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The Diocese of California organized St. Gregory's Church in 1978 to reach people who were not hunting for familiar twentieth-century Episcopalian trappings. We were to press forward with the liturgical reform that had already produced the new American Book of Common Prayer, building further on the same sort of scholarly research into tradition as a resource for renewal. Above all we were to go for participation: tradition preserves popular usage, and the diverse forms of Christian worship around the world today have deep popular roots that spread far, and connect underground. So we openly mine tradition from everywhere to help us. We are a modern church, "dancing now," in Peter Berger's phrase. John Baldovin, a Jesuit professor at Weston, brought a busfull of students to Easter at St. Gregory's, and on the way home told them, "You have just had the closest experience possible to worship in the fourth century." But we're not re-creating any century. We're drawing on the whole tradition of God's conversation with humanity, for Christian mission today. Better yet, drawing on the writings of St. Gregory of Nyssa, our fourth century patron, we put our mission this way: "St. Gregory's Church invites people to see God's image in all humankind, to sing and dance to Jesus' lead, and to become God's friends." Today St. Gregory's draws some two hundred and fifty people to three services each weekend, in a new sanctuary specifically designed for our worship, that won the A.I.A. award for the best religious architecture in the country the year we put it up. Our two hundred members' average age is late thirties—twenty years young for an Episcopal Church—and they divide roughly sixty-forty percent on most social scales: sixty percent single, sixty percent female, sixty percent straight, and so on. Most have been away from any church for years before joining us—sometimes away and angry; a number had no previous religious training. (Scott here likes to say that "Rick is part of our growing minority of lifelong Episcopalians.") Our bishop Bill Swing says we're "open," and people who are open will like us, and people who are not open won't; he tells the press "St. Gregory's is the Episcopal Church of the future." Donald Schell and I are the founding rectors. It's a team ministry that began with seminary fieldwork in East Harlem; then we served at the Episcopal Church at Yale, where Donald married the most beautiful member of the Class of'76. And we have a terrifically active vestry, and a lay and clergy staff of six part-timers. Music has always been a powerful force for participation and reform, and music centers St. Gregory's life. Church growth studies have found that newcomers evaluate a church quickly on the basis of the music they hear and sing. We choose high-quality music, expecting worshippers to rise to a high level, rather than stooping to the commonplace. Our music is accessible for singing off the page, and we consciously assume people can read music. I'm delighted that a key volunteer, Scott King, can join me here today—not only standing in for our Music Director, whose other job has glued him to California, but more importantly exemplifying our lay leaders. King: I have been a member since 1985, and I came back the second time to St. Gregory's because of the music. When I walked in the first time, I saw fifty people and no organ, and I wondered how the music would happen. I found out when all fifty began to sing the music, and in a few minutes I no longer noticed we had no accompaniment. |
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