Provincial Convocation notes- Kansas City, June 09

[HelenaZF]

We've just concluded celebration of the Central Province's June 09 Convocation. The theme was "Walking out the Vision". We heard from the angel to the church in Kansas City, as Archbishop Bates brought the Word of the Lord to the congregants who attended day sessions and evening celebrations of Eucharistic worship.



It's always spiritually refreshing (if physically exhausting!) to participate in these events, but our small pageantry team at Cathedral Church of the King prepared for almost 2 months to offer 3 featured choreographed dance pieces during the 3 nights of the convocation. We also moved spontaneously in the worship and liturgical music times.



There are always moments that are memorable and significant.



The overriding personal intercession project was the prayers continually sent up during the event for 3 of our own struck down just as the convocation was about to begin. One of our music team hospitalized, a servant teacher and father of young children fallen off a ladder with head injuries, and a small boy who nearly drowned in a pool accident...all very serious.



There was a great outcry of fervent prayer for that small boy, and on one night it came from the song selection of the music team in the song called "I will rise (when He calls my name) " I danced the song, and it became an intercession for that boy. You could tell that everyone in that room was adding the voice of their spirit to that prayer in the message that death and the grave had been overcome by the power and love of Christ. Our bishop encouraged us to continue to "dance on death" as we persevere in prayer for these beloved ones.



The first night was thematically about the Eucharist, and we had chosen a piece called Lamb of God, we worship You, an elegant ballad that embodied the adoration due the Eucharist. The Lord allowed the message of the Cup and the Body to be powerfully communicated, even to the point of the shape of the Cup being made by the arched arms of crossing dancers. Something unintentional in the planning, but startling in it's clarity in the performance of it.



In another piece, a Sanctus that we danced with tallits, the tallits at the end were also viewed by prophetic eyes as the sails on a clipper ship as they swelled and ebbed in sync with one another...an illustration of our own bishop's mission to bring the Church to teleios, or maturity--literally "with sails filled, rigging in place, ready to let the wind take us to sea".



Of course there was so much more, but these were things that affected and moved the worship, so I've highlighted them here.