Occasionally, we receive queries from yoga practitioners and teachers about how to incorporate their Christian faith into their yoga practice. We have often wished we could put together an online course to offer, and last fall, we put together a team to create one. But then we learned that our friends at Yogadevotion were creating one, and they invited several of us to offer insight into their program. So we put off our project in favor of supporting Yogadevotion’s new Instructor Certification course. And now it’s available!

About the Training

I’ll offer my review in the next section, but first, here’s a brief overview of the course.

A 20-hr online course ($299) for yoga enthusiasts to go deeper into their study of the overlap between the traditions of yoga and Christianity. In five modules, the course studies where yoga philosophy and Christian theology converge, and then how to apply that convergence to an actual yoga practice. 

This course is for both instructors and practitioners despite the fact that it is called an Instructor course. Module 5 is an optional module for instructors who also do an added assignment (send in a teaching video) at the end of the course. It is ideal for the yoga teacher looking to be certified in teaching faith-based yoga. 

Note that this course does NOT certify you to become a yoga instructor: it certifies you to teach faith-integrated classes in the style that Yogadevotion has developed. To support this teaching, the Yogadevotion book (2017) is a required component of the course and included in the cost—as well as a key resource for finding intentions in a yoga practice. The book contains 40 short chapters with a written meditation, a pose, and a breath prayer—again, great for both yoga practitioners and instructors.

Yogadevotion itself has been around for 20 years, based out of Minnesota. It is a faith-based yoga organization run by Cindy Senarighi (Lutheran pastor, nurse, and yoga instructor) and Heidi Green (former public policy maker, cancer survivor, and yoga instructor). “Faith-based” is their term: while Cindy and Heidi operate out of the Christian tradition, they find that their students come from many different traditions that are not necessarily Christian. 

Although it has five modules, the course has two essential parts: the philosophical part (Module 2) and the practical part (Modules 3 & 4). First the course leads you through the theology and then how to integrate faith into a yoga practice—and, again, this is applicable both for a practitioner who wants to practice yoga as a spiritual discipline in their own home as well as the teacher crafting a faith-integrated class. 

Course Outline

Module 1 — Introduction to the course and how to use the platform. The course is seamlessly integrated with Yogadevotion’s website and is super easy to use. Other components include Yogadevotion’s book and a journal. 

Module 2 — Intersections of Yoga Philosophy and Christian Theology. This module is mostly text-based: read and journal about the concepts at your own pace. 

Module 3 — Components of a Faith Integrated Yoga class. This module is mostly video-based so you can see the components in action. 

Module 4 — Faith Language/Asana Integration. This module is also mostly video-based and puts the philosophical components from Module 2 together with the practical components from Module 3. 

Module 5 — How to Start a Faith-Integrated Yoga Class. This module is optional for teachers and gleans from Yogadevotion’s 20 years of experience. 

To receive the certification, students will complete a short online quiz and a short two-page paper. Students who want the teaching certification will also submit a 30-minute teaching video. The teaching certification does count as 20 hours of Continuing Education credits through Yoga Alliance.

My Review

All-in-all, if you’re looking to go deeper in your understanding of yoga as Christian spiritual practice, this course is a key resource! 

I’m really looking forward to returning to the philosophical modules. In 12 readings, Yogadevotion covers the major places of overlap between the Yoga Sutras and Christian Theology. It is not an exhaustive study of the sutras, but a guide to understanding the concepts. Along the way, students are encouraged to journal about their thoughts, putting what they are learning into their own words. 

For me, the journaling is the richest part of the course—and the easiest part to ignore. Writing allows you to take the material and internalize it in a way that simply reading does not. So, as with most education, what you put into this course is what you get out of it. When I first went through the course as a reviewer, I did not journal—I was reviewing the material. Now, I’ve printed out the handouts, and I’m looking forward to journaling my way back through them.

In my day job, I teach university writing. I teach my students to use writing to figure out what they know—that to write an essay, they should set up a problem or tension that they want to consider, and that they can write their way to a new level of understanding. It’s part of why I love writing for this site: writing about yoga and Christianity helps me figure out how I think they go together. Anyway, I love the writing aspect of this course—and if you take it, I urge you to write. Get a new notebook and fill it with your ponderings and wonderings. (Or get a voice recorder or app and verbally journal!) 

Integrating Philosophy and Practice

The practical part is filled with videos rather than readings. In each video, Cindy Senarighi narrates, and her voice puts me right back in her yoga class. 

In 2016, I took a yin Yogadevotion class with Cindy Senarighi, and I remember being so impressed and comforted by her teaching presence in the class—she guided the class in a confident, grounded manner. At the end, I felt as if I had been to church in a way that I wish I could every Sunday: the class was nurturing to both my body and my soul. At the time, I attributed her presence to the fact that Cindy is a Lutheran pastor, and her class reflected who she is. 

While I watched the videos that make up Modules 3 & 4, however, it was like the curtain was pulled back from her class, and I got to see the inner workings. Many of the elements that I remember were actually intentional components of a Yogadevotion class and can be replicated. Cindy’s presence cannot be replicated, but that is the art of teaching—taking what you know of good teaching and what you know of yourself and integrating them together into a beautiful class. This course gives you the tools to go further in that journey.