Church Experience #12 – March 20, 2011

Vineyard Chattanooga

Dance Dance Revolution

About 10 or 12 years ago I went through a dancing phase in my Christian worship style.  I had been a fan of live music for a long time (bluegrass, jazz, funk, jambands, etc) and I always enjoyed dancing at the concerts I attended.  This kind of carried over into my Christian life and I would often migrate to the rear of whatever church or venue I was at and dance during the worship music.  I never thought it was all that out of the ordinary, but looking back, I’m sure other people did.  Then I visited a Vineyard church in Nashville and was pleasantly surprised to find that there were other dancers out there.  Not the whole congregation danced, but quite a few people did, as well as bang tambourines, wave banners, and engage in various other free-spirited worship activities.  I specifically remember a lady from the Vineyard service I attended who was a particularly fine dancer, and was probably the oldest person at the church that day, appearing to be well over 70.  Now that my dancing days are for the most part over (except for at home where I still regularly cut loose to the amusement of my wife and dog) I was curious to see whether the Vineyard church in Chattanooga was also a place of free-spirited worship, or if I had just happened across a congregation that held a little more closely to the denomination’s San Francisco roots.

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