Dancing with David

Written by Christine

I met a lovely young man at one of our events called David. David is totally blind and partially deaf and was in the audience when I first saw him. I have been prompted by God enable people with disabilities to fully interact with the worship (if they wish to). I noticed David up in his seat doing his thing so I asked him if he wanted to join the dancers dancing round the auditorium and he jumped at the chance. David has written an explanation of his experience on the night which for me is extremely encouraging I hope it is to you too.

You were kind enough to bring me into the Hebrew dancing taking place around the church during the worship time. Thank you so much for doing that. Especially because the fact that I can’t communicate properly when it’s noisy must have made it harder for you. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was when you did that. As I mentioned to you at the event, I was struggling a bit to find the right words for the right songs, as my Braille machine had problems with Hebrew and some of the songs weren’t on the list at all. So your pulling me into the group made me feel that I was part of the whole congregation worshipping Yeshua, and not just doing it in a vacuum.

I don’t know if you noticed, but I actually carried on dancing after you guys took me back to my seat. I think I went a bit crazy during a couple of the songs and started jumping round and round in circles. I must have looked totally crackers! So I hope you missed that.  

I started dancing in church when I was about 15 because I didn’t have the words to the songs. They weren’t available in Braille ad my worsening hearing problem meant I couldn’t hear the lyrics well enough to join in properly. I started by singing in tongues, which I still do when I’m not sure what we’re singing. But it’s still a bit frustrating, because as I mentioned before I often feel like I’m worshiping in a vacuum, and although worship is meant to be between God and you, it’s not much fun when everyone else in the church seems to be doing something you can’t join in with. At the same time, an America preacher at a conference had been encouraging the youth to get off their seats and dance if they felt like it. So I started pogo dancing in church during the louder songs as a way of expressing myself. And because even though I didn’t know the words, I loved moving around, and the songs make made me feel so joyful and excited I couldn’t keep still!

It must look pretty daft, but King David danced before the Lord, so I don’t see why I should’t. In the end my church had to put down a prayer mat in the isle for me to jump up and down on, because otherwise there was no way they could stop me crashing into people. In fact I got told off for this at university once, because I was dancing in the isle, bumped into the chaplain’s wife and knocked her hymn book out of her hand. Oops!”

May your ministry be bless and may you dance before the Lord with all your might

Shalom in Messiah
David Wilkins