All Saints Episcopal Church Rev. Kit Carlson Retiring
Kit Carlson began her journey at All Saints Episcopal Church in 1976 as a member of the choir and acolyte while attending Michigan State University. Almost 50 years later, she is retiring from her post as the church’s rector, a position she has held since 2007.
“I have been involved in churches since I was in youth group in high school and I’ve sung in the church choir since I was 14,” Carlson said. “So I’ve always been part of the church.”
Carlson grew up outside of Detroit until she was 12, when her parents bought a motel and moved the family to Florida.
Carlson’s sister lived in East Lansing and she wanted to make her way back to Michigan after graduating high school. Carlson decided to attend Michigan State University (MSU) and pursue a journalism degree.

“I only stayed here [MSU] for two years because winter really bummed me out,” Carlson said. “So, I finished my undergrad at University of Florida.”
In her early 20s, Carlson found her calling for ministry.
“I took a really long time between feeling called and actually going to seminary because my kids were little and I was freelance writing,” Carlson said.
Carlson did eventually decide to chase her dreams of making career in ministry. She started attending Virginia Theological Seminary, graduating in 2000.
“I wanted to have a decent world for my children to live in and what is the thing I could do to really do that?” Carlson said. “I felt like serving in the episcopal church was an easy way I could actually have some agency over leading whole groups of people to do things that make the world a better place.”
The first six years of her ministry career were as an associate and interim rector at the Church of Ascension in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Carlson then found her way back to East Lansing.
“When I was searching for a new church, my sister had always stayed in East Lansing, and I knew All Saints was looking, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll put in for that,’” Carlson said. “So I got called to be the rector at the place where I had been in the choir in college, which is just very funny to me.”
Carlson has served as rector at All Saints since February of 2007 and has focused on leading her ministry to embrace their faith and help others in the community.
“My first goal was to help the congregation see itself as in ministry to the people right outside its doors,” Carlson said.

Throughout her time in East Lansing, Carlson has identified needs in the community and used them to guide her work.
In 2008, East Lansing Public Library (ELPL) was much smaller and becoming overcrowded with high school students after the school day. In order to help out, All Saints started a teen after school program in conjunction with ELPL. Each week, two days of the program were held at the church and two days at the library. All Saints and ELPL kept this arrangement until the library completed its renovations and had sufficient space.
“I wanted to help this congregation see its building, its parking lot, its people, its space and its gifts as put here by God to minister our community,” Carlson said. “And they do see themselves that way now. They see themselves as the body of Christ on Abbot Road, and it’s a wonderful thing.”
Carlson has spent her career aiming to create a safe space for all people, regardless of their religion, sexuality, gender, etc. She has been a member of the Interfaith Clergy Association of Greater Lansing and has partnered with the Islamic Center, local synagogues, Michigan State, the Justice League of Greater Lansing and others to create a welcoming environment for all.
“I wanted to lead to make the world a better place, and thinking about early on when I was here, I think I’ve done that during my time at All Saints,” Carlson said.
Carlson remembers early in her career as All Saints rector, a Quran burning controversy was stoking religious tensions nationwide. As a response, All Saints hosted a public reading of the Quran in conjunction with the Islamic Center. 400 people, muslims and non-muslims, packed into the sanctuary for the reading.

A few years later, tensions were high between the Westboro Baptist Church and East Lansing High School (ELHS) after the ELHS Gay-Straight Alliance group wrote Westboro a letter concerning homosexuality. Carlson worked to provide students and other residents a safe space during the tense exchange, as All Saints hosted a peace party for anybody in support of the students.
“We had like 500 people in the parking lot, a DJ and a food truck,” Carlson said.
All Saints hosted another similar event when white nationalist Richard Spencer came to speak at Michigan State.
“We worked with MSU and the city of East Lansing and the wider faith community to have a diversity festival here, to provide an alternate location for people rather than getting counter protestors down in the violence when Richard Spencer came,” Carlson said. “The community came together to say we were opposed to hate.”
Most recently, All Saints sold their rectory and gave half the proceeds to the Justice League of Greater Lansing for faith-based reparations.
The church also took steps to be more eco-friendly by installing solar panels on its roof.
“I just feel like, over the course of my ministry, by leading a faith community, we’ve been able to really do things to try to make the world a better, more compassionate and more loving place,” Carlson said.
Carlson is incredibly grateful for her time at All Saints and her parish.
“My parish is filled with some of the most loving, most compassionate, best-hearted people, there’s not a mean person in the place, and they really, really want to help the world, they really care about their community, they care about each other, they take care of each other, and it has just been a blessing to be in a community that is this loving and this focused on trying to follow Jesus,” Carlson said. “It’s been a gift.”
Carlson hopes that her parish remembers her as someone who “pointed them in the direction God was already calling them.”
Carlson plans on sticking around East Lansing, exploring creative nonfiction writing, visiting her cottage in the upper peninsula and trying out a lot of new things during her first year of retirement.
“My younger self would be amazed at the grace and power of God to do things with me, because I don’t think I was the kind of person you would have pegged to be a community leader back when I was younger,” Carlson said. “So, God is good.”
UPDATE 1:06 p.m. 4/25: This story was updated to correct typos.