The Importance Of The Drum In Igniting Praise and Worship Dance
A few months ago during a worship service I was struck with the realization that it is the drums that ignited dancing in me. I had never really taken notice of that fact, as I had never compartmentalized the drums in this way before. But this realization was again confirmed by experience just the other day, when I noticed that I had no tendency to dance during a particular worship service. I then looked up on stage and noticed that no drums were present and I then knew why my feet were not being ignited in dance to the glory of God.
God intended the percussion instruments such as the drums, cymbals, tambourines, etc. to ignite dance creativity in human beings. He created our bodies to respond to the beat in order to get our feet dancing for His glory. Of course the devil has perverted the use of percussion instruments and gets people dancing for anything but the glory of God. So it is up to the church to embrace the percussion instruments and use them in worship services.
The most often used percussion instruments in modern day worship services is the set of drums and cymbals that you find in a contemporary rock and roll band. Some Christians will not like the set of drums for this very reason and they seem to think that the modern day set of drums is made by and for the devil. How wrong they are. Any percussion instrument no matter what culture they come out of can be used for the glory of God in worship to encourage dancing from the worship participants.
So now that I concluded from experience that the drums and cymbals set my feet dancing during worship, I wanted to look back at the Old Testament to see if I could find any confirmation of this observation of mine. As I looked back at where dancing was mentioned in the Old Testament, I often saw the word timbrel used along with the word dance. I then thought about the sound coming from the timbrel and realized that it was the percussion instrument of that day which ignited dancing in those who used it to worship and praise God.
In fact, in Psalm 150 and verse 4, God's worshipers are commanded to praise him with timbrel and dancing. Jeremiah 31 and verse 4 it says: "you will take up your tambourines, and go forth to the dances of the merrymakers." In Exodus 15 after the Israelites were delivered from the Red Sea it says: "Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took the timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dancing. Miriam answered them, "Sing to the LORD, for He is highly exalted; The horse and his rider He has hurled into the sea." These are just a few of the Bible verses where timbrel and dancing are used together. Find more here: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Dancing
I am sure that the timbrel was part of the culture that the Israelites lived in and they took that instrument because it served the purpose to ignite the feet of the worshipers with dancing unto God. So in the same way we can take the drum set which is the percussion instrument of our day and in our culture and use that instrument to glorify God in the dance.