Relationships between the three Episcopal dioceses of northern New England have been growing closer since early 2022 when the bishops and Standing Committees of the Dioceses of Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire began exploring opportunities for collaboration and shared ministry. Through participation in tri-diocesan Sacred Ground circles and Province I book studies and formation events, lay leaders and clergy have gradually been getting to know one another.
The next big opportunities to deepen these relationships and form new ones will take place next month, and music is at their core.
Music That Makes Community will offer a one-day workshop on Saturday, October 5, at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in New London, New Hampshire for members of all three dioceses. The workshop, which will run from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., is billed by its organizers as “a lively day of singing, learning, and community building.” Register online.
Twenty-four hours after the first Music that Makes Community program concludes, a new one will begin. The tri-diocesan clergy conference opens at 4 p.m. on Sunday, October 6 at Geneva Point Center in Moultonborough, New Hampshire. The conference concludes on Tuesday morning with a Eucharist and time with Bishops Shannon MacVean-Brown of Vermont, Thomas Brown of Maine and Rob Hirschfeld of New Hampshire.
The Rev. Nancy Willbanks, an American Baptist pastor, and Jorge Lockward, a musician serving Church of the Village in New York City, will lead the events. They plan to focus on the ways that singing together can facilitate the development of shared leadership. “Music That Makes Community thinks everyone can be a leader and [our workshops] build people up to trust themselves,” Willbanks says. “It’s a joyous process — a joy-building process — we have fun together.”
Lockward, a native of the Dominican Republic, says conspire is his favorite word in English. “There is something powerful about shared breath and shared song,” he says. “The church is called to be in constant “con-spiration” toward the intent of God.”
Registration for the one-day Saturday workshop and for the clergy conference are now open. Registration for the clergy event closes this Friday, September 6. Clergy can register online using this link.
Clergy can register for both days or for the October 7 clergy conference only, and scholarship support for the lay and clergy workshop on October 5 is also available. Contact Conie Borchardt, executive director of Music Makes Community, at hello@musicthatmakescommunity.org.
The Rev. Louise Howlett, dean of clergy for the Diocese of New Hampshire, made the initial contact with MMC. “I’ve loved participating in Music That Makes Community events in the past and found it to be helpful for smaller churches as well as larger congregations,” she says. “The organization’s name says it all: music does make community. How perfect to have a way to be together that feels natural — a shared experience in our shared mission.”
New Sacred Ground circles, which provide another opportunity for the people of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine to consider their shared mission, are currently in formation.
The Rev. Susan Ohlidal, canon to the ordinary for missional vitality, says that these collaborations are part of the region’s enthusiasm for how relationships across the dioceses may continue to grow and evolve.
“It’s all unfolding: we have an idea of one aspect of relationship; what’s the next one?” she says. “How does that grow? What might we try next?”
Ohlidal says the work in northern New England is of a piece with Presiding Bishop-elect Sean Rowe’s call to rethink the enterprise of being the church.
“How do we think about that in Vermont?” she asks. “In our province? Among our three northern New England dioceses? These collaborative conversations and activities are ways to try out that rethinking to see what will emerge now, new, in our relationships. I’m excited that Sacred Ground circles have had such an impact in Vermont in our commitment to healing and justice work.”
An Advent clergy quiet day is also scheduled for December 14 for clergy from the dioceses of Vermont and New Hampshire. Watch future communications for more information.
