Dancing gives ministry new possibilities

Ask Jeff Nehrbass his thoughts on leadership, relationships or the Spirit and he’s likely to say, “It’s a dance.” Nehrbass is a pastor who’s preoccupied with dancing.

Jeff Nehrbass is an ELCA pastor and with Cindy, his wife, owner of On Your Toes, a dance studio, where he finds that encouraging people—a step at a time—is his ministry.

With good reason: He won the world ballroom championship in 2005 and the U.S. championship in 2007, both with partner Adrienne Brown. They were guest dancers on an episode of the PBS show America’s Ballroom Challenge that aired earlier this year. He’s also a prize-winning dance coach, leading teams of ballroom dancers to national championships the last four years. Nehrbass grew up in a dancing family. “It was a great way to have a lot of fun together,” he said at On Your Toes, the St. Louis Park, Minn., dance studio he owns with his wife, Cindy. The two have been dancing together since college. They opened the studio in 1994, the same year he graduated from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., and was ordained.

His two vocations of pastor and dancer came together in a special way when he gave a ballroom dance lesson last year at the Minneapolis Area Synod assembly. “I’m really excited about our bishop’s commitment to the health and well-being of our clergy,” he said.

“Lives that are filled with joy … are from people who have not only acknowledged what God has given them but have celebrated those gifts by using them,” he added.

To devote time to his studio, Nehrbass has decided to be available only for part-time ministry. Now he ministers on the dance floor, helping couples learn the steps and, at times, work through relationship issues simultaneously. When he sees someone struggling, he’ll step in with advice.

“A little bit of information and some encouragement and some practice and all of a sudden the two of them are doing something that they could never do before. And suddenly in that moment there’s been a transformation,” he said.

“Work in the church is the same thing. Being helpful, being encouraging, speaking the word—and suddenly when it gets planted and it starts to grow and people experience new life, there’s a transformation.