Love Prevails’ disruption of the Connectional Table (CT) meeting in Nashville in November was not planned as such. We had intended to pass out a list of Principled Leaders who had been lost to the denomination because of our exclusionary policies against LGBTQ people. But we had been agitated by the repressive welcome on our first day. The CT tolerated us to the point of disregarding us almost completely. I could not bear the thought that we would give them a list of people who had sacrificed their callings and ministries in our church, and that they would be ignored. So we decided that when we handed out the list, during the CT leadership report, I would sing the people’s names aloud.

I really hadn’t thought through what this experience would be like. I personally knew and loved the first five names on the list, as well as many others. When I began singing, I quickly became conscious that I was calling these person’s presence into the room. I felt them with me. For a moment my heart quickened. Then a calm came over me. It was a calm that came from elsewhere and covered me, and it was almost as if there was no one else in the room. I kept singing the names and walking. Certain people came vaguely into my view. At one point I was aware that Bishop Ough was asking me to stop singing, but it was as if I could not quite register his words. Then everyone stood up and read something together, aloud. I modulated to a higher key and sang the names louder. I had no plan of if or when to stop. Then CT member Ms. Cynthia Kent started screaming to stop the meeting. From that moment on, a conversation between Love Prevails and the Connectional Table proceeded.

When Bishop Jim Dorff spoke during those conversations afterwards, he said that when he entered the room and saw the CT members standing and speaking together aloud and heard my singing, he thought it was a moment of worship in the spirit of Pentecost. And he was right. It was a kairos moment filled with the Holy Spirit.

People ask Love Prevails why we are committed to the work of Disruption. This experience is an example of why. When Disruption is done in the right spirit, it provides opportunities for the Holy Spirit to break in, to create a disequilibrium in which new opportunities are made possible. Love Prevails will return to the Connectional Table meeting this April 2014. We will remain open to the creative work of Disruption and pray that the Holy Spirit will once again find ways to work through us.

Watch the kairos moment described above.