He calls it "an experience with the Nicene Creed."

After explaining that they would be reading through the creed phrase by phrase, Woodward would give the charge:

"When the phrase is something you understand on one level or another, and believe, stand up or remain standing. When the phrase is something that makes no sense to you, or is something you do not believe, sit down or remain sitting."

The resulting dance, he says, appeared to be something akin "to a rebellious exercise class," with folks popping up, sitting down and squirming to watch their neighbors as they stood and sat and stood again.

At the end, Woodward would ask what they had observed. "The answers were always the same: No one stood all the way through the creed, and no one stayed seated all the way through, and there was always someone standing for every phrase."

The teaching was obvious. "This is the creed of the church. It is what the Episcopal Church, in its fullness, believes, even while individual members may believe only parts of it. We make up for one another's 'deficiencies.' It is the same of thing, of course, with the spiritual gifts allocated within a congregation. One person's prayers 'make up' for another's lack of that gift. Another's hospitality covers for those who lack it. Each of us is valuable, and the whole is the whole."

To learn more about this exercise, write to Woodward at tbwsalinas@aol.com. To respond to this idea, email greatidea@episcopal-life.org. We welcome your own great idea.