|
Jesus
Is Lord!
Impact
of the Kansas City Ecumenical
Charismatic Renewal Conference 1977
.
by
Kevin Ranaghan
The historic Kansas City Ecumenical Charismatic
Renewal Conference in July of 1977 was hot! In the
90’s in the daytime, we trudged the streets
between hotels, the Convention Center, and other
venues, and to the stadium in the evening. Fifty
thousand Christians gathered together around one
theme: “Jesus is Lord.” This conference, sponsored
in remarkable unity by Catholic, Protestant,
classical and nondenominational Pentecostal
renewal groups was a significant response to
Jesus’ prayer that we might all be one.
It came about this way. From the beginning, many
leaders of the various renewals understood that
baptism in the Holy Spirit was an ecumenical grace
for the whole church. Many prayer groups and
communities were, in fact, ecumenical.
Denominational conferences invited speakers and
shared books and tapes from other streams. By 1974
there was a growing sense that we should manifest
the new unity we were experiencing. Key leaders of
the Catholic and Lutheran renewals along with
leaders of the large non-denominational Gulf Coast
Fellowship agreed to work together to plan a large
ecumenical gathering.
Kansas
City Ecumenical Charismatic Conference 1977
Most importantly, the Lord led us to forge a Unity
Statement articulating our purpose, promising
mutual cooperation and respect, and pledging
commitment to one another and to the Lord for this
event. Every group, speaker, performer, vendor and
worker had to agree to this statement. With many
different proposed agendas, the principles of this
statement provided a path to resolution and unity
in making decisions. We developed a pattern of
distinct denominational tracks in the mornings,
scores of open workshops in the afternoons, and
the large unified evenings in the stadium. Both
the unity statement and the three tiered pattern
of events were key to the success of Kansas City
and have been adopted by many other charismatic
events in the decades since.
The two years of planning leading up to one week
of celebration in Kansas City was the work of the
Lord, and also the Spirit-led hard work of many
who ministered both in public and behind the
scenes. From beginning to end, it was a foretaste
of the unity of the Body of Christ.
There are thousands of testimonies about what God
did there: conversions, Spirit baptisms, healings,
ecumenical friendships, ministries begun, growth
of communities, vocations to priesthood and
religious life. Here is just one story which is
public.
Present at Kansas City, as an interested
participant, not yet baptized in the Spirit, was
an Italian Capuchin friar and theologian. Deeply
moved by his experience there, he went directly
afterward to a Catholic charismatic retreat in New
Jersey. There, he was baptized in the Holy Spirit,
recommissioned in the Lord’s service. In the
decades since, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa has served
the Lord as an outstanding theologian of the
Renewal, a champion of ecumenism, and preacher to
the papal household in the Vatican.
Praise God for the Kansas City conference.
This article was first published
in PENTECOST
Today Magazine,
Special
Golden Jubilee Issue, Winter 2017,
Volume 42 Number 1. Used with permission.
Kevin
Ranaghan (born 1940) is an American
religious scholar, Catholic deacon, and a
founder of the People
of Praise.a charismatic, ecumenical
and covenant community with 22 locations
in the US, Canada and the Carribean. He is
married to Dorothy Ranaghan, and has six
children and twelve grandchildren.
|
