Finding True North #16: Catching Up—Annual Conference, Preaching and More

Well, I am behind on updates. What a crazy week! I am still absolutely loving it here in Indianapolis. Though my adventures last week took me north to Muncie, IN and south to English, IN, so I'm getting out. Let's see if I can get caught up on life lately.

Last Wednesday through Friday, I was at Ball State University (which has the most confusing campus ever) for the Indiana Annual Conference. People joke about conference being a drag, and sometimes it is, but you know, it can be really cool to have all those clergy and laity together in one place. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Of course, I didn't have to go to the meetings and voting sessions because I was backstage most of the time with Marcia McFee, worship designer/leader extraordinaire. Dr. McFee was kind enough to take me on as her intern for the conference, so I got to shadow her and help out behind the scenes with worship. Well, until Friday, when Dr. McFee lost her voice and I was suddenly assigned a solo (a beautiful new setting of the hymn "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" to a tune by Mark Miller). That was not in the plan, but it was a lot of fun. I sang during the commissioning/retirement service, which was a truly beautiful occasion and got me excited about being on the ordination track.

(Side note: someone asked if I were Dr. McFee's daughter. Blonde worship geeks unite!)

I will probably do a separate post reflecting on Dr. McFee's worship workshop/seminar (I keep getting myself in trouble by promising later posts), but it was very educational simply to follow her around for a few days. She has an approach to worship design that transcends discussions of style, which I greatly appreciate, because I think the worship wars that plague the church today are complete garbage. Dr. McFee is a performer, so she is all about preparation, intentionality and presentation, but she also strives to make worship a performance that people are enabled to participate in rather than passively observe.

Annual Conference was also a lot of fun just for the people. Hanging out with Dr. McFee was great fun, and I actually got to chat with the bishop (Michael Coyner) some backstage. Bishop Coyner is pretty awesome, though the test of his awesomeness will come if he ever sees this picture—he left his dressing room door open with the bishop's crozier right there. What else was I supposed to do? :)

Anyway, I got to meet a number of really wonderful people, bonded with the musicians and ran into old friends at conference. Not only were several people from North there, I also got to meet Brent Wright, the pastor of Broad Ripple UMC in Indy (Brent and I have a mutual friend at Duke), and I ran into Brian Jones, former director of the Duke Youth Academy back when I was a student there. Have I mentioned that I love the connectional nature of the UMC? Because I really, really do. I love knowing people and making relational connections. Being in a wholly different state where I shouldn't have known anyone and yet finding new and old friends was pretty cool.

I came back from conference a day early because I had a wedding to attend on Saturday, and it ended up being doubly good that I returned Friday because I ended up going to a social gathering of people from Earth House. I love Earth House, and the people there are amazing, not to mention my age. In the past week, I've actually started making some friends in my age group, which is great. Hopefully Friday night was just the beginning of adventures with these folks over the summer.

Anyway, the wedding on Saturday was in English, IN, about 2.5 hours south of Indianapolis. It was a lovely wedding, and I got to see a lot of friends from college. But I also got to see southern Indiana, which has a lot of beautiful farmland and actually some hills (since central IN is pretty darn flat). Hooray for exploring the state a bit.

Then Sunday was my day to preach at North. I already posted my sermon, so feel free to check that out. I was pretty nervous about preaching, but excited too, and I think it went well. I actually had to practice my sermon for the staff the previous Tuesday afternoon, which was incredibly nerve-wracking—using a microphone in a huge, stone sanctuary with 5 people sitting there. Yeesh. But the feedback from the staff was very helpful and shaped the final form of my sermon.

I preached twice, at 8:30 and 11:00 a.m., and the second service went better, but that was to be expected. I was really encouraged by the feedback I got from parishioners—of course, church people are going to be nice regardless, but several people actually quoted back to me points I had made, saying they had resonated with what I said. That was affirming to me, because it means I connected with at least some people in meaningful ways. I enjoy preaching, but it's pretty terrifying and I don't have much experience, but this was a positive and helpful experience for me.

This week has continued to be intense, but in a good way. Tonight is the last day of Party in the Park, North's version of Vacation Bible School, sort of. This is the second year for Party in the Park. Basically, they've set up in the church parking lot and the park across the street with a big tent and several activity stations for kids, including storytelling, crafts, music, games and more. They've served dinner each night and invited the surrounding community to join in. It's been going great so far, though unfortunately it's raining today, which may put a damper on the last night, but hopefully people will still come when we hold it inside tonight.

I think that'll do for an update for now. Indianapolis is an amazing city. A few of the North clergy have been joking about me switching conferences, and as much as I love Western NC, I'm really starting to love Indy as well.