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synaxis

The Office of Pastoral Life is pleased to announce our winter Pastoral Life Synaxis online conference for the clergy of the Orthodox Church in America on Tuesday, December 20th from 2:00-4:00 pm EST. Father Marcus Burch from the Diocese of the South will be the featured speaker sharing experiences as a parish administrator. Don’t let the word ‘administration’ turn you away from this event! Come and hear helpful tips about how your brother clergy work smarter to make things work smoothly in the parish. You may also hear stories about what not to do that can be helpful as well. Click on the one-minute video link for a brief review of the topic. The registration link is below. 

Although the conference begins at 2:00 PM, the Zoom meeting will be OPEN for fellowship at 1:30 PM. After the keynote presentation, registered participants will be divided into groups of four to six people and sent to breakout rooms to discuss how the topic relates to the participants and their parishes. The breakout session will last just under 1½ hours with a facilitator placed in each breakout room. The breakout session is based on the model of Peer Learning where the interaction and relationship of the participants form a community of learning focused on priestly and pastoral ministry.

Whether you have enjoyed past Synaxis events or look forward to your first experience, please invite a friend. Registration emails will go out three times in December to all clergy emails listed in the online OCA clergy directory. The Zoom link will go out in the last registration email on December 19th. When registering, you can request to be placed in a small group with specific people; otherwise, you’ll be placed in a random group.

The online clergy Zoom conferences are intended to nurture spiritual brotherhood by offering a meeting place for our clergy to learn from one another, to support one another, and to be strengthened by their contact with one another, so that they may all be empowered to fight the good fight of faith. To find out more about clergy peer learning, please visit the Thriving in Ministry website.

We look forward to seeing you online at the December Clergy Synaxis! 

Register for Synaxis!