800 seek spiritual renewal lessons
during SOULfiesta in San Antonio

By Claudia M. Williams
Staff Writer
More than 800 people converged on San Antonio March 30 to April 1 to learn how to renew their spirits and revitalize their congregations.
They came to Alamo Heights UMC for SOULfiesta, a special gathering co-sponsored by the Upper Room unit of the General Board of Discipleship and the Southwest Texas Conference.
Participants listened to keynote addresses that dealt with spiritual disciplines and took part in some 60 learning sessions. Topics ranged from ministry with children to the transforming power of Chrysalis and Emmaus and to 12-step recovery programs.
The three-day event drew people from outside Texas as well as from across the Southwest Texas and Rio Grande conferences.
Carol Loeb, chair of the conference Council on Ministries and member of Asbury UMC, Corpus Christi, said SOULfiesta was an “eye-opening spiritual renewal.”
She said she was particularly touched by the various avenues presented to “get in touch with spiritual stories.”
“I think this is the greatest thing the conference has done in years,” she said.
Stephanie Creech, administrative assistant at First UMC, Portland, and lay leader of the Corpus Christi District, said SOULfiesta gave her a real picture of what spiritual leadership is about.
“Working on a church staff,” she said, “you get so wrapped up in the work, you forget that it has to start with you.”
The Rev. Stephen Bryant, Upper Room world editor and a Southwest Texas Conference clergy member, said the SOULfiesta program was important at this time because “the revitalization of The United Methodist Church depends on the development of spiritual life of the congregation, especially leaders.”
He added, “It’s also important because there are certain elements of our Methodist heritage that we need to recover, and this conference focuses on that.”
Those elements include a “very keen awareness of God’s active presence in our lives; strong focus on spiritual practices; and being the presence of Christ in our communities,” Bryant said.
The Rev. Tom Albin, dean of the Upper Room Chapel, said early Methodists “found something for their souls that really matters.”
“We can learn from them how to encounter the living God to have the spiritual vitality to do what God has for us to do,” he said.
Albin spoke specifically about prayer, which he called “oxygen for the soul.”
“Prayer is the breath of the spirit,” he said. “The first thing the spirit of darkness will do is try to take away that breath.”
The Rev. Marjorie Thompson, director of Pathways in Congregational Spirituality at Upper Room, affirmed Albin’s message of spiritual discipline in the first SOULfiesta plenary session.
“For many of us the light has run out,” she said, “the light of joy and faithfulness. If your light has run out it’s because we are relying too much on our own resources. ‘The Lord is my shepherd.’ It’s not up to me.”
Church leaders are “so busy with the work of the church, we don’t have time for our own relationship with God,” Thompson said.
She suggested one simple spiritual practice that makes room for other disciplines that help leaders dig deeper into their relationships with God: keeping a Sabbath.
The Rev. Vance Ross, leader of the Upper Room’s Discipleship Ministries, told the second plenary session, “In vital congregations we expect disciples of Jesus Christ to be made that will be world-changers.”
Ross outlined four “collective behaviors that characterize vital Christian congregations”:
> Spiritual practices as means of grace.
> Worship celebrations where Christians experience the glory and wonder of God.
> Small groups engaged in Christian conversation for Christian relationships and nurture.
> Ministry calls beyond the congregation.
“The problem with society,” said the Rev. Trevor Hudson, “is the trivialization of God.” He said Christians need to “let God be God.”
Hudson, part of the pastoral team at Northfield Methodist Church in Benoni, South Africa, spoke at the third and final plenary session.