Alien Drums

Neo, in Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christian, says evangelism should be like a dance. “You know, in a dance, nobody wins and nobody loses. Both parties listen to the music and try to move with it.” (p. 62)

I’m a Baptist, but I like to dance, or at least I used to when I was younger. I’ve often said I plan to live in the dancing wing of heaven. There’s something enchanting about allow one’s body to move with the rhythms of music.

My favorite kind of dancing was and is ballroom dancing, and that experience does offer a corrective to McLaren’s perspective. When doing a waltz or fox trot, the man leads. Using gentle nudges of his right hand on the woman’s waste, he guides the two in moving with the music. I stress gentle, and I think a good male partner senses the movements of this female partner and responds to it, thus creating a unique dancing moment together.

Witnessing should be like that. It is a dance that is flowing to spiritual music, but it is OK for the believer to gently nudge and guide, to flow with and respond to his or her “partner”.

And, like McLaren said, it is not about winning and losing; it is about experiencing something divine together.