In the 1960’s, Dick Clark hosted the American Bandstand. He would invite his teenage audience participants to “rate a record,” judging a new release. The catch phrase that developed around this activity was “It’s got a good beat and it’s easy to dance to it.”

If teenage audience participants came to your faith community, how would they find the beat of the parish community? Would they see it as a four-step square dance or a frenetic mosh pit? Would they find it to be head banging to a hard metal beat or a similarly undistinguishable polka dance? Would it be a demanding tango or an uncomfortable close slow dance with a stranger?

At the dance of your faith community, are young people
> Introduced to the song of faith and invited to understand the symphony of life within Christ?
> Attracted to the joy of faithful disciples and encouraged and trained to involve themselves at the same levels of faithful participation?
> Encouraged to consider the impact of their choices upon their own lives as well as upon the community?
> Allowed to freely connect their passions to the work of the Spirit within the world?
> Prompted to share their own interpretations of the dance of faith within your community as well as to connect them within the greater tradition of the community and church?
> Compelled not only to join into the dance of faith but to bring others along with them?

When our faith communities can look at themselves through the eyes of their young people and affirm the above, we will begin to fully live out the promise of our baptisms.

The promise of our baptisms is found in our relationships with one another. Those same relationship must be evaluated by the standard of “see how they love one

another.” For a modern-day equivalent, one of the characters in the movie Shall We Dance attempts to define marriage. The definition of marriage can be opted to define our sacramental relationship with one another.

We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet . . . I mean, what does any one life mean? But in marriage [or in a beloved church relationship] you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things. . . all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.”

We are called to be God’s witness. Teenagers, today, need those that will notice them as well. Enter the dance!