Canterbury House U of M

Canterbury University of Michigan

My basic philosophy as a chaplain and as a minister is that I would like to be a resource for others’ ministries. The fun part is this mostly involves saying “Yes and how can I help” to a lot of people’s ideas. Community partnerships that come from this remain the strongest key to some of the best work happening around Canterbury House.

The pandemic definitely had an effect on our oldest ongoing community relationship: the concert series. I had grown concerned that with so many of the rhythms of the year disrupted for so long we would have trouble returning with two undergraduate classes coming through not having been introduced to the music side of Canterbury House. I am happy to report not only have concerts revived with strength this fall but also students who participate still feel a strong tie to this place and the sort of music we make possible here, despite much of our music having been disrupted for a lot of their time at Umich.

Another fruitful partnership has been with the Ross Business School’s Multidisciplinary Action Project (MAP) program. In the Winter semester of 2022 a team of students did a feasibility study on whether Canterbury House could open a coffee shop. The report was very optimistic and left a good guide for fleshing this possibility out going forward. The students enjoyed their experience enough that we have been asked whether we would be another site for the coming year. We are looking into having this second team look at communications and advertising.

The Michigan Trans Assistance Project has faced some hurdles on the administrative front but has still managed to connect trans people in need in Washtenaw County with direct cash aid over the last two years the project has been active. They are currently in a state of assessing how they can effectively scale as the project grows and what MTAP’s future may be.

On the faith community side of things, this semester we’re offering Evening Prayer on Wednesdays along with our community supper and a Bible study on Revelation on Sundays. Attendance is steady, tilted a bit more towards graduate students and young adults this year than undergraduates. We remain a place people know they are going to find welcome for their doubts and their grappling with faith.

Through additional fundraising and careful stewardship over the last five years, we have saved enough money for a landscaping project to build a courtyard at our front door. This will create not only a more useable outdoor gathering space but also open up opportunities to engage pedestrian traffic along one of the busier roads in Ann Arbor.

Last year I partnered with Dr. Stephen Rush of the music school (also of Jazz Mass fame) to start Sound & Silence, a regular event featuring shared silent practice for people of any faith or no faith and experimenting with contemplative music. This year we have expanded the program and now have a recent alum acting as coordinator, weekly meetings for shared silence, and funds to continue featuring a monthly guest artist playing with the themes of contemplative music and contemplative silence. I was recently awarded an Episcopal Church Foundation Fellowship for this project, which will help us update our equipment, expand our

capacity to pay artists, and give me a chance to visit other communities playing with similar themes. This is quickly becoming my favorite project I’ve engaged since getting ordained. Depending on how things develop this year I am hoping to find additional grant support and community partnership to keep this idea growing.

Moving forward I am hoping to set a strategy with the board to better expand our capacity for ministry, starting with some administrative wrinkles that need ironing out (especially when it comes to easily accessing online fundraising tools) and then proceeding to expand our fundraising endeavors, including creating an alumni database and figuring out a development strategy that keeps alumni and fans of Canterbury House connected to the ministry itself and not just the chaplain.

The. Rev. Matthew Lukens