Transcript for The Moving Word!

Liturgical Dance and Biblical Interpretation

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The Moving Word!

NARRATOR
How majestic is your creation! I am breathless. wordless. You are vast and glorious. The heaven declare the glory of God. The trees clap their hands. The mountains break forth into singing.

How can I express my feelings when words are not enough? You move me!

Christians have always moved. When we stand to sing, lift our hands in praise or kneel to pray, we move.

CHARLOTTE
It's mesmerizing. You find yourself going down a stream without a paddle and not needing one. You know? You just kind of go with the flow.

ETRA
I think dance would shock most of worshippers and open their eyes in seeing that hey we can praise God in so many ways and it doesn't have to just be structured Method.

LEAH
It was so new, it was so exciting to participate in something that I had absolutely never done before.

MARCIA
The power of one gesture. And in doing that in the context of the Scripture, the next time you do that in real life and you reach out to somebody perhaps you connect that then with your faith.

LYDIA
It helps me experience the Scripture instead of just thinking about it, or intellectually thinking about it. It makes it come alive.

TASHA
Dance does not appeal to me at all. I do not like dancing. But at like church, it's okay, you know. You don't have to worry about people laughing at you because you're not doing it for them, you're doing it for God.

TISHA
It's amazing, as you listen to the music and the words, and you move your body to the words and the music, there's just, sometimes you just feel like a presence is coming upon you, especially if you're like reaching up to God, and you're like God, you know, or Jesus or something, you just feel the presence coming down close.

Fade to black and back up.

NARRATOR
Movement in worship goes by many names [title graphics shows Liturgical Dance, Praise Dance, Sacred Dance]. It can be as simple as a gesture, it can be completely improvised, it can be practiced and choreographed. Worship movement is open to all who move - that is, all of us. No matter the age, no matter the body type, no matter the level of experience.

The use of movement in worship has been growing rapidly in churches. This video will bring you to workshops in two cities, where participants with little or no background in dance are exploring movement as a way to interpret Scripture.

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Lover's Lane United Methodist Church, Dallas, Texas

MARCIA
We're going to start today by acknowledging that not only are we one body as a group but we are a body. We are a body in Christ. We are a physical body as well as a metaphorical body of Christ.

NARRATOR
This workshop in Dallas is led by Marcia McFee, who has been applying music and movement to worship for more than fifteen years. Marcia opens by introducing a simple exercise - mirroring the movements of a partner.

MARCIA READS IN BACKGROUND
If I sink to the depths you are present there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I settle at the farthest depths of the sea, even there your presence shall be.

MARCIA
What about the two of you?

Participant: It was very peaceful. It was very easy to be one in the Spirit at that point, and we were thinking how nice it would be if a family did that together. Participant: As their quiet time.

Participant: As their quiet time together. It was very moving. I was very sweet.

MARCIA
Today I'd like for us to experiment with making a connection. A connection may be a simple as this. And in seeing where that connection takes us. It might change, the connection may be elbow to elbow or shoulder to shoulder, but there's always some connection.

MARCIA READS IN BACKGROUND
"Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth."

LYDIA
It was that unspoken communication. There were moments where I thought I was portraying the power of God being with her or she was portraying that for me. And just the power of those emotions... between Etra and I there were no words spoken. Just the power of her touch and being connected with her was so strong.

NARRATOR
Participants new to dance were now more confident in their movements. They were next given the challenge of creating a dance - a dance set to the song "Woman In The Night", a song drawn from Scripture.

MARCIA
What I'd like for us to do in interpreting this song is to study the Scripture that goes with these verses and to do a little bit of brainstorming or word play with that. And then find the words that we find on the page that relate to the Scripture, and having read the Scripture as well, think about how we might interpret that through our bodies. Not necessarily again literally, with every word having a movement attached to it. But as we did earlier using shapes almost as sculptures.

NARRATOR
Now participants began to shape these words and ideas into movements.

MARCIA
So what do we have? We have Woman in the Night, spent from giving birth, guard our precious light, peace is on the earth.

Participant: But this is pushing it away. Spreading it out.

MARCIA
Spreading it out, yes. So it's more like this.

So if we divide into a couple of groups are you comfortable enough to go and come up with movements for the verses?

CHARLOTTE AND ITRA BRAINSTORMING

Participant: So we have women on the hill, when men have fled, Christ needs our loving still. Participant: This symbolizes hope to me. Participant: Though you're hope is dead.

ANNE AND LYDIA BRAINSTORMING

Participant: Okay, and so you're creeping, and then you're reaching.

Participant: And you go "boom." That's nice.

Participant: Oh, I like that. Can you remember that?

Participant: I think so.

Participant: I like that. That was good.

NARRATOR
The groups come together and share their ideas.

MARCIA
First verse, okay? So we have "Woman in the night, spent from giving birth..." Beautiful.

NARRATOR
The groups are now ready to perform their own dance to Woman in the Night.

Woman in the Night Performance

LYDIA
It was interesting when you work through that process how the Scripture - you kind of gleaned on so many aspects. So many different choices. That if I simply sat and read the Scripture I wouldn't have sat and thought about.

CHARLOTTE
When we actually started moving some of these things didn't work. And then something else came out of it. So it takes some work. Some thought.

MARCIA
I didn't teach you steps. You moved out of the center of your heart. And came up with very meaningful ways of interpreting the Scripture and helping the Word of God to alive in our midst. Thank you.

Fade to black and back up.

MARCIA
My major interest in pursuing this ministry with others is based on sharing with others what I feel. I am so excited by the ways I feel fully alive when I'm experiencing not just words but words in relationship to how I feel and what I think and whether that makes me joyful or whether I feel that weight of that and making meaning.

The word made flesh. The Christian faith is an incarnate faith. How can we understand what it means that the word was made flesh? That God walked among us in human form unless we focus, unless we give attention to the fact that: This is the form, this is the form that God chose to communicate with us. And so I'm passionate that people begin to see themselves as a work of art, as the image of God, as that which embodies the word of God.

You find that throughout the Scriptures: that God is portrayed as someone who moves in and through and among us. And especially the idea of a Spirit, a Pentecost, and the movement of the Holy Spirit among us. And so it's a natural to think of the Bible in terms of movement because movement is part of our everyday lives.

Fade to black and back up.

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Crawford United Methodist Church, New York, New York

KIDS SHOUT IN UNISON
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

NARRATOR
At Crawford United Methodist Church in New York City, children and teens learn worship movement from Praise Dance Minister Tisha Jermin. Some kids are more receptive to the idea than others.

Participant: You assume that I like to dance.

TISHA
Ah, thank you for correcting me. Do you like to dance?

Participant: No!

TISHA
Can you dance?

Participant: Yeah, I think I can.

TISHA
Well you look pretty good from what I've seen.

Participant: I was just kicking.

Participant: I like to dance because it's fun.

Participant: To me, it's like one of the best opportunities I can ever have.

TISHA
In our church we call ourselves dance ministers. To us a minister is someone who represents God as best as they can. It doesn't mean you have to be that you're perfect, it doesn't mean you're skinny, it doesn't mean that you're tall, it's just that you are who God made you to be. And you can only be yourself, true? Now, one of the things about dance ministry, it allows you to show God, through your body. With dance ministry you get to show everyone else what you believe about God, you need to show them your best.

NARRATOR
These young minds have a chance to show their best by creating their own dance.

TISHA
Everyone grab a Bible, somewhere in the pews there's a Bible. Ecclesiastes, it's a funny little word.

Participant: It starts with an E right?

TISHA
It starts with an E. E-C-C. What you and your partner are going to do is you're going to create a movement to the Scripture. If you need some quiet time to work it out, you can choose any place you want in the sanctuary. As long as your partner's with you. All right? Ecclesiastes.

Participant: What you want to do for that a time to keep or a time to cast away?

Participant: Keep.

Participant: How are you gonna do it?

Participant: Like this.

Participant: And then cast away. A time to kill, I'm gonna be like Chuckie. And a time to heal -- I'm gonna touch you.

TEENS TOGETHER
A time to be born. A time to die. A time to plant. A time to pluck up.

NARRATOR Each group performs its dance for the others.

Teens perform.

CASHIMA
When you go to church, they always tell you what you can and can't do; like you can't dance, and you can't dance with a fast beat or stuff like that. But this helps you express yourself and show you that there's ways of doing that without like not turning to God.

CLARISSA
Doing body expressions and praying to God does help me get closer to God because all the steps that I do, the more closer to God I get the more closer to heaven I get.

Fade to black and back up.

TISHA
I was one of those youths that used to be really bored in church, to be honest. I hated going to church. I didn't have a relationship with God. As I began to grow and get to know who God was, the easiest way for me to do it was just express it through my body.

There was a lot of resistance. It wasn't acceptable to dance in church. You were supposed to sit really quiet and nod your head, that kind of thing, and I noticed more and more now where there used to be a church or two doing it, now many churches doing it, they're even go so far as to have conferences that are dedicated specifically to dance ministry. And they are realizing that it's a way to liven up a service, and to really help people realize their connection to God. Before you used to watch someone doing dance ministry. Now the congregation's getting involved.

Fade to black and back up.

NARRATOR
Interpreting Scripture through movement can be done by anyone, anywhere. Neither physical ability nor experience with dance are required. So form a group, choose a Scripture, and let the Word move you!

ETRA
Just allowing things to just go and allowing things to happen and feeling free.

TISHA
When I dance I tend to forget the rest of the world and just get caught up in the Spirit, which I love.

LEAH
It was so meaningful because it was something that was so different and so fresh and so new.

LYDIA
The movement added to the meaning of those words.

MARCIA
It's like, it's our first language. Moving is our first language.

WES
There's no reason why you'd ever need to do a traditional sit-down Bible study again.

CHARLOTTE
Words can't do it. There's a rhythm. It's the rhythm that comes through and people have to react to the rhythm of life.

CASHIMA
It's fun. It's like a fun way to understand about God.

Fade to Black

NARRATOR
If you'd like to learn more about worship movement, visit our website (http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/move/) or call 212-870-3737.


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