It particularly seems so relevant now as so many of us are dancing and moving more than ever have before. 1000 Reasons to dance for our King, is a project about acknowledging all those reasons that we choose to dance for our King, what pulls at our heart, the emotions we bring and experiences we have, the answers to prayer.
I know not all of you dance, but I expect at some point you have been impacted by dance in some way, that is also a good reason to dance for our King. In a time when when everyone needs to be encouraged, when people want to witness the effect that God has on people, when people are asking questions. Let’s be deliberate in understanding why we are moving, what initiates us and takes us on the journey. From there, we have the opportunity to be equipped to share and explain the gospel in a more comprehensive way.
So, my question to you, will you join me on this journey? I know that why you dance today, will be different to why you dance tomorrow. Or how dance impacts you today, will be different to how it impacts you tomorrow. Over the next few months and the month previous, the journey each of us will go on will test our faith, movement and resilience to stand firm with our faith, lean into God and dance for our King. Check out the video below to hear more before the project.
Comment below or drop me an email and let me know if you’re up for it.
Then as you dance and move over the next days, weeks, months, pop me a message and share your reason why you dance for the King. You can do this via email (click here) or phone.
Please do share this with anyone you think would love to join this movement. The #dancingarmy is growing at an immense rate, it is awesome to see God move and witness people choosing to #dancealittlelouder.
Many of you have heard me speak about raising up a #dancingarmy and encouraging people to #dancealittlelouder. The reality of this happening has snowballed, and it is awesome to see how God is using such a simple concept to gather people, to gather movers and dancers whose whole heart is simply to worship, praise, prayer, live life and more through Jesus. If you’ve not joined us yet for a Prayer Dance Bite can I encourage you to do so. Let’s step out and live our journey of faith through movement, however big or small that might be.
During this crazy time that we are living in at the moment. It can send many of us into a spin with an unclear way out. In another one of my late night/ early morning awake times with my son, my head was in a spin about the latest news of the more intentional lockdown we were about to enter. So many people would be feeling so many different things. What was God saying in amongst it all?? PEACE. PEACE, BE STILL.
I knew that I had to dance to that. That myself, and many others needed to know that God says, Peace Be Still… Let your Faith arise. Jesus is the one that calms the storms with 3 strong words, He is the one that will bring us comfort, strength, peace and protection over the coming months. We need to choose to let our faith arise and lean into all that He has available for us.
As I shared with others my passion for moving to this song, they wanted to also dance, before I knew it, there was indeed a dancing army, proclaiming God’s word, safety, protection and peace. That’s what this video is. A culmination of 8 dancers stepping out to move in prayer for all. God moves mountains, he changes water into wine, he raises people from the dead, he heals the sick. He stands by us no matter what, walks with us during our darkest hours, and carries when it gets too much.
Remember this ripple I keep talking about? How a ripple can change the atmosphere. For just by one starting, others will follow. Let’s make this ripple shake and move the heavens. Let’s be bold in our conversations, our prayers, our movements. Let’s shake the heavens and show people how great our God is.
Join me, #dancealittlelouder. Be a #dancingarmy.
We’d love to connect with you further, so why not sign up to our newsletter where you can hear more about what we are doing and how you can get involved. Head here.
Wow. What a period of unknown we are entering into. I’m sure each of us have many different feelings at the moment. One thing for sure, is that we need to stand firm on our foundation – God’s word and Jesus. It has struck me that we need to be active with our dance ministry in this period of change moving forward, God has been speaking to me about raising a worship dance army.
That my heart cannot be held by circumstance. For my eyes are locked on the God who sees the end. So when this world around me cries out, “Who can stand?” I know That I will not be moved for my feet are planted in You.
Lyrics from Firm Foundation, Selah
I want to share with you four ways that you can choose develop your dance ministry during this time of change. Ways that you as an individual can grow and develop your dance ministry, or ways you can do it for your group.
1. We are called for such a time as this.
During some of the many hours I am up with my son, I had quite an intense time of searching with God. There are many things on my mind at the moment, but the biggest one is that God is calling us dancers and movers to step up. Step up and move, dance, declare God’s glory, peace, power and love across all that is going on.
The words from the song Firm Foundation have washed over me during the past week, speaking affirmation, encouragement and joy into a situation that looks quite bleak! We share our faith through dance and movement, demonstrating our faith, deeds and action.
Part of my response to this conversation with God involved embracing the lovely March weather. Heading to the beach, because that was where God said I should dance, and putting movement to this song.
So the first way to develop your dance ministry is by being willing to respond to Gods call.
Moving forward as a dancing army
Last year I shared about the golden whirlwind picture I was given, where essentially there were little tornadoes above each person’s head. As dancers and movers moved the little tornadoes gathered together into a big one.
All those little ripples merged together to create a change in the atmosphere that was unprecedented (you can read more about it here). I had already begun to see this picture start to come to fruition at the beginning of the year. But going forward our ability to move and dance as one will be even more important.
God is leading me to encourage a Dancing Army. By this I mean, making the choice to use our dance and movement to cause an even greater shift in the atmosphere. We have this magnificent opportunity to demonstrate worship and faith in different way going forward. Your dance ministry can help this grow by being bold and stepping out, building a dancing army. Choosing to simply be Jesus with your movement and encouraging others.
Dance a little Louder
The song Raise a Hallelujah has a line in it ‘sing a little louder’ where every bit of me wants to do more than the words give. God is calling us to move more, to dance strong, dance it loud and dance it from the heart. Now is our time as dancers to step out into all God has made us to be. To pray, to move, to go deeper with God.
Part of this requires gathering with other dancers and as we become more of a dancing army – our dance, our song – is getting louder.
Dance ministry is hard work, it requires dedication and always choosing to put Gods pathway first. It also requires stepping out to encourage others and be in the gap when others can’t. Dancing louder with more vibrancy, declaring Gods heart and putting his word front and centre.
Create an online dance ministry community
Community brings cohesion, the opportunity to join together and move as one consistently. You cannot beat face to face dance ministry. However, you must adapt to the circumstances around you, which is why at UC Grace we are launching Prayer Dance Bites. Short 20 minute gatherings online 2-3 times a week, to read and respond to scripture. All ages welcome.
How could you create community online to encourage others with your dance ministry. Choose to get people moving and dancing their prayer. Creating fellowship, catch up and time together.
Want to join us online?
There are several different ways that you can join UC Grace online.
Prayer Dance Bitesprovide the opportunity to connect scripture and pray through weekly sessions via zoom. Further information is available here.
Scripture Promptsbring you scripture right into your inbox once a week. They offer 3 ways to engage with scripture in a way that you might not normally. For more information head here.
Planning is essential in all forms of delivery, whether that
is for dance or something different. Throughout nearly 20 years of teaching, I
have tried many ways to layout a dance workshop or session, today you get to
hear the layout I find most useful!
It might be that you want to create a whole session or just
one exercise or series of movements, whatever it is, it is still the same
process. We’ll talk in terms of a ‘session’ but the same applies to an
exercise/ series of movements.
This post is all with reference to leading a Christian based
dance worship workshop of some form. However, all that is shared can be applied
in a normal secular context without faith.
Before we get going though, there are a few things that you need to have decided in order to plan the workshop most effectively –
Who will be your age or population focus?
What is your theme – including the main focus and intended outcome
How long is your session and how will you divide elements within the session
What is the number of participants that will be at the workshop, or what are your maximum numbers?
Each one of the above can impact the workshop in different ways, so take the time to make it specific to what you are wanting to achieve.
So what 6 essential things should I include?
1. Ice breaker
Whether you know the participants well, or they are completely
new faces, you can never start a session cold. An ice breaker allows participants
the opportunity to begin the session recognising that they are in safe space, that
their ‘ability’ won’t be questioned, and that they feel welcomed to see where
the workshop will take them.
This initial opening/ ice breaker will set the tone for the
rest of the workshop, participants will either be hooked and want to go further
or may feel unsure about continuing. Therefore this ‘hook in’ needs to grab
their focus, allow participants to tune in with others and get ready to learn
what is coming.
Here’s a few ideas that are tried and tested, they are all
adaptable for all ages and abilities –
What’s your name and where are you from?
How has your week been? Can you use one word to describe your week?
What brought you to this workshop? What’s one thing that you’d love to learn in this workshop?
Say your name and do an action, everyone else copy, work your way round the group.
Make a freeze shape of how you are feeling about the workshop at the beginning.
Imagine these 5 minutes (because that’s all it usually is) are your welcome speech, the chance to win the vote of everyone and have them wanting more. Have energy, be friendly, encourage discussion.
2. Warm up
This is so important and should NEVER be by-passed. Not only does it prepare our body, but it also ensures we are safe with our movement, our listening and helps us be our best in the session. So, what do I need to do in a warm up?
Raise the heart rate
– it’s important to gradually raise our heart rate and body temperature. This
will decrease injuries and increase the body’s ability to move more
efficiently.
Create a sense of fun
and involvement – look at it as a great opportunity to let them see who you
are, how you teach and to get moving with you.
Include dynamic
stretches – these are stretches that move and encourage the body to go
beyond its normal range of motion, therefore stretching and molding the muscles
to work effectively.
Introduce the theme
– the warm up is fab place to subtly (or not) introduce your theme. Be creative
and be literal, with children a game can be a great place to start.
3. Exploration
Before you rush head long into a sequence or main part of
the workshop, it’s good to lay the foundation of what the session will explore
and provide the chance for participants to learn specific moves which may aid
them later in the workshop.
You may prefer to call this section exercises, as it allows
set themes or movements to be explored that provide focus. For example, if your
theme was God’s Breath, here’s one
thing you could do –
In a space focus on taking 3 deep breaths, filling and emptying your lungs as much as you can. On the next set of 3 breaths, take yourself up on a rise as you breathe in, and lower as you breathe out. On the next set take a step forward as you breathe in and step back as you breathe out.
This very simple exercise can be developed in whatever way you
want to fit in with the participants, and challenge them more if needed. To lengthen
and imprint the impact breath can have on initiating movement, ask them to
close their eyes as they do the movement. This will do several things –
Increase their awareness of their breath and the
size of their movement
Encourage them to work on their balance and
their core
Help them to feel the weight in their movement,
therefore adding another dynamic to how it can be developed.
Don’t overthink the exploration that you want to do.
Provided you know what you want as your intended outcome, this section can be a
real fun section to develop.
4. Sequence
Whilst I have called this section ‘sequence’ I recognise
that not all workshops will have a sequence as such to learn. So, consider this
also the ‘main bit’, the chunk that you really want everyone to
grasp from the workshop.
This could involve learning part of a set sequence, group
work expanding a Bible verse, song verse, the theme, working with a resource,
and so much more!
But what you need to remember, is that whatever you did in
the previous section needs to flow with ease into this one, a seamless transition,
rather than a stilted connection.
5. Development/ free movement
Up until this point, you will have mostly guided, taught or
impressed on participants the best way forward with their movement. This
section allows the participant to start to take some ownership over their
movement style and how they want to develop.
More often than not, this is where I give my participants a very loose task. I do this because I believe by this point in the workshop, they are capable of simulating movements together themselves and working with a partner or bigger group to create something that flows with the theme from the exploration section, to sequence section to this one. It’s also a great chance for me to sit back and see Gods work in progress, which is the most exciting bit of course!
6. Cool down/ reflection
Just like it’s important to begin with a warm up, it’s also
essential to finish with a cool down. This section has two purposes.
The first, to lower heart rates and bring our bodies back to
a place they are normally at, using stretches and breathing to do this.
The second, to reflect on the impact of the session, to pray
together or with someone individually, or take a moment of quiet. You can never
underestimate the impact that a workshop will have on someone. It may not be obvious
on the day, but God always moves, even when it’s not visible.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this outline is a process that I have found works well for me. Each of us are individual and all work differently. Take your time to find out what works for you, practise it and let God lead!
Let me know what are your essentials when you’re planning a worship workshop.
Want to be kept up to date with all things UC Grace? Head here.
Last night I had the privilege of being invited to be part
of the Candlemas service at St Micahel’s, Aldershot, it was such a lovely
evening, I left buzzing and I want to share some of what God spoke to me during
the service.
I had been asked if I could find some dancers who could
respond as the felt led to a piece of live piano music based on Psalm 121: I Life
my eyes up, to the Mountain. The lovely Helen Warren joined me as a second
dancer, and our prayer before we danced was that we would reflect some of Jesus’
heart, that people would be drawn in with a desire to explore God more through
our movement.
Recently I recognised that I spend a lot of time teaching
and delivering, and not so much time dancing for myself. Last night gave me the
opportunity to come before God and thank him that I have the ability to move,
but also reinforced that for UC Grace to grow, and share Gods heart, I need to
make sure I am giving God mine, and that in turn requires time set aside for me
to dance, and be lost in his love through movement.
As the service progressed, Alwyn, the Vicar asked if we
would dance again later in the service. By this point me and Helen felt we had ‘warmed
up’, laid the foundations of showing Jesus through movement. So, as Jesus
Christ, I think upon your sacrifice played, our hearts were stirred more by the
spirit and we loved sharing more of that through dance and movement.
Much of the journey I have been on over the past week has
encompassed the desire to draw back to the centre of what and why I do what I
do with UC Grace. There were several things that God drew my attention to last
night, it made me chuckle as the theme seemed to be everywhere I went at the
moment.
In my previous post I mentioned about the interaction between creativity and the heart, and that my desire when I started had always been that it was about the hearts impacted not the numbers. You can read more about it here. It is this theme of people’s hearts and prayer that keep cropping up.
This prayer below reminded me that God places me where I
need to be and with who I need to be, and I need to be willing to serve Him in
what ever way that looks like.
It’s really hard in reality isn’t it to keep that sense of doing what God wants and following his will. This chorus of ‘I the Lord of sea and sky’ (brilliant song, you can listen to here), sums it up very well.
I will hold your
people in my heart. The people that God puts in front of me at events, in
conversations and through dancing. Each one is important.
We did manage to video some of what we did last night. Not
everything is in full view. But it will give you a flavour from our first
dance.
What special services have you danced in? Let me know.
Keep up to date with the latest with UC Grace, by joining our mailing list here.
How often does Advent arrive and you feel like you weren’t ready for it, or you groan because that means that Christmas is going to sneak up really quickly and you still need to get x amount of things done first?
In an effort to be a bit more organised I started thinking about Advent in October! Yes October! But mainly because my daughter is nearly 4 and really clued in to what is going on and already talking about Christmas! I felt this year would provide a great opportunity to develop further some of the activities that I already do during the Advent season.
I really struggle with how secular advent has become, I feel you can get blind sided with all the ‘extras’ that seem to go with that time of year, particularly in the run up. God wants us to remember him in all we do and put him first, and that includes in amongst all the ‘extras’ that get thrown. So my questions to you, with December under 2 weeks away, how have you prepared for Advent? What is going to be your most important thing during the advent season? How will you celebrate it as a family?
For me, I identify that advent can be such an exciting time and an awesome chance to explore not only the Christmas story but also ways we can pray, interact and move on our journey with God. This year to help, I have identified 3 areas to form the basis of our Advent time – Celebrate, Create and Explore.
Celebrate – take a moment to find something specific to celebrate within our family, or something that Jesus did.
Create – make something that will enable us to learn more about an aspect of Advent, the Bible and the Christmas Story.
Explore – read a bit of the Christmas story and chat, move and go deeper with the themes from it.
I’m looking forward to writing some ‘kindness elves’ activities (there’ll be more on this in another post), making HOPE jars, dove mobiles, and prayer bunting! All to help inspire imagination and generate conversation in our family.
You can read some more ideas about how to explore advent as family from one of our free downloads, just fill in the form here. There will be a series of 4 available throughout the course of December.
Don’t forget that there is also our Family Advent Fun event on the 1st December.
It is with much excitement that I can share with you the news that there will be a 2019 dance weekend!! This has been something I have been mulling over for a while, and this week took the plunge.
So save the date! We are doing to a new location, with a different format and will challenge you to go deeper and explore further. This won’t replace our ‘normal’ dance weekend that has been happening every other year, but is in addition.
Keep an eye for further information as super early bird booking will open this side of Christmas.
“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.
Weaving prayer into our everyday life can sometimes be a challenge can’t it? I love exploring ways to use movement and prayer together, go deeper with God and journey with others.
Amazing Grace Course July 2018
We’ve developed a fantastic resource to enable you to start moving at a pace that you are comfortable with, pausing where needed. It’s completely FREE and you can access it here. We’d love to know how you get on, so please do let us know.
When I connect prayer and movement I find it easier to associate with specific areas. In the FREE download – 5 Ways to use Prayer and Movement together, I identify the following areas –
Walking
Knees
Thanking
Declaring
Revealing
Each area providing an avenue to explore movement in a different way. It can be really daunting choosing to step out and pray using movement. But the thing that God delights most, is not only that you try, but that nothing is EVER WRONG. Any way you choose to move for him, there is a party. PLUS if someone sees you doing prayer movement, you never know the impact that that will have on them.
So go on, go for it and try stepping out! Grab the it here.
