Promise Treasures is a group of Korean girls who worship through dance. One song they have done a couple of times is Kirk Franklin's "Awesome God". It is amazing how these pre-teen/teenage girls can use their talent to bring honor and glory to God and that they would chose to do this! Many Christians may think that there is no way this would bring honor and glory to Christ, but the Bible calls us to worship in dance and that is exactly what they are doing.
In Hart's book, The Anxiety Cure, he talks about how to de-stress and overcome anxiety problems in your life. One of the ways that he talks about doing this is increasing your "happy" messengers in your brain. There are two chemicals in your, gamabutyric amino acid (GABA) and cortisol, and they make you feel either happy or sad. When you are under a lot of stress, cortisol wins out and the more prominent chemical and makes you feel sad activates your fight or flight response. However, when you are not stressed, GABA wins out making you feel calm and relaxed. While the performance portion of worship in dance for Promise Treasures may be really stressful for them and anxiety producing, I have a feeling that when they get the chance to just have fun with dance, dancing is one of the things that raise their GABA chemicals in their brain. Raising their GABA chemicals is going to make them happier and less stressed feeling in the long run. That is not saying, however, that worship in dance could end up increasing their cortisol chemicals making them feel sad, if they are put under too much pressure.
Last night I had a wonderful time of worship. I got to go see a church worship choir put on a concert and then went and watched some people use the art of dance to worship. I felt so relaxed and calm after spending about 2 -2 1/2 hours focusing on worshiping God. Worship is definitely one of the ways I can raise my GABA chemicals. I know many times we feel like we have no time to just stop and let our mind catch up with what is going on, but take some time today to just enjoy something you appreciate or like doing. Do not let the hectic reality that is your life keep you from taking a break and letting those happy GABA messengers become more prominent in your brain.
This is an interesting way to view worship, however, I really like this post. I went to a worship-filled church back home and it was always amazing to be in that time of worship and I always felt better when I left. I think that it is a good idea, but be careful not to sound like just this type of worship will make you happy or feel better because there are many types of worship which can do the same thing.
ReplyDelete