[Detroit, Mich: April 4, 2008] Dean Tracey Lind crossed over to the Diocese of Michigan for the annual Becoming the Household of God conference at St. John’s, Royal Oak, on April 4-5, 2008. She comes from the neighboring state and diocese of Ohio, where she was raised in Columbus and currently serves as the dean of Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland.

The morning of the two-day conference, Lind sat with Bishop Wendell Gibbs to discuss creative liturgy and its impact on urban ministry and the church.

Bishop Wendell Gibbs: “Tracey, it is so good to welcome you to the Diocese of Michigan. We’ve been waiting a long time for this. It’s also good to have another Buckeye around, so welcome.”

Dean Tracey Lind: “Thank you. I trust Wolverine spirit won’t wear off too much on me. I know it is a hospitable place and that one can cross the borders because the Episcopal Church is liminality and that’s what we work with.”

Gibbs: “As the Household of God continues to enlarge, it seems that some of our congregations have a little trouble welcoming people by the liturgy we use. ... I invite people to come to the cathedral [in Cleveland for] the nine o’clock service that you have. You don’t have to read to be part of the service.”

Lind: “Every blessing also has a curse and every bit of light also has a shadow. I think our blessing is being a people of The Book of Common Prayer, but I also think it is our curse ... I think one of the challenges for us is that while we love our tradition, we also have to make room for some new traditions and part of what happens with the prayer book is that it can become idolatrous as opposed to a tool and an instrument. One of the things we don’t realize in the Episcopal Church is that literacy is a necessity in the way in which we generally worship. Therefore, we have class issues that we don’t even realize.”

Gibbs: “That is particularly a problem when we are talking about urban strategies, especially an urban strategy here in Detroit where it is known that we have at least a 47 percent functional illiteracy rate. Being a people of the Book, as you say, can be a blessing and a curse. We should be able to share some of who we are and how we approach God, but if we get stuck in the Book, when people walk in the door who are illiterate or unable to use a book and they see us all holding a book, they are not drawn into our community. ... One of things we need to do is get out of the Book ... Maybe it’s not an idol yet, but it’s certainly a crutch.”

[Lind described realizing the need to create new liturgical avenues so that the people of Christ Church, Ridgewood, and St. Paul’s, Patterson, New Jersey, would be welcome.]

Lind: “When I got to Patterson, New Jersey, where I served for 12 years in a very poor neighborhood in a very poor city with people who were not only struggling with literacy but many were struggling with English as a second language, which is another piece of the conversation. Our liturgy was still very classically Episcopal and our congregation wasn’t looking like the liturgy in many ways ...

“[We discovered something, Lind said] about boundaries and borders and crossings and expanding the household of God. What we came to realize is that a lot of these men were unable to follow the liturgy. So we created a Wednesday evening service where we worshipped in a circle. There was no prayer book. There was no bulletin. There were song sheets. We hired a Pentecostal musician, the son of a Pentecostal minister [who] became a cantor and he began to teach us ‘call and response.’ We began to take the best of our tradition, which is the liturgy of the table, and Anglican theology, which we were not going to compromise. And we took the best of liberation theology. And we took the best of Pentecostal energy. And we took the best of some Baptist hymnody. And we used a simpler translation of the Bible and we began to do reflection in the circle. And we took the Open Table notion where all were welcome at God’s table and we began to craft this liturgy, but what ended up happening was that it impacted the Sunday morning liturgy.

“St. Paul’s Sunday morning liturgy began to be more open. We were still using The Book of Common Prayer and we were using a bulletin, but we were using enough call and response that you didn’t really have to rely on your ability to read. ...

“When I went to Cleveland, it was a slightly different issue. The issue there was trying to make everybody happy with various liturgical styles in one service—and nobody was happy. So we went to a three-service [model] and crafted our own liturgy that was unique and distinct and contextual to who we were. It’s still Episcopal worship and The Book of Common Prayer, but you don’t need to pick up a prayer book.

“Our nine o’clock at Trinity is a jazz mass. ... We have a cantor. We do a lot of call and response. We gather around the table. We take that new energy and still preach a full sermon, we welcome children at the table and they help bless the bread and the wine ... and it all happened organically. That’s part of what is so important about liturgy. It’s a common order of worship. There are common prayers. You’ve got to be able to count on it—because that’s what it means to be an Episcopalian in worship—but there’s the flexibility of the context.”

Gibbs: “In trying to develop some sort of strategy to reach the folks [in the city who are unchurched] and to have a strategy for growing the church in the urban setting rather than having it constantly decline, do you see liturgy as a place to start?”

Lind: “It’s a place; I don’t think it is the only place to start. A number of things have to happen at the same time. The signals we send when people walk in the door [are also important. For instance,] I think every church needs to have glass doors. Our wonderful red doors are not an invitation to come in. But glass doors [allow] people to look in and see what is going on in the church.

“We say ‘Here’s the church; here’s the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people.’ We always think that means see the people on the inside; but for me, it means seeing the people on the outside. And vice versa.

“It’s a sense of openness. It’s the liturgy. But it’s also—and I think this is as important as the liturgy—it’s an urgent and absorbing errand that engages the community beyond liturgy and beyond the pastoral care of our members. What does the neighborhood need us to be doing? It’s Frederick Buechner’s notion of vocation—the intersection between your passion and the world’s need. ...”

Gibbs: “That has been a part of the message that I have been trying to get across here for the past eight years, not just in the urban setting but across the diocese. Why are you on that corner or in that block or in that neighborhood? What is it that that congregation is there for. If the answer is we are here for ourselves and for our pastoral care, then you have the wrong answer because it’s not engaging the community….”

Lind: “I think in some ways we are like [mayors] as clergy in neighborhoods in the sense that we’re called to this geographic area. You were talking to me about being a bishop called to the geography of Michigan and being clear that you don’t go translating because you are called to this geography. Well, I think as clergy, while we might move, for the time we are there we are called to the geography. And if you don’t walk your neighborhood, you don’t see it. ...

“So seeing your neighborhood, and knowing your neighborhood, and walking your neighborhood, and breathing your neighborhood is really important. Whether you live there or not, if you claim the church, you are part of God’s vine-yard, so you’ve got to know it. I don’t think you can get around that. I think once you walk a neighborhood and you know it and you love it, you can create liturgy—especially with a bishop who’s supportive of that. I think one of the gifts you bring to this diocese is your own sensibility about liturgy and your willingness to give freedom and encouragement.

“Clergy brothers and sisters: your bishop is encouraging you to be creative in liturgy so that you can better serve the people of God. That’s one of the biggest gifts you can receive.”

Gibbs: “Thank you. I appreciate that.”