LAKELAND — Amid the often hectic schedule and sometimes contentious debate that occur during Florida Annual Conference events, delegates to this year’s session found a small, quiet space where they could remember their baptism, practice forgiveness, marvel at God’s creation or simply be alone with symbols and images reminding them of their Savior.

“Our goal was to create a sacred place…where you connect with God,” Ann Lee Earnshaw said. “…The meeting is held in a big space with many, many people, so it’s good to have smaller spaces where you’re not in a crowd.”

Earnshaw is director of spiritual formation at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Orlando and a member of the conference’s Spiritual Formation team, which was charged with creating the prayer garden this year.

Florida Conference Bishop Timothy W. Whitaker was pleasantly surprised by the size and spiritual depth of the space. “It was really a remarkable thing, and I loved it,” he said. “It’s the only place set aside for prayer in a commercial facility like this that I’ve ever seen that really was an environment in which people could center on their relationship with God and have a time of contemplation and also prayer.”

This year’s prayer garden consisted of six prayer chapels surrounding the prayer labyrinth. Each chapel had a theme based on scripture or Christian tradition, including creation, the mystics, icons, baptism, forgiveness and communion. There was also a Christ center where people could focus on Jesus.

“We didn’t want it to be just an Anglo room, either, so we intentionally included fabrics and objects to reflect the diversity of our conference,” Earnshaw said.

Joseph Ha, a member of South Florida Korean United Methodist Church, said the minutes he spent in the garden are among his most cherished moments of annual conference.

“I love[d] the prayer; it was excellent,” Ha said. “I went every morning. It was really touching.”

The Sacred Spaces Team from St. Luke’s created many of the banners and icons used in the prayer garden’s chapels. The Rev. Jan Richardson, artist in residence at the San Pedro Spiritual Development Center in Orlando, also contributed.

Several of the rooms also had interactive components, allowing people to create physical representations of their prayers. The forgiveness room had a tray of sand in which people could write words or symbols, then smooth over them as an act of forgiveness.