Tag: living colour workshop

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Living Colour Morning January 2019

It’s been an awesome start to our events this year, with our first Living Colour morning of 2019. Such a privilege to meet with all the dancers and spend time catching up.

Our focus during the workshop session was exploring Proverbs 3.1-8, by looking at 3 main sections, Gods teaching and foundation, his faithfulness and understanding when we are struggling and having help come around us.

There was a great conversation about verse 1, and the different interpretations in different Bible versions. One version talked about ‘storing’ commands not keeping them, which is an image of treasuring the things that God gives you.

In verses 3 and 4 we chatted about how we can forget the small things that God is faithful in, and that it’s important to remember them daily. Participants worked in pairs to pick 3 or 4 areas that they felt God was faithful in. They wrote these down on separate pieces of paper and placed them at staggered points across the space. Working with their partner they put those faithful things into a journey, what they realised as they danced and shared with others, was the importance of fellowship and being with someone as you share in your faithful journey.

Below is short film of Servina and Jane’s, and Caroline and Helen’s Faithful Journey.

Our next Living Colour is planned for Saturday 22nd June, you can check out the info here. But why not join us before that at one of our dance days.

Teaching Children | Dance and movement – 13th April.

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Romans 8 – Death was arrested | Life through the spirit

So here is a simple workshop plan. Sometimes my plans are written out in detail, others are not as I know that there needed to be a lot of space to let God move and see where the session was going to take us. So below is an example of a ‘light’ plan. When I delivered this session, it was one of my busiest for a while, so it was lovely to see how each person developed their individual movement style.

Let me know how you get on!

Pray – always begin with prayer, welcome God into the space you are in.

Read all of Romans 8 – what are your initial thoughts?

Focus on the following areas for discussion –

  • Verses 1 – 4
  • Verse 14 – children of God
  • Verses 37 to the end.

Creative Task – Life through the spirit

What has you week looked like? Where has the spirit been in it?

Take a piece of paper and draw or sketch your journey. Think about peaks and troughs and how you travelled from one space to another.

Get Moving

Individually – identify ways that you can put movements together to demonstrate your journey.

Share with others if you comfortable.

With Others – Link your journeys together. Do this by first all doing your own journey at the same time. Then identify points at which your journey can intersect with someone else’s. Finally, how different does the journey look if you add some one in?

You should 3 variations now. Your own with others, your own that intersects with others and finally your own with someone else in the journey at some point too.

Share with others your finished dance. Use it as a time of blessing, both to give, but also to receive.

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Make a Splash and see the Delight

 

‘Pictures say a thousand words’ I love this picture for so many reasons, but there as two main ones I want to chat about today.

  • Embracing the mud
  • Being child like

Are you a mud lover? Do you mind the mess it makes? I’ve mostly embraced mud in my life, but when my daughter came along, I really had to learn what embracing mud, mess and chaos meant, as they are 3 things she loves!

In our faith we can have an expectation that it will all fit into neat boxes and not be messy, but the reality is that it is rarely like that! Lots will splash up at us, getting us dirty along the way. Allowing our selves to live a ‘messy faith’ opens the doors to possibilities of connecting with family, friends and non-Christians in an unrestrictive way. God doesn’t want our faith put into a box, he made us to share it – the delight, mess, pain and laughter that can all come from it.

Children have much less inhibitions than adults, which makes them much better at ‘just getting on with it’. They embrace things with their whole body, mess and all. So, when I talk about a ‘messy faith’ I’m referring to embracing God through those messy moments, when life might be hard and you don’t understand why life is like that at the moment. It’s seeing the joy in all circumstances, jumping in and getting messy too.

When my daughter discovered this puddle with her friend Theo, to start with they just walked through it backwards and forwards, and then did a little tap on the water here and there. When they realised the mess it made the look of shear delight on their faces was incredible. They both went a bit crazy and finished completely covered in mud (sadly no picture to show you the full extent!).

This reaction can be what we experience in our faith. We go backwards and forwards over something checking it out, maybe testing the ground but never quite going all the way. We hold back. But, when you do make the decision to stop tapping and go in fully, what God gives you, is beyond what we can imagine. There is delight, there is comfort, there can be tears, but God carries us through it all.

So, what things now do you need to embrace the mud in? What things do you need to be more childlike and push your inhibitions to the side?

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Dancing with a Holy Roar

“In Him we Live and Move and have our Being.” Acts 17.28

God has given us our amazing bodies to move and dance with in whatever way we can. The other day I came across Chris Tomlins new song ‘HOLY ROAR‘, it took my breath away. It spoke right into my core, about why I move and dance, and the strength, passion and integrity with which I do it. It prompted an opportunity to share at our latest Living Colour workshop how we could explore Dancing with a Holy Roar.

But what does Holy Roar actually mean? It’s best to start by looking at how the dictionary defines each word.

Lets start with Holy – dedicated or consecrated to God, sacred. Which sounds a great way to describe this special word. Participants at the workshop also came up with the following –

  • Special/ quietness – an awe
  • Pure, sacred. Set apart and hard to translate
  • Jesus dying on the cross. What he did for us

In essence, Holy, is something that is indescribable, beyond words, definitely set apart and something special.

Whilst Roar is defined as – a full deep, prolonged cry uttered by a lion or wild animal. That’s pretty intense isn’t it?! Other words came up in discussion such as –

  • Power
  • Roaring like a lion
  • Strong
  • Loud
  • Aggressive/ emotive

How can we link these two words together? If I now asked you what you think Holy Roar means as one thing what would you say?

  • Cry for justice from a place of deep grief or righteous anger
  • From the belly – it uses your whole being
  • Confrontation with all your strength but you’re 100% up for it
  • Freedom

Living Colour October 2018

What do you think it means to have a Holy Roar in dance ministry and life? Massive questions hey! But have a think, how could you move and dance with Holy Roar as your foundation?

My favourite line from the responses above has to be the picture of ‘from the belly’, because actually that’s what it’s all about. When we worship, when we cry out to God, when we battle and declare he is victorious. We are putting our whole heart into it. We’re choosing to be strong, clear, and direct with our movement and what we want to declare.

Think of it like your belt of truth. The belt is something that holds things in place, stabilises your core and carries things. If you have a weak core, your ability to move efficiently will be diminished. The core of moving and dancing comes from knowing the truth in the Bible. I love the imagery of tightening the belt the more you know. It’s like you’re choosing to take a stand point and are notching in ready for the fight!

So when you choose to move and dance. Think about the stand point you are taking, and how you can use a Holy Roar in your movement.