Our church family offers two services on most Sunday mornings. The early service is traditional – straight hymns played on piano and organ. The only alteration over the years has been to project the lyrics on a screen via PowerPoint. Otherwise it is worship just like Mom and Dad used to experience every Sunday.
The later service is a different creature. In the years since its inception, it has moved from a blended style (hymns and praise choruses) to fully contemporary, and now back to a little more blended. Some might plaster it with the moniker “Rock and Roll Service” but it is rather tame compared to other venues more worthy of the title. We have a fantastic group of musicians and a top-notch worship leader, but the tone never approaches the rock concert mood.
Recently we sang the song “We Will Dance” and it is quite contagious lyrically, rhythmically and melodically. It really honors the title and makes you want to dance. But, we are, after all, independent Christian church people, often more defined by what we don’t do than what we do do (I always chuckle when I say or type that repetitive phrase). We don’t dance. In fact, we find it a painful thing to raise a hand above our shoulder for more than five seconds unless we are voting in a congregational meeting.
But, what if. . . what if we dared to dance some Sunday morning.
This thought has tap danced its way around my brain for a couple weeks now, not because I think some kind of formal dance time is in serious consideration, nor because I intend to throw in a few steps some week just to rouse discussion. Neither lambada for the Lord, nor samba for the Savior are on the horizon at RCC.
We have few references to dance in Scripture – the most famous probably David’s jig before the rescued ark of the covenant which ended in a marital scuffle and a barren wife (see 2 Samuel 6; 1 Chronicles 15) – but they exist in positive contexts. Solomon declares a “time for every matter under heaven” including “dancing” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). The Psalms mention dance a handful of times, but most emphatically in the final two songs of the book, calling upon all the earth to engage in vigorous worship with a cornucopia of expressions, including dance.
Here is my theory about why we keep dance at such a distance. Dance takes us to a place in worship we are not ready to go. Think about the progression of worship expression. Almost every believer will engage in vocal worship, though to varying degrees. The timid will whisper along with music, and the bold will sing full and free with smiles and occasional shouts. At this level of worship we engage our mouth – nothing more.
The daring worshipper may venture into the raising of a hand, or, if really over the top, two hands. The higher the hands, the more fully the Spirit has occupied the worshipper (or so it seems).
A small percentage of Sunday morning faithful will push the envelope and actually sway to the music, possibly even bob up and down in rhythm to the beat. Risky, I know.
But the final “step” is dance. We are hesitant to let worship possess us that fully. The mouth? Okay. The hands and torso? Perhaps. But the feet too? That implies something dangerous.
To use the feet in worship is to shake the literal foundation of our body. We are willing to take the appendages that keep us grounded and let them bounce erratically under the weight of our total being. We could look silly. We could fall. We could get hurt. And we could discover a new dimension of worship.
I admire great dancers. I dabbled in dance in my late teens in connection with a few theatrical stints, and gained an appreciation for the true art it is. Those who do it well possess a gift and must work diligently to polish the raw rock of talent into a gem of expression. I cannot accept that dance is the ugly cousin when it comes to media for worship. Every other facet of music seems invited to the party. Even the graphic arts have gained entrance, while the feet seem stuffed in the closet.
It seems a strange hypocrisy to utilize only a part of our being for worship expression. If you argue that dancing has become too easily a part of the underworld of sensual expression, then you haven’t equally considered the waywardness of the tongue (anyone read James 3?) or the deadly lure of the eyes (checkout Proverbs 5-7 and the dark path of adultery that begins with wayward glances). I am in far less danger of becoming lustful by the movement of my feet than I am the use of my eyes and mouth and hands.
We might need to begin slowly. A little toe tapping. A gentle sway now and then. Perhaps even a side step that is almost imperceptible. Reconnect with your childhood innocence. Remember those songs at VBS and camp that encouraged silly gyrations and steps? Why does advancing age steal that pure exuberance? Could the lack of dance actually be of the devil? Has the enemy perhaps won when we so internalize worship that it becomes an intellectual exercise, shackled within, refusing the flesh the possibility of being transformed as God is honored by physical movement?
If God is the God of all things, He is God of all that I think, all that I say, all that I do, and everything to which my being is connected.
Let them praise his name with dancing. . . (Psalm 149:3a)
Praise him with tambourine and dance. . . (Psalm 150:4a)
