Anabaptist Dancing! Part One



This posting is a posting of honesty, introspection, reflection, and redirection.

When I was young in the pentecostal church I rarely-if-ever hesitated to worship our Lord by dancing, leaping, or even running the aisles. I'm talking about when I was probably eighteen to the time I was twenty-three.

It was around the time I turned twenty-three that I began to have personal contentions with the way the church worshipped. I began to feel that there was an absent focus on preaching but a very present focus on active worship. There wasn't enough preaching and too much music and dance. I let my focus on this become a distraction and a roadblock to my personal walk with God.

After I was married the contrast to my former self was stark. I really didn't worship God in the same way. Even though I was fellowshipping with the same congregation I became stiff and uptight. I no longer sang aloud, I never danced, and certainly never ran the aisles anymore. I began to look down on those that did worship that way as disorderly and out of touch with what God expected from us as worship.

It's funny how my contention was with the fact that there wasn't enough preaching, but that my focus became rather the way in which we worshipped. So I guess in the absence of preaching, I became focused on the one thing that was truly present. Worship. The altruistic purpose for which we meet in fellowship. To give God the glory.

I want to be clear that this is all a recent revelation to me. My eyes are being opened to the deception I let myself believe. No one indoctrinated me with this back then. I guess it was partially my thoughts on becoming an adult and "acting" mature that also firmed up my new conviction.

The word of God says that we are to be like children. This is very true. It's not easy to let that guard down for everybody, but it is a commandment.

David's Wife, Michal, was made barren because she mocked David for worshiping by dance. We should follow his example, clearly it is Biblical. Furthermore it is evident that if we try to dissuade others from worshipping in this manner, that we are as guilty as Michal



Here are the two parts of 2nd Samuel chapter 6 that discuss the offense of Michal.

6:12-16

¹² And it was told king David, saying, The Lord hath blessed the house of Obededom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obededom into the city of David with gladness.
¹³ And it was so, that when they that bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings.
¹⁴ And David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod.
¹⁵ So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet.
¹⁶ And as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal Saul's daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart.

And here is 6:20-23

²⁰ Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself!
²¹ And David said unto Michal, It was before the Lord, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel: therefore will I play before the Lord.
²² And I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight: and of the maidservants which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honour.
²³ Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death.
The word "play" in verse 21 is referring to the instruments that David played, not the playing of a child. Nonetheless it would still be relevant even if it were misunderstood. Leaping and dancing before the Lord is a very shameless way of worshiping.

I honestly felt bad for David when I read this because for those that don't know, David was given Michal by Saul. The Bible says twice in 1st Samuel 18 that she loved him. I can only presume that the love was reciprocated because when Saul told David that in order to have her hand in marriage that he wanted one hundred foreskins of the Philistines, David came back with two-hundred. Seems to me that is a statement.

Well unfortunately for David, while he was away for a period, Saul took away his daughter as David's wife and gave her to another man. After a long while David was able to get her back. This scripture above transpired after he repossessed her. We can only infer that she no longer loves him.
That's sad. What's worse is that her own hatred that she cultivated in her heart caused her to become barren. Michal rebuked David for worshiping the Lord. It really is that simple.

That point aside, let's refocus on the overall point of this posting.

If we have the inclination to dance and leap before the Lord as a form of worship, we have the Word of God illustrating to us that it is holy and appreciated of the Lord. Also, the Word makes it clear that we are not to ridicule or persecute anyone for doing so. For me to observe this is a true exercise in humility. My pride is swallowed. I was wrong. However I am thankful for the experiences I had on my detour. It has made me the Christian I am today.

A congregation of dancing anabaptist pentecostals, that would be beautiful.

Since I've had this revelation I've come to the conclusion that there is a time for worship and a time for preaching and if a balance isn't met, then the needs of the people and the needs of God are not being satisfied appropriately. I'd have no problem meeting with pentecostals if I knew in advance that it was going to be a worship meeting, but I would have a problem if it was conveyed that there would be preaching and there wasn't any.

Bear with me, I'm coming around to this myself.

I've been to pentecostal services that were three or more hours long, I loved them!
Sometimes it would be two hours of dancing and one hour of preaching and honestly I am fine with that, I truly feel like that gives God the glory he deserves. But I've also been to meetings where there was twenty minutes of preaching and an hour and forty minutes of music and dancing. That kinda bothers me. That happening once is tolerable, but it happened three consecutive weekends in a row.

I pray to meet like-minded saints.

I know there are other anabaptist pentecostals out there, but we are all on different levels. I truly wonder how they feel about these things.

I know how the Amish and Mennonites of today look at it, I'll be writing about that soon. It seems to be at contrast with the Amish and Mennonites of the 16th century.

Bless you in the name of Yeshua