You can dance if you want to (but we highly discourage it)

It's common knowledge that the youth leader of the group is considered the nerd, pencil pusher, or party pooper by some youth member. They might not say it out loud, but you are bound to get one youth thinking it. I fall neatly into the nerd category and my youth are nice enough to remind me of that fact. I think my incessant super hero references and super geek excitement is what tipped them off to that conclusion.

I know it's not popular to be a nerd, but nothing is more embarrassing than when a youth leader goes overboard with his personality and the youth group begins to disown him. One such example is at Pioneer Camp. This was our youth's first servant event. We were called to paint houses and enjoy camp life with other churches. To shorten a long story, a pastor asked me to dance like Forest Gump (when he danced like Elvis). I'm not sure how that conversation started between the pastor and I, but I can assure you that sleep deprivation played a role. After I did a poor version of the Forest Gump dance, it somehow evolved into amateur break dancing. Every youth dropped what they were doing to videotape me being the whitest creature on Earth. I go on the record as to saying that my break dance skills look like a paraplegic dog trying to chase its tail, while on a Merrie-go-round. To make a long story even shorter, I was asked to perform this at the worship service. The worship service??? Isn't that where God is serious? Being the firm Christian of morals and high standards, I caved in to the peer pressure like a cake in the rain. I couldn't understand why I was so nervous as the church service went on. Usually, I am so good at being a total fool for no reason. Something didn't feel right about this and after the Apostles Creed I was called up with another friend to do said dance. As I walked the aisle, the six girls I travelled with shrieked in horror as their youth leader was asked to break dance. I performed said dance and I resembled a beached whale caught in a tornado. All the other youth girls were videotaping it because they couldn't believe some monkey would dance like this. Kinda like putting your dog in people clothes--it was cute to them.

It wasn't until later did I learn how much I embarrassed my youth group. They may be young and too intolerable of nerdiness, but they do represent the church and its image. I had danced away that image and they had to bear that. What I thought was just a shot at me, turned into a humiliation for them. It wasn't fair to them.

I know two things about our image in Christ, 1) it doesn't matter what others think about you because there is nothing they can do about it. 2) We are the image of the invisible God and that means something to the world around us.

Break dancing in church is not a sin, but causing harm to the image of your church is. I recall one of the girls saying that a youth leader came up and said, "If its any consolation, I don't hold your youth leader's actions against your church." OUCH! You think I was caught resurrecting Nazism, but it was just a dance.

While I don't care what others think about me, I now know that I need to be more careful with how I portray Christ to others. My actions reflect so much now that I am partnered with Jesus.