Introducing Dance In The Local Church

This article gives practical guidance for introducing movement into congregational worship for the first time. Congregations who have had no experience in dance are willing to enter into congregational movement and dance if they are introduced to it properly. With a greater emphasis being placed today on the physical body and with our increased time for leisure, there is an open opportunity to portray through dance a positive Christian standard of bodily expression. But care and skill need to be used so that this new and sometimes controversial experience is a helpful and positive one. Our bodies are amazing creations; they should not, on the one hand, be flaunted as sexual objects, nor, on the other, be ignored, despised, or neglected. They should be celebrated and cared for as part of all that we are as we live out our life for God and others. My vision is to see churches with congregations free enough to express their worship and fellowship in movement; where there is a warmth…