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Welcome my friends to season 3 of the Determined to Dance podcast. My prayer is that you’ll be encouraged to persevere daily in our chaotic world.
Show Notes: An Interview with Jeff Walling
Today I’m honored to welcome Jeff Walling: author, speaker, and the Director of the Youth Leadership Initiative at Pepperdine University to the podcast. We’ve spent this season learning from his wonderful book, Daring to Dance with God. Jeff, I’m so glad you’ve joined us today.
Jeff: Well, thank you, Jennifer. It’s a blessing to be with you and so encouraging that your podcast listeners have been walking through the book. I do pray that God used it to bless them.
Jennifer: It has. This has actually been my best season yet as far as downloads and stuff. I think a lot of people have listened to it and also the podcast is heard on internet radio, Christian Mix 106, in over fifty-five countries. So, there is no telling who all is hearing it.
Jeff: Wow. I wasn’t nervous about being on your show until that moment. Thank you.
Jennifer: Anyway, so who knows? Someone over in Ethiopia or China could be listening and buying your book right now.
Jeff: Well, God has a way of putting us where we need to be, and in this wonderful day and age something I wrote—oh goodness, I hate to even think of it now—twenty-plus years ago continue to resonate and has people reach out to me about it. God deserves all the praise.
Jennifer: Amen. First, go ahead and tell us a little about your ministry and your family.
Jeff: Sure. Sure. I am blessed to have been a preacher for forty years now. And my sweet wife, she and I are celebrating forty years together also. We have three sons; one of which is a minister himself, Taylor. He is about to start a new ministry out here in California: a church focused on reaching young people here on the Pepperdine campus. My middle son and Taylor will both be living here in Southern California and my youngest son is in Denver. They are all married and I am blessed to have four grandkids and two granddogs. It’s a lot of fun. I work here, trying to raise up the next generation of young Christian leaders. I preach as a teaching pastor for Shepherd Church about eight to ten times a year which is a church here in the Los Angeles area.
Jennifer: Okay. That sounds really interesting and like a much-needed mission in that area.
Jeff: Blessed to be involved with it.
Jennifer: Going back to the book—as I was telling Jeff earlier—the book meant so much to me when I was younger and I read it. I’m so excited to do a podcast about it. Can you explain to my listeners the central idea discussed in Daring to Dance with God?
Jeff: Well, I’ll give it a shot. The very first chapter of the book tells about how I was raised in a home that believed that dancing was not a thing that Christ would want us to do. And it was a big shock to me and I immediately called my mom the first time that I really took a look at the beautiful parable called the parable of the prodigal son. When the father comes out from the house, where there is the sound of music and dancing emanating. And the scripture uses the word there for dancing. And that father has always represented to me: God. So, here is God coming out here to this older son, who doesn’t want to come in and celebrate what has happened to his younger brother. To think that God would come out and say, “Come dance with Me. Come dance with us.”
This idea that God invites us, not into a drudge march or inviting us to get in line. But this idea of dancing. Dancing to me has always carried a sense of joy and getting connected with something bigger than yourself. I mean, if you’ve been to a wedding recently, right, you see a lot of people who never dance any place else dancing at a wedding. And quite frankly, I’m one of them. It’s wonderful to see folks who are all connecting in different ways to the same piece of music. And I guess that idea of trusting God enough to step out and just dance and know that He will use whatever your moves are. He will guide them. He will correct some. But He will use them to bless other people’s lives.
Jennifer: That’s so true. I’ve always said—and told my listeners—that I was more comfortable marching in my earlier Christian life than dancing. Marching seemed so, well, you could go by a line and you didn’t have to improvise or anything. But dancing has been harder, but it is definitely more rewarding.
Jeff: I’m glad you feel that way because when we dance with God, I believe that’s when the world says, “Hey, can I do that too? That looks like fun.”
Jennifer: Definitely. What did you learn while writing this book? Normally, as I write fiction, I’m always learning something.
Jeff: As I think back to that time in my life, I think I learned about the vagueness of God’s directions. You know, the Old Testament is so crystal-clear about things like sacrifices, exactly this many ounces of this and if you can’t do this, do this. But in the New Testament, even like: What was the worship service in the New Testament like? Is marvelously vague. In the sense of you start at this time and you finish at this time and you have this many songs and this many prayers.
Even though in the church I grew up in, you could to anyone in any state and it would kinda have the same order to it. And in that same idea, to think that “Okay, God. You’re much more open to diversity and open to the art of worshiping Him.” With your heart. But also, with your soul. But also, with your mind. But also, with your strength. And people lean into different ones of those. So, I think that a real learning experience for me was thinking about the openness—if you want to call it that—the diversity, in some ways that vagueness. It’s like someone says in the Old Testament He gives you the recipe for making something. But in the New Testament, instead, it’s someone describing a fantastic banquet. And there are no recipes but oh man, we want to be at the banquet.
Jennifer: We do. One thing I wondered about when I was reading it, was that some people tend to be a little less receptive of things. What kind of feedback did you receive? I bet it probably wasn’t all positive.
Jeff: It’s interesting that you ask that, Jennifer. I won’t say the college, but I went to a fine Christian university. I was asked to speak there as a chapel speaker as the book came out. I held it up and said, “Hey, I want to donate this to the school library. The title is Daring to Dance with God but you won’t find it in the D section. You’ll need to find it in the C section for choreography because I know that dancing is not allowed. I thought I was being funny. The president thought I was being a little cheeky. I don’t know if the book ever made it into the library.
My dad was a minister who also worked before that as a school janitor. He warned me that there were more fights and problems at school dances than there ever were at football games. He would find more beer bottles and all at dances than he ever did at the basketball game. So, dancing, for a lot of people, maybe appropriately had this very hedonistic, worldly sense about it. There were some folks who raised an eyebrow or two. I’d rather focus on the folks who reached out and said, “Oh my goodness. I’ve wrestled with this. I’ve fought this. Thank you for opening my heart about it.
And I really have to thank God because He had to do it with me. I could’ve told you very quickly, Jennifer, who was going to heaven and who was not when I was about eighteen years old. Boom boom boom. When people got frustrated with me, I had to remind myself that I remember what that feels like feeling the need to correct anyone who might just be a little wrong as though God worked on a graded scale opposed to on grace. When I thought I was growing—you know, everyone has their chalk and they draw a circle—if you’re inside the circle you are good. If you’re outside the circle, you’re not. I would draw a bigger circle thinking okay maybe some of these folks are okay too, thinking that’s what growth was.
Then God says, “Would you like Me to handle it?”
I said, “Sure, yeah, show me.”
He said, “Great, hand me the chalk.”
When you talk to God, you realize that I’m not supposed to be the one drawing the circles. Leave that to the Lord.
Jennifer: Definitely. I can so relate. When I was in my twenties, getting closer to thirty, I remember at one point I was in a lady’s class and it hit me. I told them, “I’m a Pharisee. I really am and I’ve been that for a while.” God had really started showing me that it was about the rules with me. Old Testament. That’s when He started opening doors and I started seeing that God wasn’t the strict Father as much as the loving Father. There is still discipline and different things but totally different than what I had in mind.
Jeff: I try to touch in the book on both the fact that God is that loving Father and Jesus is our Savior but He is also the Lord. If you’re going to dance with God, you’re going to have to let Him lead. You don’t get to lead. And learning to give up some control. To give up the worry of what someone else is going to think. When David came dancing in front of the Ark of the Covenant, there were plenty of people saying, “Oh, my goodness.” But I think David’s approach was this is about God. Don’t talk to me, talk to God. This is about honoring Him. I’ve stood where Michal did up in the window, making my criticisms. But when you read the end of the story, id rather be where David is, even though no one wants to see me without my shirt on.
This is the end of part one of my interview with Jeff Walling. Stay tuned next week to hear the rest of this inspiring and encouraging interview. To me, nothing is better than dancing with God. To let Him lead me where I need to be even when I might not agree, then later see that of course He was right all along.
Let’s pray: Father God, thank You for authors in our world, both past and present, that have touched our lives through the written word. Bless and anoint them to spread Your gospel everywhere they or their work go, bringing people to salvation. We want to dance with You daily, Father. Continue to teach us how. In Jesus’ name, we pray, amen.
Dancing with God is a good decision every day.
Today’s featured author is Fay Lamb, author of Everybody’s Broken, a gothic-style romantic suspense, ripe for an Autumn read. There are voices in the walls of the old Victorian … When her deputy sheriff husband is murdered seemingly in the line of duty and her brother goes missing, Abra Carmichael must do everything possible to ensure the safety of her twins, even if that requires taking up residence in her husband’s home and trusting his family, in a place and with three people she never knew existed.
Learn more about Fay at FayLamb.net.
Next week, we’ll finish our interview. Until then, stay determined to dance…
Links:
My debut novel, Jessie’s Hope
Daring to Dance with God by Jeff Walling
Video of the week:
I absolutely love music and each week I’d like to share a relevant song we can enjoy together.
