All Saints, Winter Park, was the setting for the 2023 Mockingbird Orlando Conference, The Urgency of Grace, held Jan. 20 and 21.

“One hundred seventy-five Christians, young and old, male and female, attended,” said Mockingbird founder and conference speaker David Zahl. “I was very pleased that the demographics were split 50/50.”

“The primary goal of the Orlando Conference, and all of the conferences, was furthering the message of God’s grace in unusual and creative ways so people can get excited about that message,” he explained. “Bringing new people to understand God’s grace is a secondary conference goal.”

Now based in Charlottesville, Virginia, Mockingbird is a nondenominational ministry that seeks to connect the Christian faith with the realities of everyday life in fresh and down-to-earth ways. The ministry achieves this through publications, conferences and online resources. It was founded in June 2007 by a small group of friends and colleagues in New York City, whose initial idea was to reach out to young adults who considered themselves “burned by the church.” They held weekly meetings, worked closely with a few local churches, started a blog, launched publishing projects and hosted conferences.

Fr. Stuart Shelby and Friday night’s keynote speaker, Harrison Scott Key, greet each other before the conference. | Photo: All Saints, Winter Park

Soon, Mockingbird began reaching more than young people. Its website describes those early efforts: “Essentially, we threw a lot of stuff at the wall and looked to see what stuck.”

The conference agenda featured Evening and Morning Prayer and devotions by the Rev. Stuart Shelby, rector of All Saints; the All Saints choir; and Christian speakers representing clergy and non-clergy. “I chose Harrison Scott Key as the Friday-night keynote speaker because he is a hilarious Christian,” Zahl said. “God is very important to him. He comes at this from a different angle. We picked Al Hill [ the Rev. Aloysius Hill] because he is a local pastor from another denomination who brings a different take on grace.”

Additional speakers included Zahl’s parents, Mary Zahl and the Very Rev. Dr. Paul F.M. Zahl; the Rev. Dave Johnson; Jane Anderson Grizzle and the Rev. Canon Dr. Justin Holcomb.

Holcomb’s session title was ‘Law and Gospel as Pharmakon.”

“Mockingbird is known for talking about law and the gospel, so I explored how the important theological theme relates to survivors and perpetrators of abuse,” he said. “I hope attendees became empowered to respond and care for abuse survivors in a more compassionate, practical and informed way.”

The ministry has close ties to the diocese and to Central Florida. Holcomb was with Mockingbird at its beginning and was a board member at one time. He also spoke at the opening of a conference at Calvary-St. George’s in New York City when the Rt. Rev. Gregory O. Brewer was rector there. The bishop’s son Dr. Todd Brewer is the managing editor of the Mockingbird website.

The Rev. Aloysius Hill, senior pastor, Flowers Temple Church of God in Christ | Photo: All Saints, Winter Park

David Zahl, whose mother grew up in Central Florida, now holds the same position at Christ Church, Charlottesvile, that Holcomb once had. Shelby hosted the younger Zahl at a previous parish and at All Saints in 2019 as part of a book tour.

Shelby has been involved with Mockingbird for several years and said he attended four or five of the annual Mockingbird Spring Conferences in New York City. “I got involved through friends who were part of it as it took shape,” he explained. “They were seminarians and ministers interested in recovering the message of God’s grace entrusted to them and God meeting us in everyday life. Mockingbird answered questions we didn’t have the words to ask.”

“At the 2022 conference, Dave and I were talking about how great it would be to have a conference in Orlando at All Saints,” he added. “I was more interested in getting the message to people in the area. I wanted to go deeper into the parish and the area because coming to them with God’s love is the most important thing.”

For more about Mockingbird, please go to mbird.com.