Dancing in the church

In my time at Sonar, I have been known to dance to some of the music.

I am a dad, of course, and so I fully accept that things which encourage me to dance may not be in the best interests of everyone. I am also fifty, but, apparently, I dance like someone half my age. Of course, I don't have the physique for that really, or the endurance. On the other hand, I no longer care.

It is not so much that I still have the moves - I never had them, and even if I did, they would be different now. What I do still have is some ability to head a beat still. Of course, it helps if it is being blasted at 120Db. And is vibrating your innards.

Dancing in church is something I have not done for a long time. For which, I think, everyone should be grateful. Other people do, of course, and I am not sure it is a good thing.

Now I need to make a clear distinction here between professional, liturgical, interpretive dance and what I am talking about. I don't mind some professional quality dancing - I am not especially awed by it, but if it is done well, it can be exceptional and moving. Even liturgical dance can be an enhancement to some peoples worship, so if it is done by people who can dance, that is, in my mind, acceptable.

The problem I have is with the style of ordinary"dancing" in church. That is, ordinary people jigging to the music played as worship. There are three real problems I have with this:

1. There is a certain "way" of dancing in church. It is not actually very freeing, it is ritualistic just as much as so much else in the church is.

2. The majority of worship music is not danceable. For me, it really doesn't make me want to dance - I have because it is the done thing, but in honesty, the music never made or makes me want to dance, in the way that the Sonar music did.

3. Most people in church do not have a sense of rhythm or the style to dance anyway. This is not a problem in the Sonar environment - everyone is just having fun, enjoying themselves, and the music helps to relax people.

The thing is, if the church had music that was actually really danceable, music that was proper dance music, then maybe it would be OK to dance to it. Maybe that would discourage those who currently like to dance to it. Maybe it might make the church less embarrassing.

Dancing in the church is a good idea. The problem is that the current music is undanceable, the current dancing is humiliating, and the current dancers are too old.

The quote usually used against this is that of King David who, when his wife laughed at him, is that he said "I will become even more undignified than this." I suspect that is David came into many churches, he would say "Well, maybe I won't become quite that undignified."

It also strikes me that when church decide to organise a social dance event, what does it normally do? A Barn Dance.

I loathe Barn Dances. I loathe the formal dancing, I loathe the structure and organisation of this moving to music. If I am going to dance, in the sense of moving to the music, I want the music to tell me what to do. Yes it is pretty undignified; yes it is unstructured; but it is worship.

Or at the least, quite a lot of fun.