Well, I must say I am honored to be part of this series.
It's been an incredible series.
If you've missed any of them, please, please go online
and go back and take a look because all encompassing,
they're very, very special and lots of great nuggets of wisdom
that I know I've been taking away with.
So I'm really excited to share with you guys my experiences
with worship and what it's done to transform my life.
I do want to say thank you to my family, my husband Alan,
my children, Clara and Grace.
They are the pieces that help hold me together.
My mom's here today.
Can you wave, mom?
Just wave.
That's my mama.
If you wonder, like, boy, Robin's a pretty nice gal.
She was my example.
She taught Sunday school when I was a kid.
I have memories of helping out in her classroom.
I don't know.
Was it the Plagues mom?
She would, like, throw these locusts on the table
and the kids would scream and it was so much fun.
I remember these things, but she was always that example to me,
to live a life helping one another,
serving when you're given the opportunity
and to always choose kindness.
So, you know, if I'm a nice person, it's because of my mama.
So, a little bit about myself.
I'm a graduate of Moline High School and Black Hawk College.
And like Greg mentioned, I now live in Viola, Illinois,
where I recently opened a rec center, just a place
for people to gather and grow together.
I grew up in the dance world.
I also grew up in a Lutheran church.
And God and dance for me was separate.
In church, we stood up and we sang a hymn out of a book
and then we sat back down and we listened to the message.
It wasn't until about the 90s and I think there was a musical
shift that happened during that time as well.
But during my high school years, I was fortunate enough to go
to this thing called Leadership Lab.
And it was a one week high school,
I don't know what you'd call it, camp, right,
that was held at Augustana College.
And that was my first experience that I had with a live band
that was singing worship music and they incorporated
like hand motions to go along with it, right?
I mean, I still remember.
Jesus is the rock and he rolls my blues away, bop shoo, bop shoo,
bop shoo, woo, right?
Like I would walk into this place and I was like, wow,
this is so much fun.
There's a bunch of kids my age.
They're doing hand motions.
We're singing.
We're dancing and we're talking about God at the same time.
Like, okay, pretty cool.
It wasn't until like my freshman year of college
that I actually gave my life to Christ.
If any of you know Patty Bray, she led me and a few
of my friends in a small group.
And that eventually led me
to attending Heritage Wesleyan Church.
I always had a belief in God growing up.
But for me, it was just a separate thing.
Like God was up there and I was right here and I just had
to be a good person, right?
I didn't understand that connection with Jesus
that he could be right here, right here, right here,
right among me.
And so thankfully, I had become friends with John
and Patty Bray's daughter.
And she's the one that introduced me
to this Bible study.
Ironically, she's also the one that introduced me
to my husband.
So, I'm Marissa.
That's probably like a God incident, right?
But Heritage Church was home for me.
And I found myself serving in as many areas as I could.
For the church itself,
freestyle dancing wasn't really an acceptable thing.
But choreographed worship dance was acceptable
and it was growing.
It was building.
I began to discover how to use my instrument
as Tony discussed for his glory.
And this is also where I met my incredible friends, Jen
and Cindy and Greg.
So, that part of my life was a truly special time.
When I married my high school sweetheart,
we moved to Virginia.
And lo and behold, the church
that we found had a dance team.
It also ironically met in a school.
And they were perfectly content with that.
But moving to a new state and not knowing anyone,
I found everything I needed in that small little church.
A best friend, people to connect with, a youth ministry
to get involved in, and a place
for my worship dance experience to grow.
Fast forward to just even last year.
And I was volunteering at Youth Hope in Moline,
teaching kids tap dance and just sharing the love of Christ
with them, being able to give them little nuggets
of God's goodness.
So, the Lord has affirmed my purpose to use dance as a way
to reflect his light and his love.
So, whatever I do, I do it for the glory of God.
Here's what I know to be, what I believe to be true about dance.
Dance is art in motion.
It is a way to speak without using words.
Dance is an opportunity to put
into motion the voice of your soul.
Dance is weaved through religious ceremonies
and cultural rituals all over the world.
It is universal.
We see dancing at parties and clubs, at football, end zones,
or in the toddler's sporadic wiggles and bends.
I mean, we could insert an endless loop of viral videos
of toddlers dancing, right?
Often, dance is an outward response of joy.
Second Samuel says, and David danced before the Lord
with all his might.
The Lord spoke to Jeremiah the Baptist,
the Lord spoke to Jeremiah the prophet, and says,
I will rebuild you, Israel.
You will again be happy and dance merrily
with your tambourines.
Dance is a natural response.
So, I thoroughly enjoy incorporating dance
and music in my worship.
And if you've noticed, I get very jiggly
over there sometimes.
I mean, we do have an excellent band, right?
Like, how can you not move around to this music?
But really, it is like my favorite thing.
I look forward to coming here on Sunday morning
and worshiping with you guys.
Because when I begin to give God my full attention
in worship, when I stop focusing on me and my problems,
but on him, his goodness, and his greatness,
things change for the better.
My perspectives change.
It doesn't mean that my problems magically disappear,
but the worry and the fear diminish.
Hebrews 13 says, through Jesus, therefore,
let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise.
And in Psalm 149, praise his name with dancing,
accompanied by tambourine and harp.
In Ecclesiastes 3, there is a time to cry
and a time to laugh, a time to grieve, and a time to dance.
I am a cancer survivor, and worship is what brought me
through the most difficult time in my life,
with a smile on my face and hope in my heart.
I devoured worship as though it was water.
I had a playlist of worship music that I listened to
over and over and just continued to add to it.
And like Greg had shared, I even created my own song.
So when I was at my weakest and in my darkest moment,
I'm singing God is good all the time.
And I'm not a poet, but I would find myself journaling
and writing out poems.
Like Scott mentioned, I meditated on scripture.
God kept reminding me not to worry.
Consider the lilies, consider the birds,
just stay fixed on him and let him do the work.
And at that time, the only thing that I really felt
that I could do was to surrender my life into his hands,
and surrender is worship.
He met me and exceeded my expectations.
It also goes worth mentioning that my family
was my earthly angels, doing all the hard work
and holding my hands every step of the way.
But praying the scriptures and worshiping through my trials
have led me to this new place in my life
where my inner thoughts are not just mine,
they are now conversations between me and my maker.
And I can consider it joy to have gone through
the hard times because of how good God was through it.
So when I consider how to love God with all my heart,
my soul, my mind, and my strength,
I always think of dancing.
I want to share it and I want to share the joy
that I receive from it.
I may not always have the option to dance
the way that I do now, so while I am able,
I will give him my all and the very best of my first fruits.
Andy brought to light last week the fact that
people need people, and this work of caring for
and loving one another is good and proper worship.
So I think there may be some people who would like
to incorporate some movement, but just aren't sure how.
And so towards the end here, I'm gonna lead us through
a communal worship experience, combining prayer,
music, and movement, but full disclosure,
you are not required to move if you do not feel
comfortable with it, or if you don't feel
physically able at this time.
We are all from different places and we all have
different abilities, and I respect that this could be
foreign to some of you, and I hope then that this is
a safe place that you could maybe take in
a new way to worship.
I was mindful to try and keep it as inclusive as possible.
You guys get to stay in your seats, simple hand motions,
you don't even have to move your elbows.
Okay, okay, okay.
And I just think, isn't it interesting that the Bible
talks about the hand of God, right?
Like, does God really have hands like we do?
I mean, Greg has showed us what angels look like,
and they are not in human form, so sometimes I think
this must be a reminder for us, and a reminder
that they can be our instruments.
So we're here when Marissa shared, she put on this
really funny clip before she spoke about this woman
that was worshiping and what she was doing,
like holding the TV, right?
She had a little bit of that.
I mean, that's my jam, that's what I love to do.
I love doing all of those silly things that were
in that video, everything except I didn't understand
the light bulbs.
Didn't understand the light bulbs, I've never done
light bulbs, I'm not sure what this means, but.
That's the whole point, is there really is no right or wrong.
Right, like, if someone wants to light bulb it up,
light bulb it up, right?
There's no right or wrong.
We are showing God all of our affection, it's for him,
it's not for everyone else.
So I know personally when I first started at Heritage Church,
I was unsure of how or when or in what way
I was supposed to lift my hands.
I certainly did not want to do it wrong,
but I also felt this deep desire to try.
It was within me to want to lift my hands,
but well maybe I should do it when she does it,
and maybe I should put it down when she puts her hand down.
So let me tell you that you may lift your hands
in the moment you feel like it, and in the way
that means something to you.
Psalm 141, may the lifting up of my hands
be like the evening sacrifice.
So let's just go over some of that and just kind of
break down that wall, right?
So you can put your hands out, open hands are very
clear message, right?
Open hands, I'm opening my heart.
So something as simple as this, you can put them down here,
you can put them here, you can put them up high,
you can go all the way and stretch them all the way up.
It doesn't matter, it's just a symbol of an open heart, right?
Sometimes I like to put my hands out in front of me
if maybe there's something I'm holding onto
that I need to give to him.
Maybe I just put that out in my hands
and I offer it as a sacrifice, right?
These are things that we can just very easily
do with our hands.
Sometimes putting our hands in that upward motion
is just that feeling of giving him praise,
giving him glory, right?
And you can put them wherever you want.
Again, it really doesn't matter, it's what matters to you,
it's the purpose from within.
Sometimes fists can be very powerful
when you're thinking about the strength of God
and him needing to break through something, right?
Or he is so powerful that you declare that with your fist.
You can put your hands together if you're comfortable here
and some prayer hands.
There's lots of things that we can do
that you would think of that I wouldn't think of.
There is no right and wrong.
So we are going to try something new.
I've never done this before.
I'm going to give you guys some hand motions
and I'm going to have my daughter Grace come up here
and she's going to do those hand motions with you.
I would like to do some dancing
just so that I can show you how I use movement and worship.
And so it will be kind of a communal thing.
We'll all dance around a little bit,
do some hand motions with you,
but ultimately we'll just kind of create
a one of a kind experience.
And the song that I picked for this was a song,
I Speak Jesus.
I love this because it's such a prayerful song.
So we have an opportunity to kind of use our hands
in an attitude of prayer and incorporating prayer
and music and movement all together.
So as we head into that time,
and it is such a time of prayer and praying for one another,
go ahead and fix into your mind,
maybe there's a person that you've been praying
for a community, it could be Greenbush
as we pray for them every week.
If you don't know who to pray for, pray for Greenbush.
Or pray for those that are in authority.
Pray for your community or your neighborhood
or a specific neighbor if they come to mind.
And yeah, and let's try it, shall we?
We're going to move this table out of the way
so that I can maybe move a little bit bigger.
Grace, you can come on up here.
Do you want my notebook?
Wheels.
Isn't that really nice of Greg to move the table for me?
He doesn't like to move the table.
He doesn't like to move the table back.
I want him to move the table for me.
I'll find the page for you.
Maybe I'll find the page for you.
I don't know where the page is, Grace.
It's in here somewhere.
Actually, I think it's in the other notebook.
Find the other one.
Okay, so let me teach you some hand motions, yes?
Okay, so the line is, I just want,
or I want to speak the name of Jesus.
So I, we put our hands here
as though it is from within our soul, right?
I just want to speak, so our hands go to our mouth,
the name of Jesus.
So we're putting that name of Jesus out, yeah?
I just want to speak the name of Jesus.
And then it says over every heart,
so over every heart and every mind.
And then we'll just hold our hands
on our heart and our mind.
And this is a great opportunity to pray for exactly that,
the hearts and minds of those that you're thinking of.
And then we're just gonna do some simple prayer hands,
because I know there is peace within your presence.
Once again, I speak Jesus.
So every time there is a verse that says,
I just want to speak the name of Jesus,
this is what you do.
Even if the lyrics change,
your hand motions will remain the same.
Grace will do them with you.
I speak Jesus, right?
And then there's a section that says,
your name is power, your name is healing,
your name is life.
So we will do a fist for your name is power.
And if you want to double fist it, right?
If you want to whoop it,
you can do whatever you want there.
Your name is power, your name is healing.
Let's put our hands out
and declare that healing for ourselves.
And then we lift it up
and we're gonna wave it back and forth.
Your name is life.
Yes.
Okay.
Then it says, break every stronghold.
So we're just gonna go ahead and,
yeah, punch our fist into our hand,
break every stronghold,
shine through the shadows.
Let's get some jazz hands in there.
Yes.
And then burn like a fire.
We're gonna make some flames coming up.
Yes.
And that's all that you guys have to do, yeah?
So let's do it one more time.
I just want to speak the name of Jesus
over every heart and every mind.
Because I know there is peace within your presence.
I speak Jesus.
And the other part says, your name is power.
Your name is healing.
Your name is life.
Break every stronghold.
Shine through the shadows.
Burn like a fire.
Yes.
Okay.
Well, I'm gonna take this microphone off
and that way you don't have to hear my heavy breathing, right?
Gracie, you wanna just come right up there?
I'm glad you found your name.