By Jennifer Derryberry Mann

For Ellen and Will Tuthill of Chicago, faith-based dating led to a faith-based marriage. “We pretty much got to know each other through church-planned activities—potluck evenings in people’s homes, Christmas caroling, Christian concerts, and attending worship services together,” Ellen explains. Whether or not you’re part of a religious community that offers date-worthy faith-based activities, you can make your commitment to faith a part of your dating scene. Here’s how, with a little creativity and a sense of adventure, dating can lead to shared spiritual experiences and more meaningful conversations about the role of faith in your life.

1. Get centered—and stretch
Open your heart and ease your nerves with a shared yoga or t’ai chi class. The centering, relaxing nature of mind-body practices can help put you at ease for an illuminating conversation at a casual post-class meal or tea.

When you’re planning your mind-body class together, keep in mind how long you’ve been dating and whether either of you have practiced yoga or t’ai chi before. For example, if you’ve just started dating, you may want to choose a class that’s new to you both so there’s parity in the experience: You’ll be able to share first impressions, or if you’ve taken classes at other locations, you can compare past experiences. [$MSN.ARTICLE.CTALINKS$]If you’ve been dating for awhile, and you’ve established some trust and security with each other, a couples’ yoga class may help deepen your relationship. Before you go, be sure you’re comfortable with the idea of being in physical contact with your partner. You’ll be touching and leaning against each other, and sometimes supporting your partner with your body. These fun classes put you in a unique position to learn something about yourself and your partner. As Cyndi Lee, director of New York City’s OM Yoga Center, author of OM Yoga in a Box for Couples, explains, “The way that you work with your body is a reflection of all your relationships.” Meaning if you are rough with yourself, she says, you may be that way with others, and if you are gentle with yourself, then that’s the way you’ll tend to treat others.

To find a yoga class or studio near you, visit www.yogajournal.com/directory. To find a t’ai chi class, contact your local martial arts dojo, park district, YMCA, or fitness club.

2. Make some noise
If forays into the mystical and musical delight you and your date, you might enjoy the groove at a kirtan concert. Kirtan is call-and-response chanting, and it is an increasingly popular form of yoga. Kirtan is part of what’s known as Bhakti yoga, a devotional form of yoga in which you sit (or stand, and even sway if the music moves you) and sing the Hindu names for God. (At www.raganiworld.com/documentary_movie.html you can get an insider’s look at a kirtan concert.)

No special skills are required to participate in kirtan, and there are no “levels,” no beginners, no experts. As vocalist Jai Uttal has explained, “Kirtan is the calling, the crying, the reaching across infinite space — and digging into the heart’s deepest well — to touch and be touched by the Divine Presence.”

Contact your local yoga studio to find out about kirtan concerts, and then prepare for a concert that will leave you energized, uplifted and in harmony with your date.

3. Walk about
Visiting a labyrinth is akin to a walking prayer. Once you and your date arrive at a labyrinth, there are no decisions to be made, just a directed path of concentric circles to follow into the center and back out into the world again. The practice of labyrinth walking is known to encourage relaxation in the body, relieving stress and lowering the blood pressure. During the walk, your mind can relax. When you reach the center, stay as long as you like, enjoying the serenity, maybe even holding hands with your date to deepen the experience. On the slow walk back out, you may feel refreshed as you rejoin the world in your more centered state of mind and spirit.

Some labyrinths are ancient, while others are thoroughly modern creations. Some labyrinths are permanent paths, others are portable. They can be found indoors and out, in churches, public squares, health facilities, possibly even a neighbor’s yard. To find one near you, search a national database at www.labyrinthsociety.org, where at last count, you could find 67 labyrinths in New York, 165 in California, 118 in Minnesota and 14 in Oklahoma, for instance.

4. Do dinner and a movie—really!
Movie dates get a bad rap for things like cutting off conversation and forcing guys to sit through chick flicks. Thankfully, movies with transformational or spiritual themes may offer an evening of more meaningful entertainment. To prove that values-centered movies aren’t relegated to G-rated Disney flicks, film producer Stephen Simon (What Dreams May Come, 1998) and relationship counselor Gay Hendricks teamed up to write Spiritual Cinema: A Guide to Movies That Inspire, Heal, and Empower Your Life. This catalog of both mainstream and lesser-known films features those that ask the big questions about self, purpose, and living at your greatest potential. The authors (along with Hendricks’ wife and frequent co-author, Kathlyn) also cofounded the Spiritual Cinema Circle, www.spiritualcinemacircle.com. The DVD-of-the-month club specializes in delivering spiritually themed films from relatively unknown filmmakers.Other spirit-centered movie guides include:

• How Movies Helped Save My Soul: Finding Spiritual Fingerprints in Culturally Significant Films by Gareth Higgins
• Finding God in the Movies: 33 Films of Reel Faith by Catherine Barsotti and Robert Johnston
• Catching Light: Looking For God In The Movies by Roy Anker
• Spirituality & Practice—The website of media reviewers and cultural commentators Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat features a database of more than 3000 film reviews (www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/). Search the database, check out the Brussats’ list of current favorite spiritual films, and look for your favorite flicks among those they’ve honored as “The Most Spiritually Literate” for each of the past nine years.

5. Act on purpose
Research tells us that volunteer work delivers myriad benefits: A sense of purpose, feelings of well-being, decreased stress. It seems volunteer work could be good for your dating life, too. For Ellen Tuthill in Chicago, volunteering with Construction Connection — an outreach project her church runs in various lower-income neighborhoods — alongside her husband-to-be gave her tremendous insight into his character: “I saw how hard he worked and how he interacted with the residents we met. His behavior showed that he was kind, gentlemanly, loyal and deeply desirous of helping these inner-city communities,” she says.

Get in touch with your local church, community or humanitarian organization to learn more about volunteer opportunities you can share with your date. Volunteers of America, www.voa.org, is a national nonprofit, spiritually based organization that provides local services. Search for nearby volunteer opportunities on the “Where We Are” page. Another national nonprofit organization, Volunteer Match, lets you search for volunteer opportunities by zip code, within a set distance from your home, and by interest area at www.volunteermatch.org.

Jennifer Derryberry Mann is a freelance writer, editor and yoga teacher in Minneapolis. She writes a column for Spirituality & Health magazine and is the former editor of Science & Spirit magazine.