As I was with a group of Christ-followers who were praying and sharing as they felt prompted by the Holy Spirit, the image of a large Air Dancer came to my mind. Are Christ-followers called to be animated like Air Dancers? I believe we are.

Air Dancers (also known as Sky Dancers, Floppy Guys, or Air Puppets) are long, inflatable plastic (or fabric) tubes (usually with a happy face and two other tubes coming off the side like arms; giving them a friendly, human appearance). Each Air Dancer is attached to and powered by an electric fan. Air Dancers stand up and energetically move about in response to the air being blown through them by the fan.  Everything they do is prompted by the wind within.

Far too often, present-day Christ-followers look like the deflated Air Dancer below. We are drained and aimlessly wandering around struggling to survive. Why? Perhaps we can learn something from Air Dancers.

• In order to function, Air Dancers must be attached to a source of inner wind — a blower. If they are unattached to a blower and/or the blower is not sending wind through them, they can do nothing. The same is true of Christ-followers. Jesus said: “Apart from me you can do nothing.” We must be attached to the wind of the Holy Spirit. If not, our faith is merely a deflated form of religious tradition, and not the powerful faith of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
• Air Dancers must be yielded and flexible. If an Air Dancer gets stiff and/or won’t bend according to the blowing of the wind, it will no longer work and will be a disappointment to anyone needing to be encouraged by its dancing. Unfortunately, we Christ-followers have been taught just the opposite. We have been trained to sit still and not move — to depend on a preacher talking to us rather than on the wind of the Spirit blowing within us.

So what can we do? Learn to surrender to, hear, and obey the wind of the Spirit — the still, small voice of God speaking withing us. But how can we learn to do that? We won’t learn it by listening to lectures. It can only be learned by hands-on experience.

We need to begin to personally listen to Jesus and then do what He says. As we do this more and more we will grow in both our ability to hear Christ and our willingness to obey Him.

We also need one another. More than 50 times in the New Testament Christ-followers are told to encourage one another in various ways. Therefore, when we meet together as believers, we need to be free to hear and obey the living Jesus. Rather than being like rows of deflated Air Dancers lined up in front of a pulpit and doing nothing, we need to be like a group of Air Dancers freely and unashamedly responding to the wind within them. When we do that, we will once again begin to see the powerful Christianity of the New Testament in action.

If you have never experienced a group of Christ-followers responding to the Spirit like Air Dancers, come and visit The Salvation Army Berry Street in Nashville, Tennessee on Sundays @ 10:45 am. — 225 Berry St. 37207. Also check out my book about how Christ-followers can learn to be His Air Dancers.