by Erin Cox-Holmes

The Rev. Thomas L. Hoyt Jr., a bishop in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and the president of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, pulled out all the metaphors and similes at his command to hammer home his message during Wednesday morning's ecumenical worship service: Get up and do something.

The service was a Pentecost parade, a celebration of the common faith connecting Christians, a multi-language, multinational event as diverse as the colors of the vestments worn by the celebrants.

Before the preaching came the music: the crooning harmonies of "The Dream Team" Richmond Boys Choir and the gospel groove of the One Voice Chorus. When the latter group sang "Credo," from the Gospel Mass, one worshipper said, "I felt the Apostle's Creed with

They set the stage for the sermon by Hoyt, who was introduced by the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, the stated clerk of the PC(USA)'s General Assembly, as "one of the great Christian leaders of our nation ... a person of passionate heart, prophetic vision for the world, disciple for Christian unity."

Hoyt's message was based on Romans 12, in which Paul asks who can be saved. The answer is that anyone can be saved who will accept God's gift of grace.

What should "saved" people do? Become FAT people - faithful, accountable and trustworthy, Hoyt said. In worship we come to God as a living sacrifice, giving up our desire to go our own way to go God's way instead. Hoyt put it this way: "God wants to know: Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby?"

God is "strangely mixed up" in the world rather than apart from it, he said. "The kingdom of God is like that: God enters into the dirt and the dust and grime of life." And God expects us to be active in the world, where we live, transforming it by identifying with the powerless among us.

Hoyt said the worshiping community must have a plan, resolutions and pronouncements, organized action. "Otherwise the children of darkness will be stronger than the children of light," he said, maintaining that people transformed by God's mercy and grace don't value women over men, managers over workers, the rich over the poor. They don't believe it's OK "to invade someone else's country and tell them it's for their own good," he said.

Transformed non-conformists vote, and vote for candidates who stand with people who are poor and powerless, he said, quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr: "I never intend to adjust myself to a society which takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes."

The Rev. Helen Locklear, associate director of the PC(USA)'s Racial-Ethnic Ministries Program Area, announced that the offering was earmarked for the Commission on Religion in Appalachia (CORA), an ecumenical group that works for justice for the people of Appalachia and against racism.

The service was held in the historic Carpenter Center, built in 1928 as an exotic movie palace, with Egyptian, Italian, and Spanish motifs, satin curtains, tapestries and stained glass on the