Dancing Together: Uniting in Worship at the Clergy Conference

By: The Rev. Tom Adamson, Priest-in-charge, Holy Family Episcopal Church, Angola and The Rev. Mary Taflinger, Missioner for Pastoral Care for the Diocese of Indianapolis

“We’re learning to dance together.” A “first dance” metaphor emerged in the conversations of the joint liturgy team planning worship for last week’s clergy conference at Waycross. This was the first time all the clergy from the diocese of Northern Indiana and Indianapolis had been able to meet in person. Covid cancelled the first joint in-person gathering several years ago.

Worship is central to our common life and at clergy conference it is often a place of refreshment for those who are usually leading weekly worship. It’s also one of the few times when those who serve smaller congregations are able to pray Morning and Evening Prayer in community. Liturgy planning and leadership are ways clergy care for one another when we gather.

In our first conversation together, our liturgy planning team of The Rev. Tom Adamson, from Northern Indiana, and The Rev. Jason Haddox and The Rev. Mary Taflinger from Indianapolis discovered that our two dioceses do the “liturgy dance” a little differently at clergy conferences. Northern Indiana takes a more informal approach, having clergy volunteer to lead and make choices about canticles and music. Indydio’s recent practice has been to plan liturgy ahead of time, put a worship booklet together, and recruit leaders before the conference. We agreed to a hybrid of these two approaches and worked to have a balance of leadership from each diocese. In order to facilitate the “dance,” materials which would be broadly familiar were selected from the Book of Common Prayer and the Hymnal 1982.

Creating a welcoming and prayerful worship space in the large assembly hall was important to the liturgy team.  To this end Bishop Sparks brought a large icon that was written for him several years ago.  It is often present at clergy gatherings in the Diocese of Northern Indiana. 

The Rev. Jason Haddox and The Rev. Tom Adamson led the music with their considerable talents – The Rev. Jason on piano and The Rev. Tom on violin.  The musical gifts of everyone were called forth at the Eucharist as we learned a Kyrie Eleison in three-part round taught by Jason.  The joy of making music together spilled into a fun impromptu sing-a-long in the evening as folks from both diocese gathered to enjoy old songs and new friendships.