Like many churches, my church puts on regular social activities for youth, like dances for high school aged teenagers. Recently I attended one as a chaperone.
Now, I had not been to one of these dances since I was in high school myself, over 20 years ago, in a different part of the country. So I didn’t know quite what to expect, my own memory likely being tainted with nostalgia for the 90s.
But I knew I’d be tempted to say “kids these days”; I knew the music would somehow be louder than when I was a kid and I knew the songs would be mostly unfamiliar (except for the “Cotton Eyed Joe”, which for reasons unknown to mankind will be played for millennia to come).
I knew all of this going in, yet when the dance was done and I was going home, it still felt too much like I was visiting a foreign culture instead of the future of my own.
After all, my church is famously pro-marriage and pro-family and this is an official church function, albeit an informal one. And so the youth dance acts as an introduction into the church’s mixed boy-girl, dating and courtship scene. We put on events like these in essence say to kids“We’d like you to get married and have kids someday when you grow up, and THIS is where that starts.”
But instead of initiating them into that culture, what the dance felt like was a PG rated nightclub; a cleaner version of what they could get almost anywhere else. They were not being initiated into a broader pro-family culture; instead I, and the other chaperones, were being initiated into youth culture.
Always Has Been
Which in fairness, this is was what dances were in the 2000s, 90s, 80s, 50s or whenever else too. Nothing has changed in that regard. What has changed is the “nightclub” or broader social scene has become ever more anti-family and anti-marriage over time. To try to inhabit both pro-family and PG rated night club cultures has become a ridiculous contradiction and it’s probably been that way for awhile.
And I believe many of the younger generation can sense it and it comes off to them looking like desperation. They don’t want “Popular Thing, but for Christians” (rock music but for Christians having been a failure for decades now). It’s impossible for my church, or any church, to go toe to toe with The Popular Thing and offer something as well produced and as fine-tuned for consumption. Instead, what youth crave is a social scene that is distinct and different from the passing milieu in ways they can’t articulate because it hasn’t been invented yet.
That’s where the adults come in. We need to raise our vision for the social scenes our kids inhabit and rescue them from a withering and dying culture. Given the broader issues surrounding marriage and family, I believe it’s essential to pay attention to details even as trivial as church dances; using them to intentionally initiate each generation into pro-family sociality and customs.
Something Better
For the remainder of this article, I’m going to throw out a lot of ideas on how we could improve a social scene like a church dance, to benefit the youth and to build stronger community among adults.
You may agree or disagree with the details of these suggestions, which is fine. But I hope to stir the imagination. Even if x or y detail doesn’t sound right to you, what would it mean for your children and their friends to come of age in a culture which actively develops a healthy courtship scene? Imagine the difference that would make in their happiness and well being.
Here are just three principles to creating something better.
#1 Cultural Innovation
One of the reasons why church dances are PG rated nightclubs is because it’s easy to play someone else’s music. Making music takes talent, time and lots of trial and error. And we’re busy, so Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande are here to bail us out right?
They’re all too happy to fill the void, but to outsource powerful mind-altering mediums like music, dance and rhythm to a competing culture is a tragic loss; a deep wound to a community’s identity.
Imagine the power of adults within the community writing and playing music. Imagine how much more worthy of respect and aspiration those adults would be than we are now. Imagine a dance where kids were invited on stage too; to jam, to share their talents and participate in the act of cultural innovation.
Imagine a dance where young people came to learn from the adults how to dance; and how to dance in ways that are significant to their identity. Imagine if even just some of the songs, dancing movements and beats reflected something about their identity and the culture they're joining.
This isn’t to say that all the music should be churchy or preachy, but that there is tremendous cultural impact when it’s owned/played by those in the room rather than auto-tuned by AI.
#2 Parental Buy In vs Passive Chaperoning
That night I was a passive chaperone, just wandering around talking to other chaperones, making sure the lemonade cooler was kept full and nobody did anything stupid. But it seems to me that in a pro-family culture, adults would be actively participating in the dance with their spouses.
Now your first reaction to this might be that the adults would scare away all the youth with their embarrassing and outdated dancing. “Dad stop doing the lawnmower, that was never cool!”
Earlier forms of pop culture are usually embarrassing and have a short shelf life. There is no need to impose the fads of our old glory days on the younger generation: “See kids, this is how you dance” as we badly and unironically do the funky chicken.
The first step of parental buy in is adults coming together to learn dancing themselves. I’m not sure it matters what the form is. Ballroom, swing, country dancing, social/group dances, line dancing, etc. It doesn’t have to be perfect, so long as it’s not incredibly faddish or devoid of skill. Kids of any generation will respect skill and form.
What’s cool is when adults establish that *we* dance a certain way and that the youth understand that by learning to do the same they increase their status, build confidence and participate in something meaningful.
The dance should give men and women, boys and girls distinct roles that teach them how to respect each other; roles which also teach them the truth about how (and gives them a pathway) to be attractive to the opposite sex. For example, boys can be taught that their role is to ask girls to dance with them. Both boys and girls can be taught and practice how to interact with each other and figure out what they like and don’t like in a purposeful setting.
#3 Formality & Expectations
When discussing the trials and tribulations of young people today, something I hear a lot is “we gotta meet them where they’re at.”
There’s truth in this, but in execution it often ends up being that we, as a culture, descend to the level young people are currently at and stay there with them. Yes, we should “meet them where they’re at” and help them get out of where they’re at, quickly. To that end our church cultural events should be welcoming AND aspirational; inspiring, fun, challenging and encouraging them to rise to the occasion and not remain where they are.
This comes through having expectations of them, with soft boundaries around the events and including a degree of formality in how they act and dress.
I believe a degree of formality is important for the youth to feel like they belong to something bigger than themselves. I’m agnostic about the particulars of formality when it comes to dress. But something more than what they wear to class or to the gym or to bed is probably a good start.
Adults today are afraid of imposing standards or rules for fear that youth will vote with their feet. But in my experience, the opposite is true. Young men and women would like someone, somewhere to demonstrate to them there is more to their church culture than offering a clean version of fads. Otherwise, church culture is irrelevant and redundant in their lives.
For Real?
Some will say that none of this is necessary. “Kids do it differently these days. Let them have fun. Let them have a space where they can just be themselves. Our job is just to love ‘em.”
Again, there is truth here but in execution, this is a comforting lie, one that absolves us of a creative and cultural duty.
I cannot stress enough what a failure this approach has been, both within my own church and larger Christendom. You don’t have to take my word for it. Consult any study from any source talking about any subset of young adults anywhere in the country. More than ever before, they’re struggling to date, marry and form families. They are struggling to relate to one another. And it’s causing them misery.
So instead of a “good, clean dance” powered by pop music and/or Christian rock, I think we should dream a little bigger, aspire to something more.
A cultural event where parents introduce their teenagers into the courtship scene by teaching them how to dance, teaching them how to attract and relate to the opposite sex, giving them practice and experience so that when they go out into the wild, they are able to escape the dangerous gravitational pull of the secular approaches to marriage and family life.
Yeah, I think a lot of what needs to be said on many fronts is that anyone trying to market anything that is fundamentally opposed to the dominant set of values is not going to find a market by selling a dialed-down version of those values.
The demographic that likes what's on Netflix isn't going to get off Netflix to go attend a church with similar values - they can already hear those values from any media outlet, any large corporation, and about nine tenths of politicians. The demographic that's in play is the one that wants something different.
The play here is being meaningfully different, and doing it well enough that the people who want something different can be confident in your ability to lead. A church with a gym would get a lot more young men than a church with a pride flag and a pastor that plays guitar.
"One of the reasons why church dances are PG rated nightclubs is because it’s easy to play someone else’s music."
This is a great point, and it's a reminder that there is so much room in our lives to make our world better. A good social experience can require someone to take ownership and apply their agency to making it a good experience. It can't be mass produced.