Pursuing an integrated dance & faith life.
“In my work, I often ask artists a simple question: How much more can a creator be glorified than when the thing they created does what it was created to do?”
As career-focused dancers in Christ, it can be a struggle seeing our faith and dance careers as part of the same experience.
Sometimes it feels like they exist in different galaxies. Or like they're going in different directions. Or that we have to make a choice between the two of them. Or that we have to do really hard, focused work to bring them together.
But none of that is actually true.
It was God who invited you to relationship. It was Him who endowed you with the gift and ability to dance. And it is Him who draws you out into secular culture to exercise that gift in a dance career. In Christ, you only have one experience, in the same way that your various limbs all belong to one body.
If this is true, why do we struggle to feel at ease and unapologetic about the relationship between our faith and dance careers?
Well, that's simple: because we don't dance in churches, we don't dance about faith or for evangelism, and we don't work with Christians or in Christian environments. But who said that was a problem? Who said those were the only ways Christians could engage with their creativity? God didn't.
We don't struggle with the relationship between our faith and dance careers because God told us it was wrong.
We struggle because we don't understand how it could be right. We can't yet see how God could be honored and glorified in the kind of dancing we do, in the kind of projects and environments we work in, with the kind of people we work with.
But He is.
We can often be limited in our perceptions about God, thinking He is only honored or glorified if we're directly mentioning His name (or involved in projects that do so) as many times as we can.
But He's bigger than that, and not an egocentric that would need that. Instead, He's more interested in us experiencing, representing, and embodying His name -- His name being His nature and character.
So, how is God honored and glorified in our kind of dance career?
Doing what He gave you to do.
In my work, I often ask artists a simple question: How much more can a creator be glorified than when the thing they created does what it was created to do?
God gave you the gift of dance as an act of His love. When He gave it to you, He said it was good. So it's good, no matter where you use it. You can use the gift for bad purposes if you actively seek to do so, but the gift, itself, is good. And anytime you use it, you are interacting with a good thing...with a God thing.
Being who He made you to be.
Even in your kind of dance career, God is honored and glorified by who you are in it.
The Bible tells us that we are the light of the world, the salt of the earth, the fragrance of Christ, and the exhibitors and dispensers of His love. That's who we are before we ever do anything.
When we enter our career spaces and dance projects in that posture, God is honored and glorified...no matter what we're making art about, where we're making it, or who we're making it with.
Living in the way He's given you to live.
When we think of honoring God with our dance careers, we often do so in connection to sacrifice - as if sacrificing makes everything holy. But God never asked us to live sacrificially. He asked us to stay connected to Him and follow His voice. In fact, He reiterates this several times throughout the Bible.
God is not after you sacrificing your dance career for His glory. He gave you dance to do it, use it, and enjoy it. Instead, He wants you to follow His voice as you build your career, stay connected to Him as you move along in it, and let your relationship with Him be the thing that supports it. He doesn't need you to do anything to glorify or honor Him.
Follow His voice and stay connected to Him in your dance career and He will be glorified and honored in everything you do...no matter what kind of dance you do, where you dance, or who you dance with.
