by Eliza Nuxoll, Children & Youth Program Director
The morning after the Annual/Animal Meeting, I left for Waycross Camp & Conference center in Morgantown, Indiana, for the 2025 Forma Conference. Waycross was one of several on-site locations for this “radically hybrid” conference, which is hosted by Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) for Christian formation volunteers and professionals across the country.
At Waycross, there were five people from the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan (EDOMI)—including our own David Laurance—and a handful from the Diocese of Indiana. We began each day with breakfast and morning prayer, attended Zoom workshops and panel discussions, and closed with dinner and Compline.
Of twenty workshops that Forma offered (which you can read about here), we each chose five. I attended:
- If They’re Not Leading, They’re Leaving: Empowering students for ministry;
- Playing our Way to a More Mature Faith;
- Restful Connection: Utilizing book clubs as a way to connect;
- Prayer and Theology with Children; and
- Orienting Yourself to a New Children’s Program.
David attended:
- Change: What it is, what it isn’t, and how to manage it with grace;
- Living Stories Sermons;
- If They’re Not Leading, They’re Leaving: Empowering students for ministry;
- Prayer and Theology with Children; and
- Tapping the Contemplative and Theological Wellsprings of Creation Care.
The conference’s theme this year was Come Away Together (from Mark 6:31-32 “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while”) and there were opportunities for rest, retreat, and Sabbath integrated into our daily schedule. We shared long meals, took walks on the grounds, read books, worked on a jigsaw puzzle, and painted, all while we reflected—silently and aloud, collectively and individually—on what we were learning from the conference and from each other.
David and I are continuing this work here at home, and we will share a few of our reflections in the St. Clarian in the coming months. In community with you, we want to discover what seeds the Holy Spirit might be planting, how to tend them, and what fruit they can bear here at St. Clare’s.