Newsletter  -  Friday, February 22, 2008

In this issue:
   -   New dance video 
   -   You are not alone
   -   Dawn's book excerpt
   -   Are you physically prepared?

Hello everyone!

It is a new year, 2008.  We are ready for God to begin fresh new opportunities in our lives. How about you?

New dance video!

We have just finished filming the instructional portion of the video to Martha Munizzi’s song, “Till the Walls Fall”.  We filmed the demo portion live on February 9th at a youth conference here in Las Vegas hosted by The Church at South Las Vegas with its Pastor Benny Perez.  It was an exciting time as the conference speakers included Joyce Myers, Chris Hill, Benny Perez, and Ben and Katie Brinkman.  The presence of God was evident and powerful. 

We have prayed, praised and pressed through a lot of “walls” the enemy has been putting up against us as we have been working on getting this dance video of warfare through praise out for a year now. We hope to offer this new DVD in the next few weeks.

You are not alone!

When God called me into dance ministry, I had never heard of it nor seen anyone else worship through dance.  It was three years before I found out that there were workshops and conferences for people in dance ministry.  I was so excited that I signed up for and attended two within a couple weeks of each other.  There is such a rich deposit to draw from at these gatherings.  A deeper knowledge of Christ and His call on our lives, practical ministry information and the honor to worship God in the language of dance with sisters and brothers from all over is truly a marvelous feast for the soul.  I recommend that everyone in creative arts ministries attend a conference for creative artists.

Our website has a link page to conferences occurring all over the world.  Please have a look at it and see if there are any you can attend.  Also, if you know of a conference that you highly recommend and we have not included it, please let us know about it.  http://www.worshipsteps.com/dance_conferences.htm

If for some reason you cannot get your dancers away to a conference, bring a guest teacher to your church to work with you.  There are many wise, gifted and anointed dance ministers who are willing to travel to your city.  You can offset the cost of their transportation and lodging by inviting ministries from other local church congregations to attend the workshops and charging a small fee. The invited teacher should work with you as to the topics you feel need to be taught. You can discuss having a time of worship so that participants can freely step out in what they are learning.  The teacher may also teach you a choreographed piece.  If you want your dance team to spend extra time with the dance ministry teacher, make special arrangements for that ahead of time and be specific with her/him about what you would like your group to learn.  This could be a great asset as you get to have one-on-one time with your guest teacher and pull all the knowledge you can out of them.  As for compensation for your guest, that will be decided between the two of you.  It could be a love offering, an honorarium agreed upon by the amount of time spent teaching/ministering or on the amount based on the registration.  Bringing a dance ministry teacher to your church can also help your congregation and church leadership catch the vision for dance ministry. (Excerpt from Dawn’s upcoming book)

Are you physically prepared?

Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit and our instruments of praise. Are you keeping your body in top condition for ministry? It is a discipline. Developing our core strength (the muscles in the torso) does more than give us flat abs and strong backs; it also supports every dance move. I see it weekly at the studio when I teach jazz or ballet, the students who have developed core strength can balance, turn without wobbling, hold their arms and legs in place for long periods of time as well as kick, leap and move quickly with clean movements. Those without core strength get tired, lost, have little balance and are controlled by the moves rather than being in control and placing the moves where they want. If you find that you are in need of fine tuning your instrument, then I want to recommend some videos for you.

MarQue Smith is passionately in love with Jesus who has gifted her with many talents. She is a professional singer and dancer that God regularly sends out on assignment into shows here in Las Vegas to shine her light along with the talent He gave her. She has been hired by Cirque du Soleil to teach Pilates to the performers from all the Cirque shows here.  Daily she runs between her studio, Witness Performing Arts, and the theaters to meet and work with the dancers and acrobats. She is excellent in what she does. She has developed three videos to teach others Pilates as well. If you are interested in strengthening your core strength, check out her link: http://www.theemarqueeenterprises.com/html/shop.html or http://www.witnessperformingarts.com/merchandise.htm

Another workout video that I recommend is by another passionate woman of God who is a renowned aerobics, fitness and exercise expert.  Her name is Tessie Etie Baehr and she along with her husband heads up J.A.M. Ministries.  Please check out her video at her website: http://www.jamministries.org/merchandise.html