I have been living in fear that a monster we have previously put down will rise again to terrorise our church. It’s only a matter of time before a delegation of young girls, supported by their mums, arms folded, lips pursed, will announce with a regal air, “Pastor, we think it’s time we started a ….

Dance Group!”

It’s been some years since we last killed that monster. So glad was I of its demise that I didn’t even turn up to the funeral. The nadir of the dance group was reached one fateful morning when a sole dancer performed an interpretive dance to a pop song by Vanessa Amarosi called ‘Absolutely Everybody’.

Now don’t get me wrong, Vanessa is hot property. [If you ever read this you can sing at my birthday party anytime, and I love the song. In fact I have it on my mp3 player and was running along to it this very morning, and yes, it was a legal download!].
That said, it does not belong in a church service, no matter how tight your lycra bodysuit is and how well your body moves to the beat!

The popularity of the USA version of So You Think You Can Dance grew with Australian t.v. audiences and now we have our own version, ubiquitous on the tube, and spawning a new generation of aspiring dancers.  Herein lies my morbid fear.

Getting back to our now dead dance group: the primary reason it died was because it was a breeding ground for petty jealousies and internecine disputes. No matter who the ‘lead’ girl was for any given dance, others would snigger and make snide remarks behind their back, “why was Katie asked to do the lead role? She’s never as good as we are and we have more experience!”.

It didn’t help that was the odd mother or two that would buy into the petty little squabbles on behalf of their little princesses. Something that was intended [in a church context] as an element of worship became a flint stone sparking off the darker side of human psyche.

The second reason was incongruity. There’s something incongruous about having lithe, nubile young women in black lycra doing their ‘thang’ juxtaposed with other worship elements. There were way too many eye popping moments for my liking. I’ll never forget the priceless look of our bass guitarist, who standing directly behind a pink tutu wearing dancer, was treated to the site of her bowing to the congregation.

This link shows some examples of alleged ‘pelvic thrusting’ during worship at Saddleback and a suitably outraged commentator.

I’m hoping the monster proves to be just that and not a Phoenix. I’d rather suffer a dip in the congregational opinion polls than let thing roam around our church.

Whilst I’m on the subject of dancing, when will people wake up and realize that guys don’t like barn dancing. Well I speak for Australian men of course. We don’t do dance all that well unless inebriated, and we don’t do country either. No matter how you dress up barn dancing it still involves country music. Don’t even dare try getting us to hitch our thumbs in our pockets either!, or tell us to do the “do-si-do”.

There, I hope that wards of the hairy monster until at least the next unsuspecting pastor after me here. I’m half tempted to write a piece in my handover notes saying, “Dance has always been a major ministry at this church and you will invite a lot of problems if you don’t establish a group soon after your arrival…”.

I’ll see what I feel like when it’s time for me to move on.

Here’s some new forms of dance in church, popping and krumping. Not sure how this is interpretive at all but at least the kid is wearing baggy clothes!, and that’s a start!

But wait there’s more:

Seems like a bit of showboating to me but what would I know?