The voyage begins

Michele Marr

The Star Fleet Command at St. Wilfrid of York Episcopal Church will

lead dozens of children, teens and adults next week on a journey of

spiritual growth that promises to be out of this world.

Christened “The Voyage of the Starship Corpus Christi,” the

intergenerational, interactive adventure will be launched as an

alternative to the traditional summer vacation Bible school.

The “prime directive” for the voyage, “to love God with every part

of your life and to love other people the way that you love

yourself,” will guide the voyage’s lessons activities.

The church’s parish hall has been transformed into the Starship

Corpus Christi, and another building has been made into a replication

of a holographic environment simulator (known as a Holodeck in “Star

Trek: The Next Generation” lingo). Frank Rood has directed it all.

Rood and half a dozen other volunteers were still building the set

last week, careful of every detail. Lumber, paint, fabric, drawings

and tools lay scattered throughout the church’s Sacquety Hall.

Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his long, silver hair tied back at

the nape of his neck, Rood ran a paint roller through a pan of purple

paint at his feet and then rolled it over several panels stretched

out on the floor.

Overhead, on the walk to the bridge flew a dozen multicolored,

silken flags, many emblazoned with symbols -- a chalice, a crown, a

fish, the Earth, a dove representing the Holy Spirit -- significant

to the upcoming journey’s prime directive.

It has taken nearly 30 10-hour days for Rood, his wife Cindy Woods

and a core team of four volunteer planner-designers -- Ann Thomas,

Norm Kellogg, Lance Williams and Dick Sneary -- to build the vehicle

for the spiritual voyage.

Another 20 volunteers came and went, as they could, to sew, glue,

hammer or paint.

The Rev. Karen Wojan, Children’s and Family Ministries director at

St. Wilfrid, had approached Rood and Woods with the idea for the

program after vacation Bible school last summer.

Wojan had picked up the idea for the starship voyage from a

similar program created several years ago by the Rev. Canon Gregory

Larkin, then rector of St. Thomas of Canterbury Episcopal Church in

Long Beach and Kim Rhode, the parish’s director of religious

education at the time.

When she approached Rood and Woods about the possibility of

staging the program, Wojan said, “they took the idea and ran away,

even got carried away with it.”

She was concerned about whether they could really create such an

ambitious set with the limited resources she had at hand.

Rood and Woods answered her concerns with a quote borrowed from

Walt Disney, a quote Rood keeps posted on his work table: “It’s kind

of fun to do the impossible.”

And so they have. On Monday at 6:30 p.m., after a light supper in

the starship’s mess hall, Wojan, a.k.a. Captain Karen, will sit on

the bridge and call passengers and crew to attention.

The Rev. Harold Clinehens, rector of St. Wilfrid and Star Fleet

Command admiral, who is on vacation, will introduce the mission’s

prime directive via video from his remote location and the

five-evening voyage will begin.

The program, with curricula prepared in three age-appropriate

units, is designed to appeal to all ages.

Preschool children and kindergarteners -- “junior cadets” -- will

gather at Planet Praise in the church’s preschool building for a

loosely structure program of play, story time, singing, arts and

crafts prepared by teacher Genie Koenker.

Senior Cadets, first- through sixth-grade students, will

participate in three experiential adventures each evening. On the

Holodeck, they will be transported back in time to meet some of the

people in the early church: Peter outside the temple in Jerusalem;

Paul in a marketplace mending tents; Lydia, the seller of purple

cloth and dye in Philippi.

In the science laboratory, they will learn about space and conduct

some experiments through lessons drawn from Karol Ladd’s books “The

Glad Scientist Visits Outer Space” and “The Glad Scientist Discovers

the Creator.” The will also get to work on arts and crafts, on the

first night designing their own Star Fleet t-shirts with fabric

paints.

Teens, adults and parents who choose not to participate in the

children’s program will attend the Star Fleet’s adult academy for

“Spiritual Growth through Creative Expression.” Sharon Cherney will

lead them in explorations of haiku, clay work, journaling and Zen

gardening. Guest speakers will teach them Hebrew folk dancing and the

ancient spiritual practice of walking the labyrinth.

Together, they will make what Wojan calls a “journey to the Son.”

“We can take people to the future and also journey to the past ...

transported to the time of Christ and Paul ... and learn the

important lessons of God’s love that remains constant through the

ages,” Rood said.

Then borrowing from the movie “Hook,” he said, “To live this

adventure, you must stop being grown up and be willing to play.”

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at michele@soulfoodfiles.com.