Summer Conference Reflections

I've been attending the "Church Unbound" conference in Montreat for these couple of days. I actually led a seminar last year at the same event. I went just to listen this year.

Every few years I have realized it's a good thing to use continuing education time and funding for something other than music events. This year my registration for the PAM Worship and Music conference in Montreat was gratis because we loaned them handbells. So I had some spare funds.

The speaker this year was Brian McLaren, about whom I've heard a lot, but whom I've never heard or read. It's been very nice and enlightening. The only singing has been an ice-breaker at the beginning of the plenary sessions. They have offered a seminar on "unbound worship" which was interesting. The leadership for that came from the Covenant Community.

Last year when I was teaching, I also took in the plenary sessions. They were led by Shane Claiborne. They were very exciting also, and totally unrelated to music.

A colleague asked via Facebook who I would recommend to seek to hear, were she to try to engage in this sort of non-musical education event. My best answer is that it doesn't really matter. What matters most is that we church music professionals recognize the need for growth in our non-musical/spiritual/theological lives. Like many of us I attend a huge national event, teach once or twice for a local or regional event, and very quickly can be drained by all that leadership. That is unless I take commensurate time to get refueled at an event in which I can think in other ways than notes and rests and sharps and flats and toe and heel.

I suppose I'm a little unique in that I hold an MDiv degree. That may make it for likely that I get a kick out of non-musical and theology-related seminars. But I think any church professional would be well-suited to take in a similar event, outside of their usual area of expertise. This began years ago for me by taking in a retreat led by Richard Foster, who was big into spiritual disciplines and the contemplative life.

And for the record, I don't attend every session when I enroll in these events. It's not my personality style (as SJK has rightly noted). I pick and choose and spend plenty of time reading and watching hummingbirds.