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.
Today we celebrate our risen King. Let’s dance somewhere not seen before. Let’s build God’s kingdom and change the atmosphere.
We begin by joining in the 3rd day after Jesus died, the day that he rose again. The two Mary’s found an empty tomb. And an angel told them Jesus was risen just as he said he would. Go and tell the disciples the angels said.
Skipping forward to after the encounters we hear how Jesus then gives us the commission. Let’s read it in the message version. Matthew 28.18-20.
Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: “God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.”
I will be with you… He says it, claim it, Jesus will be with you.
As I prepared for today I asked God to be specific about what I could bring on a Easter Sunday like we won’t have again in our lifetime. What could I challenge you, encourage you, show you as we celebrate, remember and share this awesome day of risen King.
He turns our mourning into dancing
Our weeping into joy
Our pain in to laughter
He calms the seas
And he stands, always with us.
At the beginning of the commission it says ‘go out and train everyone you meet, far and near in this way of life.’ (The Message)
Ponder these questions –
What could ‘train everyone you meet’ mean?
What ‘way of life’ in your life could you demonstrate to others?
This is the churches time.
The Rend Collective song, ‘Build your Kingdom here’, speaks of “change the atmosphere”, of building God’s kingdom in amongst whatever is happening in the world. You know my passion of the impact that dance and movement has on those around us, as we witness Gods word and action. We have seen change through responding to the call to stepping out and responding in dance and movement.
So my final questions to you is –
Are you ready to change ATMOSPHERE?
Take a flag, streamer, ribbon, piece of material, anything you are comfortable with. Step up and change the atmosphere in a place that is near to you. Watch the video and see a snapshot of my heart from the song ‘Build your kingdom here’. Let’s dance louder with our movements to the song. Stir the atmosphere as you move to the chorus particularly.
This is part of our Prayer Dance Bite programmer. We meet 3 times a week to move, dance and pray using scripture and other themes. You can check out more info here.
I am sure you all have different traditions of things that you do at Easter, I love to make little gardens and chat to the children about what we are doing and why.
In this season as we are spending more time at home, I’d thought I’d share an activity for the whole family to take part in if you wanted. Here are some tips on how to make your own Easter Garden. You’ll need the following items –
Large shallow tray/ dish/ pot
Soil
Grass
Stones
Small cup or pot
Sticks – 3 long and 3 shorter
String or elastic bands
Larger stone go across the ‘tomb’
Step one:
Place some soil in the base of the dish, then place your small pot or cup on its side two thirds of the way back. Fill the space and cover to make a hill.
Step Two:
Take your three longer sticks and 3 shorter sticks. Using elastic bands or string secure them together to make a cross.
Step Three
Place stones or something decorative on the soil in front of the tomb. Then cover the mound with moss or grass, you could even plant some small plants there is you wanted.
Finally, place the crosses on the hill and the stone across the tomb and place some where as a reminder. Don’t forget on Easter Sunday to roll the stone away and have a party! If you make one, why not share with others what you have done and why.
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.
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.
As more and more people have asked me this over the last year I
found myself having to think really hard about what the ‘UC’ was for. I knew I had
written a sentence that encapsulated it, but what that was I couldn’t remember.
Not because there wasn’t ever a reason to not remember, but because in the
beginning it was front and centre in my mind, as I set my name and started my
business. But as time has gone on the ability to recall those details has been
harder, there’s been shifts in my aims, my logo design and branding, as well as
the ‘info’ that I display about UC Grace. Plus, the reality of life and just
being busy!
Let’s open the door…
But, there always comes a point when you need a spring clean, a
bit of a shake through to remove bits of info that have served it’s time and
that’s what happened with the ‘UC’. The logo changed to the letters and wording
beneath it changed, I revamped the website, once, twice, many times, I
rebranded, I acknowledged by values for the business and the way I wanted to
push forward. But the reasoning behind the name was always there, it’s just
been hidden behind different layers.
So, let’s revisit our roots and share in more depth how the ‘UC’ came about, the biggest thing to recognise first, was that it was a 2 fold development (see Golden Whirlwind for info about why I teach).
So what was the starting point?
In the early days as I sat with my notebook writing down lots of
different names, I settled quite quickly on the word Grace, acknowledging that
as part of our Christian walk, grace was so important. I realised that I wanted
people to ‘see’ grace in dance, in our movements, actions, connections and
relationships. So initially all I had was ‘you’ ‘see’ and ‘grace’. Deciding how
to coax that into a name was super hard. The development of single letters
happened quite quickly ‘uC’. Notice the little ‘u’ and the big ‘C’. That was pivotal
as I felt it showed where the emphasis needed to be. The idea of opening up our
eyes, seeing things that we wouldn’t have seen before, releasing something,
and, so began the next stage.
Defining what the ‘uC’ was about, working out what would create the foundation. I settled on it encompassing these words – uncapped unceasing unchanging uncover uncontrolled
This became the saying that best described what the ‘uC’ was
about, and it sat beneath the name uC Grace.
You can see the progression of the logo in these pictures.
As I moved forward with the company, another 3 words were pivotal
in under pinning our tagline
– encouraging | growing | releasing –
these enable us to put Gods word front and centre in the
company.
Encouraging – each person to grow into who they are
meant to be
Growing – each person in their skills, knowledge and
confidence God has given them
Releasing – each person into their dreams, ministries
and journeys God has for them
But what does it all mean?
Let’s go back to the ‘uC’, where I had the little u and the big C. You might notice that now the little u is a big U. At the beginning of 2018 I undertook a rebrand of UC Grace. Initially it was just going to be an update of my logo, but after a few months of thinking and praying I realised that UC Grace had changed so much that it deserved a logo that would reflect it’s true heart. Big and bold YOU SEE GRACE, grace in our everyday, the way we think, move and act. Colour displaying individuality, fun and integrity to Gods promise. The dancer with a ribbon displaying the ability worship in different ways (You can read more about ribbons here). A yellow ribbon, to demonstrate JOY. JOY of movement and remembering someone who danced with such joy for Jesus throughout her whole life, Lyn.
What ‘UC’ is going to be important for you going forward?
We all see
different things in life, that means we see the importance of things on a
different level. Take a moment to think about your present life, what areas
might you need to see things differently? What areas might you need grace?
Going forward UC Grace is committed to demonstrating and sharing Gods word through dance and movement. The saying below is what developed in 2010 when I started UC Grace. It encapsulates so well what it means to generate a deeper conversation with God through dance and movement. We hope it connects with you and encourages you in your journey.
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.
God encourages us in those moments we need it most, even if
we haven’t recognised that we need it. Whilst I was away at Rivercamp, there
were several things that struck me.
The first being we all dance and move with the same heart.
The second that a whirlwind is created as each of us moves in someway.
Let me share some more.
Part of my journey with UC Grace has been overcoming
people’s perceptions of what I do and my heart behind it, as well believing and
trusting that I was good enough to do it, and there was a need for it. It
hasn’t been easy, at the Going Deeper weekend in July I shared some of this.
That in the beginning of UC Grace I judged my ‘success’ on the number of people
that came to my events and if I didn’t have many, I wasn’t good enough and doing
it right.
Yet I knew the foremost reason that I was doing UC Grace was
because it was about the hearts of those that came. The hearts that God needed
to work with, take on a journey and grow. That’s what my heart needed to do, in
order to recognise the gift God had grown inside me. A passion to share,
motivate and grow others in movement and dance with Gods word as central.
During my time at Rivercamp I noticed a group of people that
always congregated near a space at the side at the front, and claimed the space
so to speak, and as the meeting got underway I realised they were movers and
dancers of varying degrees of ability. As I began to watch them, a wrestle began
in my spirit. A wrestle to watch, receive and bless what I was seeing, but at
the same time resentment, longing, and feeling put out and it was unfair! Lots
of emotions that had crept up and I didn’t know where to go with. Except I did,
but only because of the journey I had been through with UC Grace.
Let me unpack this.
When I am in an environment where my emotions seem to be
getting the better of me, or, better put, the Devil is trying to windle his way
in. I check myself. I take a pause, a visible breath. The negativity that I was
experiencing was pulling up my insecurities, ones that I had defeated. But there,
in that present moment, in a new situation they were trying to come to the
surface again. I just kept saying to myself, ‘they have a heart to move too,’ ‘they
are worshipping God their way.’
In those moments in the worship, where I was desperate just
to be lost in it and dance myself, I had to deal with this before I moved forward.
I had to deal with the elephant! So, I began a conversation with God, asking
what I have got to learn here, what did I need to deal with, recognise, bless,
repent. Tough going!
As I relaxed into his presence, he encouraged me that it
wasn’t about me being ‘left out’ or ‘not included’, it was about opening up
opportunities for others to experience God.
The essence of UC Grace….
As UC Grace has grown, part of my battle has been addressing
how UC Grace is seen, or what it is. It’s only been the past few years that I’ve
acknowledged that it is a business. I say this here because it is through that acknowledgment
that God presented me with opportunities for UC Grace to grow and develop.
Over the few days after that initial encounter in the tent
at Rivercamp, I thought about it more, the impact of my reaction to what I had
felt, and asked God to reveal more about it.
I had the most amazing picture.
This is the reason for this post, but I wanted you to understand
a few things before I shared it. Every dancer and movers journey is different. You
will experience some negativity at some point on your journey about dancing and
moving, the key is how you deal with it when you are presented with it.
My heart is to release and equip others with their faith
through dance and movement. Jesus will always be the number one person I go to
for decisions, reasons and conversations, and that includes business ones. UC
Grace is a business, it’s a business God has blessed with growth over a very
big journey, the picture God gave me, not only encouraged me in my journey with
UC Grace, but the journey of Christian dance organisations, businesses, and
individuals. Whether they are moving now, will be movers, or will simply just
experience the soaking of the Holy Spirit through someone moving around them.
So the picture…
During one of the last worship times at Rivercamp, the tent
had come to a very hushed quiet, what I began to see were small whirlwinds over
the tops of groups of people. As these whirlwinds began to move around the place,
gold started to be threaded through them.
All the whirlwinds then converged into one. Into a tornado. A
tornado of GLORY, filled with gold. As it moved it changed the atmosphere,
transforming those it moved over. The more it moved the more different colours
came into it. The more it moved it was clear that it was the interaction of
what was inside the tornado that was causing the shift in the atmosphere.
As the image faded away, it was an ah ha moment. A moment
where I recognised why God had to reiterate to me before about how precious
each person’s movement was, and how each individuals movements when converged
with others creates something far more powerful than we can ever fathom. It creates
a movement in the heavens that transforms those around it.
This is something that I knew, but sometimes you can loose
sight of it, when you’re tired and been giving out lots.
There is however more.
My friend told me about a picture an artist had in a tent, that I needed to go and look at. This is it… what do you see?
Two things were brought to my attention. The whirlwind
effect of colours spiralling with the reaction to the environment around it. But
also, how it fits in with the UC Grace logo. The lady that painted this is Helen
Yousaf a prophetic artist and an amazing worship leader.
I was just astounded (again) at how God brings everything together. Are you a dancer? Are you ready to change the atmosphere that you move in? Are you ready to take your whirlwind where God tells you? Get in touch as I would love to hear from you.
Want to be kept up to date with all things UC Grace? Head here.
As a Christian it can be hard to remain on track, hard to
remember our focus, the promises God has said, the words that our written in
his heart about us. Over the past few years I have developed the 5 smooth stones
concept, which has become the cornerstone of my faith, and keeps me going in
those moments when life gets hard.
Let me explain about
the stones first
Take a normal stone, they usually begin quite angular with
sharp edges, a smooth stone is one that has been handled repeatedly, so much so,
that the sharp and angular edges have worn down and what’s left is a smooth,
but firm stone. Which is solid, and in most cases heavy! Imagine carrying 5 of
them around, they would be quite weighty! However, they would serve as a
reminder that there is something there. Something physical that you can cling
to and lean on.
But how is that the
cornerstone of my faith?
Each ‘stone’ is a scripture which has become important to me
during my journey and they speak to me and remind of what God is saying and how
he is there to support us. They help to maintain a strong foundation, that is
always rooted in Christ
Here are my 5 smooth stones –
Phil 2.15 – So that you
may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and
crooked generation.’ Then you will shine
among them like stars in the sky.
This is one of the key verses that I started UC Grace with, it
speaks so much to me about how each of us is important and can shine a light,
even in the darkest of places.
1 Corinthians 16:13 – Be on
your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous, be strong.
This is one of my most longstanding verses, it was given to
me when I got baptised in 2004, and it remains framed in a poster on my stairs
as a daily reminder to be firm in what I know and who I lean on.
Deuteronomy 33.27 – The eternal
God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.
Such a comfort verse! And a great one to visualise that God is all around us, surrounding us at those times that we feel low.
Romans 8.39 – nothing will
be able to separate us from the love God.
Nothing, however small will get in the way of Gods love for
us. When I went away to university I was given this verse on a pillow, a daily
prompt to know that God loves me. The verse (and the pillow!) has stayed with
me since.
Hebrews 13.6 – So we say with
confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals
do to me?
Where ever we walk, God walks with us and he is ready to
help us. Sometimes we just need to know that God will always root for us and
help us regardless of circumstances.
So you see, some of these verses have a long standing
history that have been with me a while, others have been added to over the
years. You don’t have to have 5, why not just start with a few. As long as they
are engrained and you know them, they can support you through your day.
I’d love to know whether you have any smooth stones, why
they are important to you and how you let them support you throughout your day.
Want to be kept up to date with all things UC Grace? Head here.
Sometimes we just need to stop. Breathe. Pause. Say, ‘God I
need you right now’, ‘please send more of your spirit’, ‘wrap your arms around
me’.
Our new Soak events are designed to provide just that. An opportunity in the month to enter into Gods presence.
Although we all try daily to walk with Jesus beside us, there are always moments where life takes us down a different path, and we get to the end of a day, week, month and realise, those moments that we struggled through, were exactly the moments when God wanted to step into the breach for us.
My heart for the Soak events is a time to actively make the decision to draw deeper with Jesus and dwell in his presence. In 2 Timothy it talks about the need to nourish and support our faith, and it’s the Holy Spirit within us that can help us do that.
We can’t give out, if we are running ourselves on empty,
taking the time to fill us up should be a priority.
What will happen at Soak events?
We’ll spend a short time welcoming each other and doing a warm up movement activity together. As well as reading through some scriptures to focus on during the session.
This will lead into an initial time of free worship, after
which there will then be a creative reflection exercise for people to part take
in if they wish, leading back into free worship.
There will be the opportunity to take part in some prayer movement if people wish, this will be led and guided by the event leader, depending on peoples strengths.
The rest of the evening we’ll see where the Holy Spirit takes us!
You can see our current dates for Soak Nights here.
Do I need to have had
dance experience?
Absolutely not! Part of dancing and moving in your faith is
the recognition that movements are tiny and big, so whatever you do, a foot
tap, or hand raise, is still a movement.
Want to know more and be kept up to date with other events at UC Grace? Head here to sign up.
Last week, as I sat and looked through the coming events
with UC Grace and where they sat in the wider calendar, I suddenly realised
that Lent was just a week away. It got me thinking about how Lent is approached
in the wider world, and how much emphasis people place on it.
Many people strive to give up things, or try to focus on
something specific, but how many actually use those 40 days to draw closer to
God, to deepen their relationship with him, learn something new about
themselves and God? Probably not as many as we’d think.
Then my thinking all got a bit radical, and I thought, why
don’t we dance through Lent??
Lent is set aside as a time of reflection, prayer, and preparation.
What better way to prepare ourselves than to move the bodies God has given us
in surrender when words don’t suffice.
In him we live and move and have our being… Acts 17.28
This is one of my favourite verses, the essence of dance
summed up in 10 words! Tim Hughes song, God of Justice emphasises it very well too,
with the phrase ‘move us into action, we must go.’ God moves us into action,
fills our hearts and initiates our movements.
So, the idea has grown, to 6 week resource, to encourage us
all to step out in some form of movement each day. My heart is that those who
are both inexperienced and experienced can access it, with different options
for people to dip into depending on their time and circumstance.
The Layout
Each day there is a bible reference and a themed word assigned
to it, the word is there to help you prompt other feelings as you do the study.
Over the course of the 6 weeks we are going to look at 4
areas, the Psalms – 2 weeks, Armour of God – 1 week, God’s Truths -2 weeks, and
of course the Easter story.
How will it work?
Each Wednesday the next weeks study will come out. When completing
the study, there are two levels. If you’re short on time, concentrate on the
first 3 questions, these can be done in 10-15 minutes. If you’ve got more time
and want to go deeper, do the next set of 3 questions which will also take
10-15 minutes. So, if you decide to do both it can be around a 30 minute movement
time!
How much movement
will I do?
That is really up to you, the studies are designed so that
you can put as much action into them as you want, or if you just want to
isolate a single word and do a single action you can do that too.
Do I need to have
danced or moved before?
No, this study can provide a great way to introduce you to
movement. There is no right or wrong way to move, if you are putting Jesus at
the centre of your movement. My encouragement would be to start simple, by
thinking of movements connected to words in the literal sense.
What if I don’t
understand what to do?
Drop me a message! Ask in the Facebook group! There is a UC
Grace worship chatter group where the main ‘talk’ of the series will be
happening. This is so other platforms aren’t constantly bombarded with what’s
going on.
This sounds awesome!
How do I sign up?
Already on my email list? Drop me a message here which says ‘count me in’.
Not on my email list? Then head here …. and I can make sure you get all the information you need.