Strictly Come Dancing
'It's nice to see you, to see you nice!' Thus Bruce Forsyth welcomes my family and me, and millions of others each week, to the Saturday evening televisual feast that is Strictly Come Dancing. Who could have predicted, after the demise of Come Dancing in 1998, that SCD - now in its fifth series - would prove such a triumph?
The extent of that triumph can be gauged not just from the number of people who watch it (more than nine million last week) but - and this is perhaps more significant - from the diversity of people who do so. How many other primetime TV shows can you think of whose host feels obliged to welcome 'ladies, gentlemen and children'? In an age of social fragmentation, SCD is genuinely reaching across barriers of sex and age. And consider the footage each week of the contestants' families and friends rallying round to support and encourage them. More often than not, we're watching social interaction that transcends generation, gender and even cultural and racial divides. And we delight in it.
But, beyond delight, can't we also see here, albeit through a TV screen darkly, a glimpse of the glorious possibilities for the Church? Here is an indication that Paul's vision of the Church as a united community transcending all social barriers (Galatians 3:26-29; Ephesians 2:11-22) may not be the utopian dream we secretly think it to be.
But the vision, like each new routine on SCD, is not easily realised. It requires total commitment and the hard work of training - or, as we might put it in the church, obedience to the demands of discipleship. It is only in engaging in the hard work of discipleship that we truly flourish and experience life in the fullness Christ intends for us (John 10:10).
That it is the fullness of life Christ intends for us is crucial. Just as the dazzling choreography and individual creativity of the different routines on SCD must all adhere to the given rules of the specific dances, so our flourishing in glorious and creative diversity must be rooted in our unity with Christ and in accordance with his will. Our task in the dance of discipleship is not ourselves to think up steps we feel comfortable with but to learn, perform and so be transformed by those that the Master came to teach us.
Keep dancing...
Nigel Hopper
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