William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury half a century ago, asked, "When do you wake up in the Lord's Prayer?"

At the conference on evangelism at Kanuga last month, when representatives from all over the Anglican Communion were gathered, I woke up several times in new ways in the Lord's Prayer.

On several occasions, the priest or bishop leading us in worship asked us to pray the Lord's Prayer in our own native languages. Such a Babel of sound! Fortunately, God is the great Linguist who knows all languages, and he can hear each of us, as in about 40 languages we shared in this cacophony of prayer. One time I stopped speaking and signed the end of the prayer in the sign language of the deaf. I trust God not only heard our voices, but also read my signs.

The Rev. Canon John Sentamu, a Ugandan who serves a parish in London, led us in praying the Lord's prayer with gestures which he had worked out. Most of these were wide sweeps of one or both arms outward or upward, but for "forgive us our trespasses," it was marked with closed fists and our arms crossed over our chests in a humble gesture. When we got to "as we forgive those who trespass against us," we reached out to the persons on each side of us and held hands.

Archbishop Temple's question proved to be a fascinating part of this conference.

Claire Campbell Smith, an English woman employed by the British Broadcasting Corp. to schedule and monitor religious broadcasting, was at Kanuga and told of a service on the air in which the officiating clergyman said in his holiest voice, "There's something wrong with this microphone." The congregation automatically responded, "And also with you."

Ms. Smith also said most church music is not "broadcastable" because it is so awful.

After his address on the opening day of the conference, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey responded to questions from the audience. "How can we pray for you?" one person asked. "Daily, perhaps," the archbishop replied.

Some worthwhile quotes from the conference:

"The Anglican Church is God's Sleeping Beauty. The Prince who came, kissed her and woke her up is Evangelism." Bishop Benjamin Kwashi of Jos (Nigeria).

"Jesus was born in Bethlehem, not Canterbury." Bishop Samir Kafity of Jerusalem and the Middle East.

"If my stomach is empty, I have a physical problem. If my neighbor's stomach is empty, I have a spiritual problem." Bishop Jubal Neves of South Western Brazil.

Our guest columnist is the Rev. Emmet Gribbin, a retired priestis TLC's correspondent for the Diocese of Alabama.