Running in Church?

Over the years I moved around the United States quite a bit. Born into a military family, my Dad retired when I was young and entered the Seminary. As a pastor's family, we continued to travel from one town to another. Then, I married a man who felt God leading him into the Air Force. I have lived from Ohio to Texas, from North Carolina to Alaska. I attended almost as many schools as the grade levels I completed, and I lost track of the number of churches I joined long ago. One thing I found consistent, though, whether the church is in the plains of the Midwest, the Bible belt of the South or the Alaskan frontier, is this: adults all over the country tell children, "Don't run in the Sanctuary." As I raised my own children, I blindly followed this admonition, believing that the church building, especially the Sanctuary, are holy places and should be respected above all else. God recently challenged that thinking.

Some time after arriving in North Carolina, my husband and I joined an amazing church. Amazing in many ways, one thing that sticks out in both our minds is the freedom in worship services. Before anyone thinks I am going off the deep end and talking about a church wild with uncontrolled passion, I want to make it clear that this is not the case. While I understand that the average senior adult who has spent their life in "traditional" church services would not be comfortable, these folks are simply trying to reach the younger crowd. They believe that if folks can have fun at football games, then we can have fun at worship. Imagine! Fun, at a worship service! I'm not talking about good music followed by an enjoyable sermon, but pure, blatant fun in worship!

At one point during the music portion of the service, the worship leader shared Psalm 150 and then began leading us in a song that describes a Christian's freedom to run, dance and live for Jesus. As we reached the chorus the second time and began to sing again about our freedom to run, three of the teenage boys began to jog down one aisle, across the back, up the other aisle and across the front. After a couple of laps, two middle-aged, adult members of the music team joined them, and before long one of the older members of the congregation joined in a lap. As I stood there in my more refined worship manner and watched these young men and older adults run around the Sanctuary in the middle of church, I began sensing the Holy Spirit asking me, "Who said running is disrespectful?"

I stopped and thought about it, and I realized that I needed to refine my beliefs. You see, I have a friend in Montana that has used two canes to walk ever since an automobile accident in the 1970s. I know if God were to give him full use of his legs, he would run everywhere in praise to his Heavenly Father. I'm sure others in wheelchairs and walkers, those bed-ridden by illness or injury would have a similar testimony. Why don't those of us who are free to run, run in praise to our Father for the simple blessing of being able to run? And if we are running in praise of our Father simply because we are blessed with two legs capable of running, why can't we run in the church sanctuary?

Then God reminded me of something else the music leader said, and it got me curious. Look at Psalm 150. Every single sentence in the entire Psalm is a command! God isn't suggesting we worship Him with the harp and lyre, the tambourine and dancing; He's commanding us to praise Him with instruments and dancing! A brief look through the Psalms reveals a great many commands like this that I never noticed before. Why is it that we put greater emphasis on God's commands spoken through Paul, James, or even Moses than we do those spoken through David?

I am not saying that I will freely allow my children to run through sanctuaries from this point forward, nor will I likely begin to pirouette in the middle of a service. But I will more prayerfully consider all of our movements in worship before I put a quick halt to them. And maybe the next time those teenagers begin running in church, I'll run a lap or two of my own.