LAKELAND — Delegates to the Dare to Share Jesus 2000 Florida Annual Conference Event experienced Cuban-style worship June 1 during the Cuba Florida Covenant Celebration Experience, which featured praise music from the Monte de Sión praise band and a sermon from Cuban Bishop Ricardo Pereira.

Monte de Sión (Mount Zion) opened the celebration playing seven original praise songs featuring Cuban rhythms. Israel Ortet Sardiñas, the band’s director, said the music comes from God. "It’s not our music," he said. "We play the instruments, but the Holy Spirit touches the hearts. We like to see that people have been touched by the Holy Spirit. We want people to be involved in the freedom of worship."

Yusimi Granda Rodriguez, a 19-year-old singer with the group, said the band’s goal is to "carry the congregation into the presence of God."

The annual conference event was one stop on the band’s month-long tour of Florida that included visits to 15 churches in central and south Florida.

Following the music, Pereira presented Bishops Cornelius L. Henderson and J. Lloyd Knox with a "human gift" of two dancers from the Cuban National Ballet. The pair danced to two songs, one in Spanish, the other in English, that encouraged Christians to carry their light into the world.

Pereira referred to the sermon illustration about preaching to a cow he used at last year’s annual conference event and told delegates he expected to find a parking lot full of cows when he arrived in Lakeland. He also shared that all the Methodist churches in Cuba were fasting and praying for the Florida Annual Conference and "that the Holy Spirit will come upon you."

"God has a special love for this conference," he said. "God is in love with the [United] Methodist Church and God has you in his plans to transform Florida."

That transformation will come through the power of the Holy Spirit, he said. Those sent out to preach must be anointed by the Holy Spirit.

"We believe seminary is necessary, but it won’t solve all your problems," Pereira said. "It’s very important, you have to rely on God. Before I send anyone to seminary, I bring them to the altar, lay hands on them and tell them to receive the Holy Spirit."

Pereira told delegates about a church he served that was called a garbage can by the area’s residents because all the "bad people in town" went there. He said he was "glad my church was reaching those people because Jesus Christ is changing lives."

"There is not a hard place the gospel cannot reach and make a change," he said.

Pereira also shared his experience preaching in his first appointment when he was 22 years old. When he began to speak, "a wave of sleep would come from the back to the front," he said. He asked an older pastor for advice, and the pastor told him to get an arrow.

" ‘Is the arrow to poke the members?’ I asked," Pereira said. "He told me, ‘No. To poke you.’ When members fall asleep, it’s because the preacher is not ready to preach."

Pereira closed his sermon with an invitation to "everyone called to preach the gospel in the Florida Conference" to be transformed by the Holy Spirit. "No one can trust in their own strength. Strength comes from God," he said. "Allow God to perform miracles in your life."