Ah yes, I remember our very first evening of Young Adult Ballroom Dancing back in the fall of 2010... I remember it because firstly I did not know how to dance (at all) and secondly because there were only about 9 of us there. Small groups make for wonderful discussion, just not quite so wonderful for social dancing while alternating partners every few minutes! Still, it was something new to try for us to try and stepping out of your normal comfort zone is good once in a while. After the fall the ballroom dancing nights didn't continue, which was a little disappointing because how can you ever get better if you don't have the opportunity to practice?

In spring of 2012 I made a new group of Christian friends who changed the very definition of social time for me. To them, having fun on a Friday nights was spent having good clean fun and making new friends through social ballroom dancing. At this point it had been almost 2 years since I had even attempted ballroom dancing, I could barely fake my way through a simple waltz let alone any other style of dance. Hesitantly, I began going out dancing with several of these friends, and almost every Friday night I'd spend a lot of time watching dancers far more advanced than I, and then used the rest of my time stumbling my way through 2-3 simple dances. Despite my inability to dance at that point, I saw the unique connection and fellowship opportunity that all of these dancers achieved through social dancing. It most certainly was a good way to be "social" and to meet new people. 

In the summer of 2012 a few of us at our Young Adult's Bible Study were discussing how we would like to start up Ballroom Dancing again, and we all agreed it might be a fun way to bring all of us together. In our group we're blessed to have David Bainum and Chelsea Nygaard who are two very talented ballroom dancers, both who originally started teaching our group in 2010. They, too, were excited about the idea of starting dancing nights again. And on September 22nd, 2013 we started ballroom dancing again. I expected maybe 15-20 people, which would have been a good amount of dancers for our group. However, the turn out was much more than any of us expected with a phenomenal 46 individuals attending! Since then our attendance has been steadily climbing thanks to Facebook and regular attendees spreading the word. With this growth we now have several sets of volunteer instructors who teach various styles of ballroom and swing. In the past 6 months we have hosted several themed evenings and two balls for practicing our dancing and courtly skills. This last Saturday was our Fairy Tale Ball where our attendance finally peaked with 82 people. I was absolutely blown away by the response, now realizing the HUGE opportunity for outreach that we have:

"Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” - Matthew 9:37-38

When I'm meeting new people at dancing nights and hear them talk about how amazing it is for a college group to have a dance ministry, I have to agree! It's also awesome to have people ask about other ministries at Community Lutheran Church. Through these many attendees and visitors, we've been seeing new faces in our Young Adults Bible Study, several new faces in church and 5 new dancers in the drama ministry's production of Oklahoma, all of whom initially came on our church campus through ballroom dancing. I love answer people's questions when they ask when our Sunday morning services times are or if we'll be starting a Young Adults worship night soon. And who knows? The opportunities really are endless and I'm so excited to see what God has in store for us in the Young Adults ministry.