I’m 30, so I only do what I’m good at (or: Swing Dancing out of my comfort zone.)

I went to a swing dancing class.

I signed up a month ago in a moment of impulsive bravery. While learning to dance has been on my bucket list for ages, I’d never been courageous enough to take the plunge.

The night of the class crept up on me faster than I’d expected. Driving in, I could feel the nerves buzzing through my body and had to actively concentrate on calming myself.

I was surprised how scared I was. As a kid, I was the nervous type, wrapping my comfort zone around me like a fleecy blanket, but I’ve come so far since then! I’ve traveled the world and jumped out of a plane and I’m no stranger to arriving at a party by myself. And yet, here I was, ready to bail on a simple dance class.

My friend was surprised to see me so nervous, and I realized how protective we can be of ourselves as adults. I’m usually a fairly confident and self-assured person, because I usually only choose to do things that are in my comfort zone. Anything that requires coordination (or any kind of team sport) terrifies me, so for most of my adult life, I’ve avoided it. And here I was, about to clumsily step on the feet of a dozen strangers.

Turns out it was far less scary than I’d thought and I’m definitely keen to go back. I keep hearing the phrase ‘get comfortable with being uncomfortable.’ Maybe it’s time I did.

(Apparently I’ll be like this in no time.)

 

 

Is it really just ‘Emotional “Penty” Hogwash?’

There has long been a (hopefully friendly) rivalry between Pentecostal/charismatic and more conservative/traditional Christian churches.

The former get accused of being too emotionally and experientially driven and not grounded in the Scriptures, while the latter get accused of being too straight-laced, dogmatic and lacking in the Spirit.

While you will always find negative extremes, both sides need to be careful that their judgment is not clouded by prejudice or ignorance of what the Bible actually says.

This really hit home to me some time back as I was listening to a song by Matt Redman, entitled Undignified (I will dance).

Some of the lyrics are as follows:

I will dance, I will sing
To be mad for my King...

…And I’ll become even more undigni-fied than this.

My natural, default bias would ordinarily have written this song off as ‘emotional “penty” hogwash,’ (I mean, undignified dancing!!) but this time was different. Only days before I heard the song, I was reading a fascinating passage of Scripture in 2 Samuel 6:16-23 in which King David was bringing the Ark into Jerusalem, so I immediately recognized the song as being directly from Scripture. (You can read the passage here)

It was a good reminder to me that before we write anything off as ‘emotional “penty” hogwash’ or ‘legalistic conservative dogma’ it would be wise to go to the Scriptures first, and, above all, to remember that Jesus greatly desires the unity of His Church.