A Garage Worship Experience

I have a confession to make…I have never written a blog before. But here it goes.

It’s late Tuesday night and I am sitting in a garage studio in Akron, OH. An hour and a half ago I got in a car with two friends and drove in the cold, dark, November night to this photography studio to shoot a slow motion video. Now you might be thinking—this sounds really strange—and yes it was, but it turned out to be an amazing experience. A group of artists had come together to use their gifts to film a video that would be used to spread the hope of Christ during the Christmas season.

My two friends and I were greeted by the photographer and shown to a room with a white floor and a camera mounted on the ceiling. The vision for the film came from a woman named Kimberly. She is a worship dancer at a church in Canton and had a vision of shooting a video where worship dancers spelled out the word “Hope” with artistic movements. We were told the video would be very similar to a Youtube video called “Her Morning Elegance.”

It was difficult to visualize the way the video would actually work, but after Kimberly explained the process the dancers began to act out the scene on the white space and the video began to come to life. It was exciting to witness this creative process, and I was so encouraged to see these artists using their gifts to share the hope of God in new and creative ways.

As I was sitting nearby journaling about the experience, I heard Kimberly call me over to where they were shooting the video. The next words out of her mouth were “Michael, would you mind dancing with us? I would love to have a non-dancer’s perspective so when we do the final shooting next week I can help explain the movement better.”

For the next hour I joined my friends on the white floor, trying my hardest to do this dance. It was difficult because I am not as flexible as the other dancers and I was completely humbled while I rolled around on the floor, pretending to “fly” and “jump” through the air. By the end of the night my joints ached and my body hurt but I had an inner sense of peace and satisfaction from this humbling experience.

As my friends and I grabbed our bags and walked to our car, I thought of the story in 2 Samuel 6 when King David danced before the Lord. The Israelites had just brought back the Ark of the Covenant over which the presence of God resided. David was so filled with joy that he danced before the Lord in his linen ephod (basically his undergarments). In verse 16, it says that his wife despised him for dancing in this way before his subjects and the King replied by saying “I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.” David was the most powerful king in his day and he did not care what he looked like in the eyes of people, he was concerned about giving God praise.

As the days grow shorter, and nights longer during this season, I find it easy to be overcome with sadness and apathy and a feeling of being distant and alone. There are days the darkness seems to press in around me and I just want to escape. Yet, even though I grabble and complain at God for the darkness of the season, I am reminded that “darkness is as light to Him” (Psalm 139). I am reminded that God’s mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:23), that his faithfulness lasts through the night (Psalm 91), and he watches over my coming and going (Psalm 121). It is as the song says, “I may be down but I will rise. It may be dark but God is light!” Through it all, I know that I am in relation with a God who is so beyond my body and my time, the seasons, the days, the complaining, the apathy that He loves me in and through all those things. And that, my friends, is reason to dance.

So may we, though the days are dark and the nights are long, though we feel inflexible and unqualified, may we learn to celebrate. Let us be a people who shine in the darkness, on those cold, November nights with our dancing, laughing, and praising in all things. Amen.

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.”

-Anne Lamott