Does Your Dance Have A Purpose?
In other words, what is the mission of your dance? What's the point?
"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." - 1 Peter 2:9
This is our mission and our purpose!
"...so that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness."
That's it! That's your purpose as a dancer. It can take lots of different shapes, but the calling is still the same. Whether you are in a company, at a church, working another job, or teaching classes, you are called to declare God's goodness with your dance and testify to what He has done in your life!
However, before the directive to praise is this statement: "You are a chosen people."
All of your mission and purpose as a dancer starts from the fact that you have been chosen by God. And if your identity is not founded on this one truth, then guess what? Your purpose becomes steeped in the work of having to praise God. It becomes a chore. Something you owe God, but not something you delight in. So we always start from this eternal, beautiful truth: you are chosen by God as his daughter.
And then the verse goes on: "you are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession".
Let's talk about the role of a priest. When God calls you a royal priesthood, what does that mean?
In the Old Testament, God ordained Aaron as the first high priest, and he set apart the Levites from all other tribes of Israel to be his priesthood.
In the temple there were the outer courts, the inner courts, and the tent of meeting, otherwise called The Holy Place where God's presence physically dwelt on the tabernacle.
What was the job of the priest?
It was the priest's job to minister directly to the Lord's presence inside the Tent of Meeting. Nobody else had that privilege or could get that close to God's presence.
The priests were also in charge of caring for the Tent of Meeting and making sure it's run well. They had to take care of the candlesticks, the table of shewbread, and the alter of incense…all these components that made up worship in God's sanctuary, they took care of.
They helped facilitate worship between the people of Israel and the Lord through managing the offerings. Any time someone came with a burnt offering, a peace offering, a sin offering, a guilt offering, or a grain offering, it was the priest who helped facilitate those offerings.
Now that we live in the New Covenant, Peter says that we have become the royal priesthood who ministers to God's heart. We get to assume those spiritual duties that Aaron and his sons had the privilege of doing.
Here's what it looks like for us:
It's our job as dancing worshippers to take care of the sanctuary. I don't mean your body, although that's a real ministry as well - taking care of your personal temple. I mean taking care of the Tent of Meeting. Our first job is to prioritize God's heart and minister to him with our dance. When we dance with our main goal to bless him and touch his heart and connect with him, we soak the spaces around us with his presence. We create an atmosphere of "meeting" that others can come and participate in.
We steward the praise offerings given to God and work to communicate physically what others might be experiencing spiritually.This is how we steward the praise offerings. When we dance, we are the embodiment of the inner heart-cry or heart-worship. The easiest way to describe this is in a corporate worship setting: in the same way that singers will sometimes sing out prophetically what the larger congregation is feeling or engaging with, the same thing happens with dancers. A dancer might get the sense that a spirit of childlike joy is sweeping through a congregation, so they release a childlike, silly dance on the stage. They are communicating physically what others are experiencing spiritually.
It doesn't always have to be a corporate worship setting, or something that is feel-good and positive. Sometimes the worship that you are stewarding is an offering of tears. Or a sacrifice of praise in the midst of heaviness. Or an offering of gratitude inside the valley of death. So it's not that it's always a "happy dance" - it's that we are working to embody the praise offerings given to God, and there is real stewardship when we do that. Whether it's witnessed by an audience, or whether heaven is our witness as we dance in the secret place, we are communicating physically what others are experiencing spiritually.
We help facilitate direct connection with God through our dancing by leading others to the Tent of Meeting. As we worship, we usher in God's presence and we demonstrate what it looks like to respond to him. Sometimes that's what people need to be drawn into connection with God. They need someone to dance with abandoned authenticity and vulnerability so that they too can crack open their hearts and lean into God's presence for radical encounter. Now, this might happen in a corporate worship setting, but it also might happen on a stage as people witness your worship through choreography (sacred or secular). Or on an Instagram post. Or it might be your kids witnessing you demonstrate connection to God through worship as you dance around your house. This our job as dancing priests: to help facilitate that direct connection through worship. To show people what it can look like.
Ultimately, your #1 purpose as a dancer is to declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness. And as a New Testament Levitical Priest, your next purpose is to help others connect with God in worship.
Now your job is to ask the Lord: "How do I do that in my current season or setting?" Because it will look different from dancer to dancer.
The worst thing you could do is think, "well, I don't have a church or a space or a group to do all of these things." How about stewarding praise in your room first? Give yourself to the ministry of God's heart and tend to the Tent Of Meeting in your life - that secret, holy place where everything else comes out of. Then see what other doors he opens and responsibilities he gives you.
Let me know if this helps! I hope it does.
Happy dancing, Psalter!
