COLORADO CHURCH WORSHIP LEADERS PRESENT SUPER BOWL THEMED "DIRTY DANCING" PARODY DURING SUNDAY SERVICE
BY HEATHER CLARK
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
GRAND JUNCTION, Co. — A husband and wife who serve as worship pastors at a church in Colorado presented a Super Bowl-themed parody of the “Dirty Dancing” tune “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” during yesterday’s Sunday service.Fellowship Church in Grand Junction posted the performance to social media, which shows Joe and Julie Tennyson mimicking some of the moves and lyrics from the 1987 film before acting out a scenario where a husband is excited to watch the Super Bowl — but the date also falls on his anniversary.“I’ve been waiting all season long/Now the big game’s coming on just past three,” Tennyson sings.“Got a cute dress at the mall/Reservation for our anniversary,” his wife smiles.“Anticipation in my eyes/Invited all of the guys for the party,” Tennyson gleams.“Why is he in that jersey/Surely he won’t wear that to the winery,” his wife worries in the skit.Tennyson then suddenly remembers it is his anniversary, but hopes his wife will get over the clash of dates. She attempts to run into his arms, but he turns and jumps into the hands of a waiting football team, similarly reenacting a scene from “Dirty Dancing.”Upset, the wife sings out that this will cost her husband “diamond earrings and a cruise.” The two make up by the end of the song, stating that although they have their times of strife, they will always love each other.The skit was applauded online by viewers, stating that the parody was “the coolest and the funniest,” “the best thing I’ve seen anywhere for a long time,” and that the couple “nailed it” and “[h]it it out of the park.”According to an outline of “Dirty Dancing” from The Conversation, in addition to scenes where men and women are “grinding and twisting against each other” and engaging in sexually suggestive dance moves, “[m]uch of the film’s plot revolves around an illegal abortion.”“When Johnny’s dance partner Penny needs an abortion, Baby loans the money to pay for the procedure and steps in to learn the routine to ensure the dancers’ employment the following summer,” it explains. “But when Baby asks her father, a doctor, to help Penny after the botched abortion, he bans her from seeing ‘those people.'”The lyrics to the original “Time of My Life” include: “With my body and soul, I want you more than you’ll ever know/So we’ll just let it go; don’t be afraid to lose control, no/ Yes, I know what’s on your mind when you say, ‘Stay with me tonight.'”The site Reformation Charlotte expressed concern over the church parody on Monday, writing, “One can only imagine God’s favor pouring out on this church as this production is being put on — because, you know, this exalts the name of Christ in every way.”In his book, “Culture: Living as Citizens of Heaven on Earth,” the late preacher A.W. Tozer wrote, “A new moral power will flow back into the Church when we stop preaching social adjustment and begin to preach social repudiation and cross carrying. Modern Christians hope to save the world by being like it, but it will never work. The Church’s power over the world springs out of her unlikeness to it, never her integration into it.”The late preacher Leonard Ravenhill also once said, “God’s house is a dunghill tonight. It is a dunghill of poor theology. It is a dunghill of worldliness. And Jesus weeps over it.”
