees. He began walking around the room giving gentle assists to all the students. When he came to me, he knelt down and with such gentleness said “let’s make you more comfortable.” He proceeded to fold a blanket, and told me that if I sat on it, I would be able to lower my knees, and be more relaxed. There was no judgment in his tone, only genuine compassion. In this gathering of yogis, I was good enough.

My spiritual director understood the connection I made between yoga, and experiencing God in my body. During one of our sessions, I talked about dryness in my prayer, and some agitation with prayer forms that previously had meaning, like visualizing scripture, and the examen. Her advice was “For now, just do yoga.” My practice deepened, and so did my relationship with God. Still, I felt I was on two complementary, yet different paths.
Bernadine and I attended our weekly classes, until Bernadine was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. Within months, she was gone. I stopped going to class. For months, a cloud of sadness covered my existence. I mourned the loss of this dear friend, and stopped going to class.

Bernadine left me one of her most valued possessions – her books. I had two unopened cartons in the trunk of my car for weeks. Finally decided it was time to see what was inside. I opened the first box, and right on top was a red book entitled Prayer of Heart and Body – Meditation and Yoga as Christian Spiritual Practice by Thomas Ryan. Tears began to flow; tears of joy and recognition that death cannot sever the bonds of love. The angels we had in life will continue to support us after death.

I read the book, and went to Kripalu for Tom’s first Prayer of Heart and Body Retreat in that particular setting. Tom Ryan has given us all the gift of his intelligence, ability to synthesize concepts, pursuit of truth, combined with his abiding faith, and great love. Shortly after that weekend, I enrolled in Kripalu’ 200 hour basic certification program. I began teaching immediately at the Upper Room Spiritual Center in Neptune, New Jersey, where I use various modalities to integrate Christian spirituality into the practice of yoga.

I am currently working toward my 500 hour professional certification through Kripalu. I continue to teach classes at the Upper Room. I have also had the great privilege of working with the Catholic H.S. where I currently live. For the last three years, I have participated in the senior retreat day, where I teach yoga as a means of prayer. Every March, I lead a retreat day for young women from the same school in which we focus on using yoga as a means of prayer, and self acceptance. We honor the divine in our own bodies, as well as those of the other participants.

My heart is filled with gratitude for God, my practice, and all those teachers who have helped me along the way. It is my hope that together we will move forward, embracing the gifts of all traditions and using those gifts to deepen our Christian faith and service.

I have been Catholic my entire life, graduating with a Humanities and Catholic Culture degree from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 1997. In January 2003, I took my first Power Vinyasa Flow Yoga class at Prana Yoga in Austin, Texas. It was the spiritual element I had known and recognized my entire life, but on a more deep, personal, nurturing level. For me, this practice brought my faith to life and my relationship to Christ is more personal as a result. I believe ultimately, Power Yoga is about not only transforming, but mostly about healing– healing not just of the body, but more importantly of the mind and spirit, bringing spirituality into a more whole place. This practice shows you your gifts. This is what yoga continues to do for me in a very direct, active, powerful way.

In my experience, many Catholics shy away from yoga claiming the spirituality and philosophy of yoga does not coincide with Catholicism. I love the Catholic faith and I have directly experienced God’s healing and grace through my yoga practice. There are many Catholics and Christians who are skeptical. I feel called to share what I have known with other women like me.

I have learned that one’s practice is so affected by the approach to it. Being relaxed and receptive to the unexpected, the unknown, is the hardest part. Letting go of my own need to feel comfortable and confident seems, for me, too hard, too much! I think ultimately it’s about trust. My capability to let go and trust depends on how willing I am to go beyond the way I know myself right now, and how willing am I to change? Yoga brings up active, real questions that get me connected and in touch with what is really going on inside of me. This awareness enables me to listen to and act on the voice of God more clearly.

I realize that the only way to truly transform is by adding an element of “good pain,” to sweat, focus, breathe through it all and break through self-imposed boundaries. “Take up your cross and follow me.” To me, there are so many connections between Christianity and the spiritual “lights” I discover in yoga. It is my desire and ambition to better connect the two and then to share that with those Catholics and Christians who are afraid of yoga.

I believe I am onto something that could be very beneficial for those who confuse the word “religion” with fear, fear of the unknown, fear of what they might become, fear of becoming who they really are–which is who God wants them to be.

Yoga teaches us that our body is our temple, the home of our Spirit, the form that surrounds and carries our sacredness while we traverse this life on earth. I teach yoga.  I teach body as temple.  I encourage my students to “hang out in the temple”…to befriend their body, to come to know it, to listen to it and talk to it, and to care for it.

I am a yoga teacher who loves Jesus….and during this Lenten season I was searching for his teachings about the body, wanting to contemplate, integrate and bring his teachings to my own heart and body. A friend gently and deftly pointed me toward scripture, John 6.  When I went to the verses of John, in Christ’s teachings, I was taken right to…bread. I read about how the bread was divided, how it fed the multitudes. I read about Jesus telling the people that they sought him after this because they had eaten their fill, and how he spoke of food that he would give, food that would endure and not spoil. He asked the people to believe in him. He told them he was the bread of life, who gives life to the world. He said, “I will raise you up.” He told the people that he was the living bread, sent from heaven, and taught that the bread was his flesh, which he was going to give for the life of the world. He taught how Spirit gave life, how flesh without spirit didn’t count.  I read anew how this was a difficult teaching for many, and how many followers left after Jesus said this.

With these teachings and stories so laden with images of bread, I let my mind and heart consider bread as a way of learning more about Christ’s teachings of the body. It came to me that Jesus’s early memories of bread were probably those of Mary, baking.

I thought of how his flesh came to be inside of Mary, how his body came to form in the darkness of her oven womb.

I thought of how bread was the image that he chose when he revealed who he was, when he fed the people, and when he gave us his own body, a gift of pure love from God.

It is now Easter morning. I am at the home of my own mother and father, and I am given the happy honor of baking the bread.

I prepare the bowl, the form that will hold the ingredients.  I think of yoga practice, how mind, body and Spirit are gathered together. I mix the ingredients….water, yeast, sugar, salt and flour…until they hold, until they come away from the sides of the bowl, together. Then comes the first rising.  I cover the dough, and let it rise in warmth and darkness.  I think of Jesus’s time in Mary, before his birth.  And then, light again, and the kneading, life.  I think of yoga practice, how the postures mimic life…the physical stretching and returning, pose and counter-pose, deep massage, expansion and contraction, all infused with breath, prana, Spirit.  I think of Christ’s life, and His death.

Then the dough is divided, and formed into loaves.  Again, it is covered…left to rest in darkness. The tomb.  I think of how the tomb was made ready by those who loved him as I scatter cornmeal on the pans that will hold the loaves. I carve two small crosses, one on each loaf, and I think of the spear in His side. I put the loaves in the readied oven. Darkness.  Heat.  Water is sprinkled on the baking loaves as I remember the one who came before Him and died before Him, his baptizer.

In the heat and the darkness the miracle occurs as the loaves rise again, and change in their form, becoming bread. I take them out, checking for their hollow sound by tapping. I let them cool.  I think of Mary Magdalene, who came to the tomb grieving, to be near his body. She found him here, so changed that she thought him the gardener, … until He spoke her name, “Mary.”

I brush the loaves with butter, anointing them.  I sprinkle them with salt.

And then I pray.  I am moved to tears as my prayers cover these loaves that will feed others on this Easter day.  I bring hands to heart, grateful for all that comes together in this life in body….grateful for Jesus, for yoga, for God, for others, for life, for friends, for family, for Spirit, for body, and for bread.

The Bread

1 pkg, yeast
2 C. warm water
1 Tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. salt
Flour, about 4-5cups

In a large bowl., mix yeast and 1 c. water. Whisk in sugar and salt. Add enough flour and another cup of water until dough is sticky and comes away from the sides of the bowl.  Continue to add flour until a ball of sorts if formed. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled.  Punch it down and knead the dough with floured hands. Add more flour if needed. Divide in two and form into long loaves. Place the loaves on a pan that has been greased and sprinkled with cornmeal.  Cover and let rise again till doubled.  Place it in a 375 degree oven.  After about 5 min, cut a little cross into the skin of the bread, and return to oven for 35-40 min., baking until loaves are nicely brown and sound hollow when tapped.  Remove from oven and brush with butter, then sprinkle with salt and a blessing.

Jenny Garrison RN is a Kripalu yoga teacher and deep imagery guide in Wellsboro PA .  She is the author of Imagery in You.  Visit her web site at www.imageryinyou.com

When I began New Day Yoga, I made the decision to teach “yoga from a Christian perspective” because I wanted to include the very specific truth about the One and Only God who is a triune being of Father, Son, and Spirit in my classes. I didn’t want to discuss God in generic, universal tones that could cheat people out of the fullness of a relationship with Him, or worse, I didn’t want to mislead them into thinking that all mention of God is the same. One passage that became a theme for me was from Ephesians 4:

“To each one [of us] grace has been given as Christ apportioned it . . . to prepare [us] for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching . . . . Instead, . . . we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” (Eph. 4:7, 12-16)

I wanted my yoga classes to build up the body of Christ on every level – body, soul, and spirit, especially the level of the spirit since Christians are told to “live by the Spirit.” So I made it a point to include Scripture in every class, believing that the Holy Spirit would actively inhabit God’s Word, bringing transformation to those who heard it and received it as truth. Some of my favorite passages are those that remind my students Who Christ is and what He accomplished through His life, death, and resurrection:

The truth about Christ:

• He is the Son of the living God (Mt. 16:16).
• The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word (Heb. 1:3).
• Christ and the Father are one (John 10:30).
• He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6).
• All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in him (Col. 2:2-3).
• In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form (Col. 2:9-10).
• Christ has overcome the world (John 16:33).

I also wanted to remind my students what Christ’s life accomplished for all Believers, and remind them who they were in Christ:

The truth about a Christian, a believer and follower of Christ:

• A Christian is chosen by God and is precious to him (1 Peter 2:4-5).
• A Christian is holy in God’s sight, without blemish and free from accusation (Col. 1:22).
• A Christian has been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ (Heb. 10:10).
• A Christian has been crucified with Christ and lives by faith in the Son of God (Gal. 2:20).
• A Christian has been justified through faith and has peace with God through Christ (Romans 5:1-2).
• A Christian has been raised with Christ and is now hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:1-3).
• A Christian is seated with Christ in the heavenly realms (Eph. 2:6).
• A Christian is a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17).
• A Christian is being transformed into his likeness (2 Cor. 3:18).
• A Christian is transformed by the renewing of his mind (Romans 12:1-2).
• A Christian is the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Mt. 5:13-14).

Each one of these verses is rich and powerful in the spiritual realm, and I wanted to give my students the opportunity to let the truth of these words sink deep into their minds so that they could be transformed. I wanted New Day Yoga classes to build up my students in their faith as well as in their body, so that they would be equipped to live out the fullness of their destiny in Christ. I wanted to help them “reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” so that they would not be “infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching.”

So, at New Day Yoga as we learn to balance our body in tree pose by engaging our core and keeping our focus on a still point, we also learn to balance our lives by engaging our minds and keeping our focus on the One True God.

As I begin to write this, I hesitate because business seems not-quite-the-right word. Yes, we are mindful of legalities and the need to be compensated to keep moving forward, but really the best word to describe us is an “out-of-the-box” ministry.

When we began six years ago, we didn’t have the vision for the ministry that has now taken shape. We started by teaching in our own two churches because that is where we had the support for this new idea; remember, six years ago the resurgence of yoga was just beginning, and in our area doing it as a faith-based practice, in church, was unheard of. Our first classes were 6-10 people, but the word spread and soon we were teaching to 20 – 30 people. People from other churches would call and ask if we would teach in their church, and that was when a business plan had to be developed to support the ministry.

Robin and I decided that we would ask the churches to provide the space, stereo/microphone if possible, advertising to their church and surrounding community, and collect the class fee. We would provide the certified instructor, music and the devotions. All of our instructors were certified. We used Yogafit, and all of our instructors had taken additional training. Robin and I have trained with Baron Baptiste, and we have a yogi that works with our group every other week. I tell you this because I think that being qualified to teach yoga is a life-long endeavor, AND this gathering of community has become important for unity of our instructors. I cannot speak highly enough of the need to be connected and in prayer. As we grew, requests came from areas of the city in which we had no instructor. However, God provided for our needs. When a distant church would call, days later an instructor who taught yoga already and was a Christian would call and express interest in teaching for us since Christianity was not accepted in the setting she/he was teaching in. We have also had several instructors who wish to teach more to supplement their incomes.

Some of the business details we negotiated along the way were based in our Christian faith and values. We pay our instructors a better-than-average wage, and if they develop a large class, we pay them more. We give back to the churches, usually about 30%, which is often used for the health ministry programs or outreach programs of the church. We carry liability insurance and have a CPA and a separate person who prepares our taxes. Initially we did this all ourselves, but we soon were in over our heads as we grew. This year we hired a business manager who takes care of invoicing the churches and setting up agreements with churches so that we all know what is happening and when.

From experience I can tell you three things. First and foremost, let the Holy Spirit move you in the classes you teach. If this were just about yoga, there are plenty of other places people can go. People come to church because they are looking for the Spiritual connection. Set limits on your time, we require a certain number of participants before we send in an instructor; unfortunately we needed to do that to financially afford the business part of our ministry. Lastly, keep your own connection with God open through all the resources available to you: worship, prayer, community, fellowship and, of course, yoga.