The Diocese of Central Florida held its annual Clergy Conference, featuring guest speaker Dr. Diane Langberg addressing the topic of “Redeeming Power,” on Oct. 18-20. As with last year’s event, the conference, mandatory for all parochial priests, was hybrid (virtual via Hopin and live at Canterbury Retreat and Conference Center in Oviedo) to accommodate social distancing, with 66 in attendance at Canterbury and 95 online. CommCo Productions did what diocesan Communications Director Erik Guzman said was “an excellent job” in its second year of providing AV services for the event.
The Rev. Canon Josh Bales of the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, led the conference music, ably assisted by Ms. Carolyn Arndt Morris, pianist, and Dr. Karen Adderly Clark, vocalist. Dr. Kenneth M. Miller and Mrs. Monica Taffinder Tydmers, LMHC, LMFT, provided counseling.
Langberg, globally recognized for her 49 years of clinical work with trauma victims, has trained caregivers on six contents in responding to trauma and to the abuse of power. She also directs her own counseling practice in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, and has written several books, including Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church (required reading for this conference).
Langberg’s first session covered the topic of “Power Defined and Power Abused,” highlighting a difficult topic: the abuse of any form of power. A Q&A session followed this and all of her messages.
“Violence silences and deceives human beings, both victim and perpetrator, and other witnesses as well,” Langberg said. “Deception is soul-deadening and produces despair.” She spoke of the tragedy of the abuse of spiritual power and how God designed us to have power (“the capacity to do something, to have an effect, to influence people or events, to have authority”) to unveil his character and bless his world. She offered various examples of the ways power has often been used to do just the opposite.
Langberg’s second session, “Power and Systemic Abuse,” detailed both present and historical examples of systemic abuse as well as defining it as “a system designed to serve humans is instead destructive, reducing and harming those who should find safety, care and respect from it.”
“Part of our call today is to know that the places in which you serve are God’s houses, not yours,” Langberg told the assembled clergy. “And his house is to look like him: It is to be safe and full of truth and care and love, no matter the cost, because that is the pattern that he left us, no matter the cost.”
The Rt. Rev. Gregory O. Brewer also addressed the conferees, sharing his personal faith journey and urging them to connect with “the Father of whom Jesus speaks” in spirit and truth. He pointed them to the Collect for Purity, which begins, “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.”
Langberg’s third session covered “Redeeming Power.” After pointing out the differences between sheep and wolves and the dangers of wolves in sheep’s clothing, she noted that “all sheep require a shepherd if they are to survive and flourish” and that there is only one “great and good shepherd,” God himself. As undershepherds, clergy must follow the great shepherd, whose primary instruction to them is “feed my sheep” and to “lead with his character made real in our flesh, with a comprehensive godliness that carries his fragrance,” she said.
In the final conference session, “Wolves, Self-Examination and the Body of Christ,” Langberg encouraged self-examination, again pointing out the dangers of what she called “a body that doesn’t follow its head” and how clergy members must be so full of Christ that only his character spills from them when pressed. She offered key questions to guide them in their self-examination, urging them not to be like Judas, who hid his sin and died in shame, but to bring the light of Christ ever more deeply into their souls.
All of Langberg’s sessions and Brewer’s sermon are available for viewing in this 2021 Clergy Conference YouTube playlist.