Praise His Name in the Dance

How will the people know if we don’t tell ’em? If we fail ’em, They’re stumbling in the dark,  But the lighters that we carryin’, Don’t have to wonder your purpose,  Or what you’re here for,  Reflect his image And show the world what he cares for…

Calling all the messengers.

– Lecrae

Last week, I had the privilege of spending my days with my fellow US-2  Class of ’13-’15 reunited, laughing, crying, and talking about being missionaries in the United States. It was joyful, painful, stressful, and exciting. Passionate world changers have a contagious spirit, I think.

My friend, Katie, put together an incredible highlight reel of our week together. Lecrae’s song, Messengers, followed us as we laughed, cried, and danced our way through the week. There is a lot of embarrassing footage of me breaking it down. This video sparked something inside me. It made me remember that on the last full day of our time together, we had a worship service. At the end, we were singing a lot of upbeat praise songs and several of us just started dancing.

Dancing at the end of a week filled with conversations about a world so in need of God’s hope. A week where we talked about real pain and suffering. Honestly, a week that I’m still processing. But we were dancing. We danced our way through that entire week. We danced because we are a generation filled with hope. Dances throughout history are born from many places. Some come out of places of pain, some out of joy,  others are meant to tell the stories of a people group.

I think our dances do all of that. We dance out of pain for the people in our world on the margins. We dance out of joy for what God is doing in the lives of those in our placement sites. We dance to tell the stories of those in the communities we serve.

We dance because we are filled with hope about what God is going to do in and through our lives and the lives of those around us.

We are messengers of hope, dancing our way through the pain, suffering, joy, and gladness that we experience as a missional people. God is already at work in those communities, and we have the privilege of carrying a torch to shed light on the work He is doing all around us. Pick up your torch and join in the dance. There is plenty of joy, sorrow, hope, laughter, and stories to be told. Calling all the messengers…

“Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises to him with the tambourine and harp.” – Psalm 149:3