We can dance

We can dance if we want to
We can leave your friends behind
'Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance
Well they're no friends of mine

I say, we can go where we want to

A place where they will never find

And we can act like we come from out of this world

Leave the real one far behind

And we can danceDance!

Is it safe to dance, oh is it safe to dance

This is one of Whitney’s favorite songs. It is set as a ring tone on my phone, and she calls just to listen to it. If it comes on one of the radio stations I listen to, she turns the volume up high. She loves this song. Lyrically, it’s just fun. It’s a one hit wonder from the 80’s by Men Without Hats. There are several more verses, but I will spare you. Thank me later.
I was raised in a fundamental Bible church, school (and home). Dancing was just having sex with your clothes on standing up. It’s one in a long list of activities that were considered sin although I have never found scripture to back this up, in fact, I find several places that God’s chosen people the Israelites, did dance, before God, to God, etc. I believe some forms of dancing are wrong. If people are stuffing money in your underwear while you are dancing it’s not good. If people can see your underwear while you are dancing, it’s not good. (Heck, if people can see your underwear at all it’s not good). Slow dancing with someone other than your spouse is most likely not good. But if you are dancing to The Safety Dance, most likely you aren’t stripping or slow dancing, so you should be “safe”.

I was thinking the other day about all the activities my kids are allowed to be involved in that I never was. My kids are athletes. My kids are musicians. I only played sports for the Christian school teams. They were all scheduled around church activities. We weren’t very good, but it was fun. My daughters have all been involved in music and drama. (They are really good at drama). Little Shop of Horrors, Annie, Fiddler on the Roof (twice), etc., and all kinds of music programs, vocal and instrumental. Two of them own guitars. The schools do a wide range of music, much of it secular. Secular music was another thing that was of the devil when I was a teen. I also didn’t wear pants; show my clavicle, shoulders or knees and I wore a 14 pound cheerleading skirt. NOT KIDDING. Doing the splits was considered inappropriate behavior, punishable behavior. We didn’t play cards, the Joker (or Jack, can’t remember) represented Satan.

I'm the one in the middle on the bottom

I really get a laugh out of this now. I realize as an adult that these atrocities committed against us impressionable kids were done with good intentions. It was not meant to feel like an internment camp.
I just wanted to share one of the most humiliating stories of middle school. At the time it was humiliating, but now when I look back at it, it’s not such a bad memory. Every year we had a soul-winning evangelist, Carl Hatch come to the church and speak for a week. He screamed, he yelled, he slapped the pulpit till his hands had to hurt. He was dripping wet with sweat while he preached. It was an aerobic activity, a long one. And during that week we went out and tried to scare people out of hell. Literally asked the question, “if you died tonight, would you go to heaven or hell?” Not a bad question, really. In our Christian school, if you were on target with your work during this week, you spent afternoons out soul winning. I believe there were kids that purposely were not on target that week so they didn’t have to go.

Circa 1981, 8th Grade

One particular year, I was in the 8th grade, they took us to West High School here in Wichita at 3:00 when school was getting out and dropped us off in the parking lot to witness to students. Here I am, a 14 year old girl with a dress and panty hose on, carrying a Bible, approaching strange teenagers in the high school parking lot asking them about their eternity. I couldn’t tell you how many people looked at me like I was a freak, and actually called me that, but some did. I can tell you how many students prayed with me that day to accept Christ. FOUR!!! I don’t know why this particular memory sticks in my mind so vividly, but it has never left me. I don’t remember their names, or what they looked like, I don’t know if they were popular or unpopular. I also don’t know if they really made the decision or not, but I will tell you, it took more guts for them to stand and talk to me (the freak) and bow their head and pray then it took for me to talk to them. We read them Scripture from the Bible, and I believe the Word of God changes lives, so I hope they really knew what they were praying and believed.
I want to end with this thought. My kids are living breathing testimonies in their schools. Good or bad, right or wrong, they have the chance everyday to reach kids I had to be driven across town and dropped off in a parking lot. They have a chance to get to know them, and develop relationships. Are they doing everything they can? I don’t know. I do know that on Whitney’s little volleyball team, four of the mothers are believers. On Nate’s baseball team I haven’t gotten to know everyone, but several of them are believers as well. I even had one witness to me once. I know there are opportunities I have missed. I wish I could have them back. There are times I talk and get nowhere. I believe we are called to live Matthew 28:19-20 “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (NIV)