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About Matthew

The Rev. Matthew Lawrence has served as Chaplain of Canterbury House at the University of Michigan since September, 1996. In July of 2000 he also became Project Director of the Liturgy and Sacred Music Project, which promotes liturgical innovation in the Episcopal Church through the development of a variety of worship resources and workshops.

As an Episcopal priest, he has also served as Interim Rector of St. George's Episcopal Church in Milford, Michigan, Rector of Church of Our Saviour in Arlington, Massachusetts, Episcopal chaplain at Tufts University, and Director of Parish Mission for Episcopal City Mission in Boston. He also worked for seven years as a policy analyst and management consultant in the field of low-income housing in the Boston area.

Matthew has written many articles and essays for journals and periodicals, including The Christian Century, The Living Church, Alban Institute's Congregations, and The Episcopal Times. He has also been heard as a Commentator on Michigan Public Radio and the Great Lakes Radio Consortium. He is the founder of several nonprofit organizations, including the Episcopal Chaplaincy at Tufts University, the journal Urban Vision, and an interfaith organization for diversity named ACCEPT.

He earned a B.A. in Religion from Reed College in Portland, Oregon in 1980, a M.Div. from the University of Chicago's Divinity School in 1986, and a M.A. from the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy Studies in 1987, where he won the Urban Scholars fellowship. He was ordained an Episcopal priest in June, 1990 by the Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris.

In his spare time, Matthew writes fiction, plays tennis (moderately well), and golfs (quite badly). He has been married since 1982 to Rose Thomas-Lawrence, Ph.D., who finished her dissertation in Clinical Psychology at the University of Michigan in May, 2002. They have one child, named Tom, who was born in 1989 and is a terrific student, plays trombone, and loves baseball both as a player and a fan (Red Sox).

Canterbury House is the Episcopal Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Founded in 1887, it is one of the oldest and best-established campus ministries in the Episcopal Church. More information on Canterbury House or the Liturgy and Sacred Music Project can be found by going to its website: http://www.umich.edu/~canter/.