Full Circle

I've been having a blast performing, teaching and directing at my 13th Salvation Army TAM Conservatory. Our theme has been "Power to Be," based on Acts 1:8: "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth," and we've been seeing power and witness!

Early in our rehearsal for the finale there was a technical issue. I prayed that, since we've been learning to call upon the Power of the Lord, that He would help us with all of our technical needs. They fixed the problem so quickly that everyone got that it was the Lord and we all cheered!

Two of the actors and two of the dancers have trained this week not only to perform but to become leaders in the future. The quote that hit the slide before their dance was from Hudson Taylor: "The power of prayer has never been tried to its full capacity." That being said, our students did quite a lot of exploring!

Jonathon, Brad and Kathryn hanging
with me.
It's been such a privilege to be on faculty with five of my former students! Last night Jonathon Shaffstall and Kathryn Higgins made me laugh until the tears were streaming down my face with late night improv. The tears actually fell into my ears since I was a guest artist, playing a cadavre.

On Wednesday night Brad Cain taught a master class on directing. I felt like he put the brush strokes of a whole semester into the canvas of an hour!

Speaking of artwork, my former student Ryan Livingston brought his experience as a performer into his visual arts students' presentation of their work, including a board you just have to see to understand.

Mabel López-Cuevas attended one of my sociodrama workshops at a Christians in Theatre Arts Conference in Puerto Rico. She directed her students in creating one of my favorite choreodramas.

Friday morning I got to do a reading of John 4:1-45, The Woman at the Well, with Kathryn and her husband, Kyle Higgins. Then Kathryn's mother, Heather Ballentine, showed us the video at the bottom of this page. Heather and her husband Len led the Territorial School of Music and Gospel Arts (TSoMaGA). We talked this week about thin places, where we sense the reality of Heaven in a palpable way. TSoMaGA is one of the thinnest experiences I've known.

Heather reminded us that in non-Western societies miracles are being experienced more often: the lame are walking, the blind are seeing, the dead are coming back to life! She closed by inviting us to invite the Holy Spirit to have unfettered reign in our lives! It got seriously thin! We anointed each other with water, and waited on the Lord, who visited us palpably.

When our drama team gathered afterward we shared how the Holy Spirit spoke to us, and we did a couple of powerful enacted prayers.

Here's a powerful spoken word piece that was used early in the service:


If you received this via email visit http://blog.richdrama.com (8/11/17) to see the video.

More reports at #TAMC on Instagram and Facebook.

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