The Eternal Dance

I love square dance. When Misha and I were newly married, we spent several Thursday nights with the Arky Stars, a square dance club that met at the local Methodist church. We were by far the youngest people there, but there were free tasty sandwiches. We learned the basic steps, the Allemande Left, the Right-Hand Star, the Do-Si-Do, and other complex movements that made for a beautiful synchronized dance when put together.

The caller kept it slow for us newbies to learn the steps, but at some point every week, we would sit back and watch the experts dance at full speed, boots and heels keeping the beat with the music and the dresses flowing as the ladies spun back to their corners.

It’s an amazing thing to watch people who know their roles, listen to the caller, move to the same music, who are in sync with each other and communicate well.

And not just at a dance.

Any relationship that is out of sync or following different cues to what comes next will encounter difficulty, chaos, and conflict. This is true of friendships, marriages, workplace proximity associates, and even neighbors living in the same HOA.

And it’s especially true in a local church.

When we see difficulty, chaos, and conflict in a church, it usually comes down to people who are following different cues, maybe even a different song at a different tempo or time signature. Partners trying to do 2 different dances at the same time end up not as partners, but as rivals.

Christ established the church to work as a beautiful, intricate dance, everyone following the same caller, operating within their roles, communicating well, and moving to the same music. So when we see difficulty and conflict, we know that something’s off and we need to get back in sync.

It’s a good thing that Christ also gives us an excellent example of what this kind of dance looks like in the nature of the Godhead itself. The Trinity shows us the best model of the dance of love and mutual submission we could possibly have. There’s even a word for it: Perichoresis.

The Father submits to the Son and Spirit, the Son submits to the Father and Spirit, the Spirit submits to the Son and the Father, and as they do, their interconnectedness and love within Himself shows us what this thing we call fellowship can actually look like. How amazing it would be if we operated with this sort of self-minimizing love and mutual submission! How counter-cultural and what a display of the Gospel at work in our lives!

But this is not our default attitude toward even other believers. We have pride. We have self-interest. We protect our own. We have our pet projects and causes. It takes work and intentionality to get outside of ourselves and operate with this kind of mutual submission.

But we have an example. Read Philippians 2:1-15 and see not just our example, but the result for the cause of the Gospel in living out perichoresis in our relationships within our local body. We can start slow, learn the steps, find the voice of the Caller, and get better and better until we’re moving like square dance experts.

And what a beautiful dance that will be.