A Challenge to Wives: Who is Leading?

Since posting A Challenge to Leaders in October, I’ve wanted to post a counterpart for followers.

Finding a recent blog post by Stuart McDonald has given me the perfect opportunity. In his post titled Why Must The “Manolos” Wait? The Idea Of Women Pursuing Men, McDonald considers whether it is acceptable for women to play the role of initiator in male/female relationships.

While explaining that balance is important, he writes: “You do still want him to feel like a man, especially the man in this relationship, don’t you, ladies? We feel like men when we’re allowed to take charge and lead.”

So my challenge to ladies is this: Are you allowing your spouse to lead while you actively and intentionally follow? If not, why not?

Consider 1 Peter 3:5 (quoted here from the New Living Translation): “This is how the holy women of old made themselves beautiful. They trusted God and accepted the authority of their husbands.”

In verse 7, Paul writes to husbands: “In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. … She is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life.”

These verses describe a balanced and caring lead and follow between equal partners.

If you and your spouse need practice leading and following, why not take dance lessons? It’s a fun and active way for him to practice leading and you to practice following. By doing so, the two of you could find more balance and role clarity for your marriage.

Wives, what makes it easy or difficult for you to follow your husband’s lead? Has anyone tried dancing as a means of learning and practicing lead and follow? Please share your story.

Copr 2010 MarriageDance

Love in Any Language

I admit I love to dance. So my proposition in this post may be biased. I’ll let you be the judge.

I propose that dancing can express love in any language. I’m not referring to international dialects here especially, though the statement may hold true in that case as well. Specifically, I am referring to the five love languages identified by Dr. Gary Chapman in his book by that title.

Here are the five love languages, according to Dr. Chapman, and how I see dance as a means of expressing each of them:

Quality Time: Giving full attention to your partner in dance, whether you are leading or following, can be an example of the quality time that I believe Dr. Chapman describes.

Physical Touch: This one may be the most obvious. When connected with your spouse in dance frame, there are at least four points of physical contact. These contact points create the channel through which the man communicates the lead and the woman perceives it, so it is essential to stay physically connected with your partner at all times in order to execute the dance.

Acts of Service: By carefully and thoughtfully leading his partner, the man provides service to his wife, the follower. Likewise, I propose that the follower serves her husband, the leader, as she graciously accepts his invitation to follow through with the dance moves he leads

Gifts: Dance lessons could make a great gift for your spouse with the “gifts” language (if he/she wants to learn to dance, that is). I’ll admit it does not have universal appeal.  For others, perhaps the gift (as well as being an act of service) may be the leadership and the follower-ship that is offered within the dance.

Words of Affirmation: Like gifts, this one is not as “built in” as the others. But dancing (or learning to dance) provides the perfect opportunity to affirm your partner for what he or she is doing well. That is what your spouse with the “words” language wants to hear.

What do you think of dance as an expression of your love language? Would a date night of dancing with your spouse fill your love tank?

Copr 2010 MarriageDance

Five Reasons to Learn to Dance with your Spouse

In case you need some encouragement for learning to dance with your spouse, here are five great reasons:

1. Dancing is a celebration documented in scripture. As Christians, we celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25, but we have reasons to celebrate all year. Through Christ, our God has blessed us with generous gifts of life, freedom, victory, peace and much more worth celebrating.

2. Enjoying a new recreational activity together can rekindle the romance that brought you together in the first place. Social psychologists at the State University of New York at Stony Brook found that to be the case. Read more.

3. Dancing is a great way to speak the love language of “physical touch.” If this is a primary love language of you or your spouse, dancing will add a new spark to your relationship. Don’t know your love language? Find out here.

4. It’s not as difficult as you may think. Men are usually more hesitant about dancing than women. But in dance workshops I held this year, men were pleasantly surprised to learn that not only could they dance but they actually enjoyed it. Learning a few fundamentals about how dance works, rather than just dance steps, made the difference for them.

5. If you’re still not convinced, watch this fun video for reason number five. Thanks to Sheila Gregoire for sharing it!

What other reasons can you add?

Copr 2009 MarriageDance

Stepping On Toes

If you’ve danced with a partner, regardless of the dance style or tempo, you have almost certainly had the experience of a partner stepping on your foot or toe.

Hopefully, none of those incidents has resulted in an injury. Having danced socially for more than 12 years, I am thankful for that to be true in my case.

When a dance partner steps on your foot, how do you react? The most common reaction in my experience—a simple apology then moving on with the dance.

In comparing Christian marriage to a dance, I believe that spouses can learn from the dance floor incidents. How do you manage conflict in your relationship? When your spouse “steps on your foot,” do you react in anger? Does the misstep keep you from continuing with the dance?

As spouses and dance partners, we will step on each other’s toes – both on and off the dance floor. Conflict is inevitable; it’s how you handle the conflict that makes the difference.

I believe the instruction given to husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:21 is applicable here. In The Message, this verse reads: “Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another.”

An attitude of courteous reverence for your spouse, particularly in times of conflict, will help keep you dancing together.

The most commonly used English term in this verse is submit, as in the NIV: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Curiously from the dance perspective, the same verse in the New International Reader’s Version is: “Follow the lead of one another because of your respect for Christ.”

Whether you are leading or following, there are some lessons to be learned from the dance floor about conflict management. Here are a few I’ve identified (with the help of some workshop participants):

  • Communicate. Ask your partner kindly to get off your foot.
  • Choose to get off of your partner’s foot when asked.
  • Accept the apology when it is offered.
  • Like learning to dance, learning to relate to one another and manage conflict in marriage takes many years of practice.
  • Recognize a misstep for what it is. Don’t blow it out of proportion.
  • Adopt a graceful and forgiving attitude toward your partner.
  • Pick up where you left off when the misstep occurred, and keep dancing.

What are some others?

Copr MarriageDance 2009

A Challenge to Leaders: Facilitate Brilliance

“As a leader your job isn’t to be brilliant. Your job is to facilitate the brilliance of others,” said Ron Carucci, a consultant and teacher in the field of organizational behavior. His comment was made in the context of business. However, I find the thought applicable to this discussion of partner dance as a metaphor for Christian marriage.

Having difficulty making the connection? Consider this passage from The Message:

Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage. (Ephesians 5:25-28)

Husbands are instructed here to emulate Christ who evokes the beauty of his bride. In other words, a husband – as leader of his household – is to facilitate his wife’s brilliance.

I’ve frequently heard dancers describe roles in this way: The woman is the picture; the man is the frame. While a frame provides structure and protection for the work of art it encloses, it also offers a complimentary element that focuses a viewer’s attention on the art itself. The frame helps facilitate the art work’s brilliance.

In a recent workshop discussing the Ephesians passage, one husband concluded: “When she looks good, we look good.” Another commented: “As I elevate her and she looks more beautiful, I am elevated as well. Leading lovingly is the best thing I can do for both of us.”

Bill McCartney, former football coach at the University of Colorado and head of Promise Keepers, put it this way. “When you look into the face of a man’s wife, you will see just what he is as a man. Whatever he has invested or withheld from her is reflected in her countenance.”

He has the opportunity, as a leader on and off the dance floor, to facilitate brilliance.

Copr 2009 MarriageDance

We Were Made For This

I’ve had numerous conversations with female friends who dance, and we all agree. Partner dancing affirms our femininity. We love that princess-like feeling resulting from a chivalrous invitation to dance followed by being gracefully led around the dance floor for a few brief minutes (the length of a song). We walk out of the door with our heads held higher from the experience, feeling beautiful even if we were not wearing a formal gown or it had been a bad-hair day.

What I didn’t know was if men were affirmed in their masculinity through dance. So I finally asked the question. The particular group of men I asked were Christians, new to dance and participating in a dance workshop with their wives. Their answer seemed to be unanimous. Yes, dancing affirmed their masculinity. Why? There are not many circumstances in life where they were unequivocally the “leader,” where they are given permission to lead without any question or hesitation.

The results of my quick survey are completely unscientific, of course. But even so, it begs the question: Why does dancing affirm us in our femininity and masculinity? My theory is we were made for this. Men were designed by our Creator to be leaders; women were designed by our Creator to be helpers and responders. The male-female  dance partnership reflects our God-intended roles as men and women, so when we dance we feel affirmed in who we were made to be.

This is not a welcomed or celebrated message in our time and place in history. There is much argument and debate over “gender roles,” and scriptural guidelines are often regarded as archaic and irrelevant.

In a humorously titled blog post, Woman! Know Your Role, the author finds that submission (as referenced in Ephesians 5) often looks different than what she expected. She gives the following examples:

I recently had an epiphany about the times my husband has said to me, “Where do you want to go for dinner?” And I refused to decide, thus refusing to submit to a simple request he’d made of me. So what I actually thought was submission was not, because he asked me for input and I wouldn’t give it to him. Or many times Adam has told me to leave the dishes and let him clean the kitchen after a dinner I’ve made. Guess what I used to do? Ignore him completely. When I thought I was serving him by continuing to clean, what I was communicating was that I didn’t regard his requests enough to comply with them, not even when they were to my benefit.

She concludes: “Honor and esteem your role, ladies. It is a high calling and one that should be embraced.” Likewise, I would encourage men to embrace their God-intended role. I think we will each find that when we do, as in dance, we are affirmed in who we are created to be.

Copr 2009 MarriageDance