using your talents – Worship Dance Ministries

What Dance Ministry Leaders Need to Learn from the School Dance Team

Welcome to part three of this blog series inspired by my local dance team’s stand out performance last weekend. If you haven’t read the first two posts, check them out before diving into this one:
Ten Things Worship Dancers can Learn from the School Dance Team and What I Wish Every Dance Team Member Knew.

As praise dancers, we can learn from the excellence with which these dancers present. As dancers who know Jesus, we have an important message to speak to them. As dance ministry leaders, if we want to reach youth and keep them dancing for Jesus (instead of giving their gifts and their selves away to the world), here are five things we need to heed:

Young people want to dance. There were 250 students in this performance. Clearly there is a need and a desire for dance leaders and teachers. If you have ever wondered if you are called to reach the youth at your church, take time to pray and listen for that call. There are young people out there who want to dance and are looking for an avenue to develop their gift. Will you help them?
We need to invest in our own training. There are skilled young dancers out there. If we want a voice in their lives, we need to take the art of dance seriously and invest in our own training. This does not mean we can not speak to them until we can outperform them with our technique. But we need to be growing, learning, and gaining skill. It is our anointing that ultimately will enable us to have an impact on their lives, but having skill gives us credibility as well as something to offer them.
What you are doing matters. These kids are going to use dance for good or for evil. If we have the chance to plant seeds for righteous dancing, it could change the trajectory of their lives as well as all the lives they will impact through dance.
Get boys into the act. Women bring beauty, passion, gentleness and refined strength to dance. Men bring strength, humor, power. We are, together, made in the image of God. Dance is more complete, more impactful when you have both men and women dancing. I’m speaking to myself before I’m speaking to anyone else. I’m in my comfort zone with women and young girls. They think like I do, and they dance like I do. It’s comfortable for me to reach them. But this year I’m going to make it my goal to learn to dance with men, to learn from them with the intent that I can bring boys into dance.
Give your dancers something awesome to wear. The kids I saw dancing must have had a ball changing from costume to costume. Their costumes were fun, beautiful, playful, sassy, exciting, and sometimes provocative, depending on the dance. Now, our standards are not the world’s standards, and we are going to teach our dancers to cover up. I said more about this in my earlier post. Even so, these kids, especially girls, want to look beautiful and feel special. In my children’s dance curriculum, I have a whole lesson on teaching kids the difference between empty (vain) dancing and full (worshipful) dancing. So I’m not talking about catering to their vanity. I’m talking about meeting their God-given desire to be lovely (for girls). You can choose modest garments that are also fun and flattering. Don’t ask them to dress in something that looks like a potato sack. Lucie Poirier says, in her book Dancing for the Endtime Harvest that we are to dance for “beauty and for glory.” For an excellent resource on praise dance garments, I highly recommend Jocelyn Richard’s e-book Garments of Glory.

Continue reading “What Dance Ministry Leaders Need to Learn from the School Dance Team”

Ten Things Worship Dancers can Learn from the School Dance Team

This weekend I went to watch the local high school dance team perform. They had advertised in the local paper. We’re new in town, so I don’t exactly have a full social calendar, the ticket price was right, and I love dance in most forms, so off I went. Their performance inspired me, made me think, and convicted me as well. So, I’ll be writing a 3-part blog post this week:

Part I – Ten Things Worship Dancers can Learn from the School Dance Team.

Part II – What I Wish Every Dance Team Member Knew

Part III – What We Worship Dance Leaders Can Learn from the School Dance Team Continue reading “Ten Things Worship Dancers can Learn from the School Dance Team”

Sometimes You Have to Get Out of the Way

Sometimes you have to get out of the way to see what another person/other people can do. I’ve been leading the dance ministry team at my home church for the past 11 years. Today my husband and I had our last Sunday at this church he/we planted 11 years ago and the church gave us a “farewell” reception. It was incredible – more than I expected, certainly more than I deserved. One friend shared a poem she wrote for us, another a funny and meaningful song about our family and ministry, another prepared a slide show, others shared stories and words of encouragement. Each one was moving, precious, inspiring. What floored me, though, was what the dance team shared. Continue reading “Sometimes You Have to Get Out of the Way”

Why Not You?

I’m not much of a football fan, but my husband is, and I like spending time with friends, so we hosted a small Superbowl party Sunday night. My favorite part of the game was the interview with Russel Wilson, the quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks at the end of the game. His team was not predicted to win, he was playing against one of the highest scoring teams in the league and one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, and yet the Seahawks outscored the Broncos in a way that caused jaws to drop.

So, of course, everyone wanted to know what was behind the Seahawks amazing performance. When asked, Wilson said he asked his team at the beginning of the season, “Why not us? We’ve got the talent, the coaching staff, and the best fans in the NFL.” It turns out that questions, “Why not us?” has roots that go further back for Russel. He went on to say that his dad used to say it him.

“My dad used to always tell me, ‘Russ, why not you?’ ” Wilson said, “And what that meant was believe in yourself, believe in the talent God has given you, even though you are 5 foot 11, and you can go a long way.”

I love that line, “believe in the talent God has given you…and you can go a long way.” Do you believe in the talents God has given you? Sometimes we mistake fear, doubt, and insecurity for humility. I’m much more comfortable talking about what I don’t have to give (years of technical background, experience with a large dance ministry) than what I do (God has anointed me to dance and opened doors for me to serve inside and outside the church). But God has been showing me in the past year how He loves to take what we have to give and magnify it (literally, make it bigger) if we are willing to offer it to others.

Recently I received this email from one of my subscribers in response to the blog I wrote about dancing during advent. I choreographed and led a group of 5 dancers, including myself, and shared the dance and what I learned from it on this blog and sent the link to my email subscribers. (You can read about it here.) Here was her response (I share it with her permission):

I must truly thank you because you have no idea how your ministry has impacted me from the very first email I received from you. My having the opportunity to read the first post you shared with me about the 4 things you learned from the Advent Worship Dance awakened something in me that I felt only I was forced to deal with. You would have never known, but I too struggled during that same time as well.

…My worship team consists of four members (with two being BRAND NEW to worship arts ministry) and there was a great demand on having a grand presentation for Christmas as in times past (when I became a part of the ministry, there were at least 20 – 25 women who were a part, but when my former leader was released to serve outside of the church, I was chosen to lead the ministry…. I tried my best to overcome discouragement and move forward with the worship piece that GOD had showed me – there was great opposition, many questions, and even the thought of not going forward because there were so few of us….Well, we prayed, we cried, went forward and GOD moved mightily on my little band of worshippers! Not only that, but my youth ministry, which consists of seven girls, ministered with joy and power as they have never done before and there wasn’t a dry eye in the service!

So when I read your post, I felt as though I was reliving my entire worship journey this past year. So I say to you Min Amy, continue to do what the Lord has called you to do: being encouragement to the many worship artists and dancers who find themselves in that cave, wondering if GOD truly is calling them to come outside of the cave and to be a voice of truth, a light of hope, and a minister who brings the message of Jesus Christ to those who want more but don’t know what more is……..

This touched me deeply because confirmed what God has been showing me about Himself: He takes what he do, even something small, and He puts a magnifying glass on it. I shared my stories and the dance ministry I have at a small church, and He magnified the impact by speaking into her life and then magnified it again through her ministry, a ministry touching people I don’t know and wouldn’t have access to except through this woman.

At this season in my life and ministry, I am like the boy who gave his lunch sack to the disciples whom Jesus had asked to collect food for a crowd of thousands. His wasn’t an large lunch, but it was what he had and he offered it. The Lord took it and made a feast. The boy could have thought to himself, “Who am I to think I can help the teacher feed this crowd and what difference is this lunch going to make anyway?” But instead, he handed over what he had, a hungry crowd ate lunch, and the Lord inspired the gospel writers to record his part in this miracle. We can say to ourselves,”Who am I to teach others? Who am I to dance? Who am I to __________ (fill it in for yourself)?” But, if instead, we say, “Why not me? I’m willing. Take this, Lord, and do what you will,” He will put His magnifying glass on it and enlarge the impact for His glory and for the people He loves.

So, what about you? Do you trust the talent God has given you? What do you have to give? Whatever the size of the gift, offer it. Make it available to others and see how the Lord magnifies it, how He literally makes it much bigger than you could have imagined.