This is a re-post from last year but highly appropriate with the events of the last month.
As a former dancer, I love everything dance (except for Dance Moms). My journey with music and movement started when I was three years old. Music makes me move. I can’t not move with the rhythm. Dance has many times in my life been like therapy for me. It is a very free way of expressing emotion. I still find myself dancing down the aisle at the grocery store to whatever beat they have playing – can’t help it!
Consequently, I have been a big fan of Riverdance, Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance. The Lord speaks to me through movement and through music. It is worship and it is spirt and it is truth. The first time I saw Riverdance was on DVD. There was a moment when the music built and the dancers all came out, half from one side of the stage and the other half from the other side of the stage. They met in the middle and turned to the audience and moved in perfect unity downstage towards the audience. They were shoulder to shoulder as an army moving as one. I started crying. I knew the Lord was giving me a clear picture of how the Body of Christ was supposed to operate. We are to operate as one in unity of the spirit. It was powerful and beautiful. Every time I watch it I get chills. It is so spiritual.
It also exemplifies the power we have when we come together in unity to accomplish God’s vision. I had that experience watching So You Think You Can Dance last summer. This time it was a deeper example of coming together in unity. This last season they had two teams of ten dancers each competing against each other. One team were street dancers and the other team were stage or trained dancers. At this point in the competition they were pairing street dancers with stage dancers learning choreography for different types of dance – jazz, hip hop, contemporary or musical theater.
In one dance the dancers were in such unity and agreement of movement that it blew me away. It was beautiful. It was as if the Lord was speaking to me showing me how two culturally different people had come together to accomplish the goal of performing a beautiful dance. They had totally different backgrounds – one would be considered privileged and the other disadvantaged but they both had gifts that God gave them that complimented the other. That is something we need to always remember about each other.
This was a picture of what needs to happen in America today. There are so many divisions along racial and economic lines that did not exist fifty years ago. Not to say that there wasn’t a racial divide or an economic divide then because there was. The difference then was that regardless of our socioeconomic status we had shared values. Since that time we have allowed the traditional values that had always held us together to be dismantled by the progressive movement that knew that the key to dismantling the institution of family was sexual liberty.
The result has been that the values that held us together are no longer there. This creates a more difficult pathway to agreement and working together to create an atmosphere of respect and dignity for all. If we can begin to bring the churches together to work for a common cause then we can build something beautiful. What is more beautiful than building strong families, protecting life at all stages, protecting the importance of mothers and fathers in the raising of children and our God-given inalienable rights? Are you ready to dance?
Dinner Table Discussion Question: Brainstorm issues that can unify churches and communities. How can we come together in compassionate but honest discussion of those things that seem to divide us?
Next Week: Will You Dance With Me?