My heart has been set on pilgrimage.
“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools (blessings). The go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.”
As some of you may know, I (Erin) have been in the middle of seeking how God wants me to use this allotted time of “ministry internship”. Now that I’ve graduated from full-time language school, I have the opportunity to find out what type of work God wants me to be involved with by exploring what ministries already exist out there and by trying things on my own as well.
For a while now I’ve thought that dance can be an amazing tool for ministry, especially here in Japan. In itself, dance is a beautiful form of worship and can rejuvenate the soul, but I also think it has the potential to create fellowship. Let me give some backstory.
The youth group of the church I grew up in occasionally went on short term mission trips where we learned various evangelism tools we could use to sort of “communicate” with the locals. One of those tools was performing through what they called body worship (I know that term sounds kind of cult-y, but it’s basically worship through dance that also communicates a message – it looks a bit like sign dance if you any of you know what that is). After the trip, we would go home and perform the skits and dances we learned at our church. Soon after my first experience with that, I had the thought that it’d be fun to choreograph something myself! So I rounded up a few of my friends and our little team of 4 did our first original routine. From then on we occasionally did performances in bigger groups of 6 or 7, sometimes I taught simple routines at youth group that we all did together, and from there other members even started to choreograph themselves!
It was a super fun ministry to do with my brothers and sisters in Christ, and it was such a refreshing way to praise God.
The girl in the middle is our host family’s daughter
Then when Nick and I first came to Japan in 2015 and stayed with a host family for a month, it turned out that the two teenage daughters participated in a dance workshop every summer that was taught by a secular American group. They graciously invited us to watch one of their practices one day, and I was blown away to see how deeply affected those teens were. They seemed to just throw all their cares aside for the moment and seemed so vulnerable through the practice. It just made me think, wow, imagine what this could do if it were intended for the Lord!
So the thought of me using dance for ministry in Japan was born in my mind. Yet, there was always something that kept me from feeling attached to the idea. Perhaps it’s as simple as saying that God never really called me to do it. I just liked the idea of it. (Plus, there’s the fact that I have zero dance training and am truthfully nowhere near skilled enough to teach or perform – and that’s not me being modest. I am genuinely around the level of being able to make it through a Zumba class). Nevertheless, when it came time to decide what to do for an internship and I had nothing else set before me, I figured I’d try for the one thing I always thought would be super cool.
Thus began my sporadic adventures in taking dance classes in Tokyo. After insanely googling dance ministries that are actually active during the pandemic and exist in the area, I found myself signing up for random classes and workshops here and there. Though I usually felt like a fool not being able to bend or twirl as elegantly as any of the other girls, I continued searching for a place where I could make good connections in the hope of eventually finding a place where I could volunteer in some way.
Cue story time.
On one occasion I signed up for a single class at a workshop that was somewhat far away. Now, you should know that I am terrible at navigation and have a horrible sense of direction, so it was no surprise that I got lost on the way there. I almost gave up and decided to return home, but I finally found my way and was only going to be a few minutes late. Then I found out that I went to the wrong location. Now it’s really time to really go back home, right? Too late. Apparently somebody was already on the way to come rescue me. I’m thinking, great, on top of it all, now I’ve also burdened all these people. At least the actual place is apparently only a few minutes away by car, so it should be fine. Guess again! The car itself is only a few minutes away, but the destination is another 20 minutes. I arrive 30 minutes late to a 50-minute class. Finally class is over and I give my apologies and express my thanks, hoping to end this embarrassing episode. Then walks in a teacher I met at another dance class who invites me to stay for lunch and the following class (insisting that I don’t need to pay for these extra perks). It is then that I get the opportunities to meet the most wonderful people and have amazing conversations, particularly with the couple that runs the whole program and drove me to and from the train station. On the long train ride home, I couldn’t keep from smiling, thinking about how I almost threw away this experience because I had to keep relying on others for help and wanted to give up. It was definitely humbling, but in a fantastic way.
I was so hopeful that I had managed to do some quality networking at that workshop.
As it turned out… not really. It wound up being just like every other dance class I went to: somehow becoming a one-time type of affair where I made no concrete contacts and no opportunities came out of it in the end.
After months of still feeling lost in what to do as my next steps, I asked a friend of mine who is getting certified as a Co-Active Coach to meet with me a few times to help me get unstuck in my thinking about this whole internship thing. Dance didn’t seem to be working out, but it obviously meant something.
One day I described it to her that it felt like God was dangling a carrot in front of me. The picture I created in my mind was of me as a horse, pulling a carriage with a rider on it, heading down a road. I don’t know what’s at the end, but I just keep moving forward as the driver keeps me going. Then suddenly a carrot appears, dangling over my head. This has never happened before, so I wonder: do I stop to eat, or do I keep moving forward? In my confusion, I’m only able to focus my eyes on one thing at a time, as if the carrot and the end of the road were two separate targets. It starts getting frustrating as I feel that I’m not able to make progress toward either objective. What the heck is the point of this stupid carrot? It looks tasty, but part of me just wants to ignore it because it seems like a distraction and I’m not sure if it’s even attainable. But then another part of me thinks that it could be worth it if I just stopped my course and focused on the dangling prize.
Then this idea came up: what if the carrot is just a treat and nothing more? Perhaps God is giving me the blessing of dance as something to enjoy on the way of this journey. It is attainable, but it’s not meant to be the goal.
Once my coach and I confirmed those words, I felt so relieved.
This story might not sound like it has a great ending as there isn’t a solid resolve. However, it should be noted that those dance class excursions were by no means a waste of time. Beside the fact that I enjoyed myself through the sheer act of dancing, I was also blessed to have met so many wonderful people (albeit one time) who welcomed me, a complete stranger. God used those experiences to refresh my soul, and I think that is how He uses dance in my life. I still completely support ministries that use dance and am open to being involved in the future if God ever opens that door, but for now I’m at peace just knowing that I don’t have to force this hobby into the “ministry plan”. Instead, I can just enjoy it for what it is and the way it draws me closer to the Father on a personal level.
As far as what I’ll do concerning ministry… currently I have a few friends I meet one-on-one with on a weekly basis, and I would love to expand that further. Having lowkey hangouts, game sessions, and heart to hearts in my living room is something that is already happening and I am happy to continue doing. Now it’s just a matter of growing this fellowship.
Maybe a few things are still unclear, but that’s okay. My heart has been set on pilgrimage, and I can find strength in Him as He takes me along for the ride.