Inappropriate Circumstances


"If you demonstrate by dancing, you will be placed under arrest."

"Everyone have permits for those videos?" 

"You're not allowed to have free expression, free speech, in the memorial to Thomas Jefferson - the champion of free speech."

"Stop, you're dancing."

"We're allowed to dance in America."

"This is America....It is illegal to dance."

"What would he (Thomas Jefferson) think of this?"


True, I think the dancers were a distraction to the monument. I can just imagine taking my kids there at that moment when the arrests started happening. It would be total confusion. I would be talking about Jefferson and how he was one of the men who stood up for freedom, and then we would see people being arrested for dancing at his monument. I thought the policemen handled themselves appropriately regarding the circumstances. The problem was that the circumstances they were placed in were wrong. The law prohibiting dancing is ridiculous. If a fun, crazy, freedom-loving America wants to dance at the Jefferson Memorial, then they should be able to. If we can't see the irony of people being arrested at the Jefferson Memorial for harmless dancing, then we misunderstand the freedom that Jefferson struggled for. It is true that he fought for more significant freedoms than dancing, but if people aren't allowed to do something as little as dancing, then why would we presume that they would allow freedoms more significant than that?

It all reminds me of an unhealthy church. Churchleaders.com published an article last week that talked about the five core values of a church in decline. A similar situation to that at the Jefferson Memorial happens all the time in unhealthy churches across this land. You can hear the phrases, "We've never done it that way before." "That would make the Jones' unhappy." Like at the Jefferson Memorial, people act appropriate for the situation in an unhealthy church, but the situation is all wrong.

Instead of doing whatever it takes to further God's kingdom, the church will do whatever it takes to maintain the status quo.  Unfortunately, because we are in a society that is everchanging, the status quo must be everchanging. That doesn't mean that we change our DNA, it means that we change our clothes. A church that does not change it's clothes regularly is a church like a human that doesn't change it's clothes. It stinks. Nobody can see the beauty of God beyond that stink.  It's time to stop stinking.  Let's change.