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Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori this week said she does not expect up-or-down votes on the role of gays and lesbians in the church at a meeting of global Anglican leaders in England this summer.

The Lambeth Conference, a once-a-decade gathering of bishops from the 38 provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion, will instead be an opportunity for bishops to work out differences in closed-door discussion groups, according to organizers.

''I don't expect legislation at Lambeth. That's not why we're going,'' Jefferts Schori said. ''It's a global conversation. . . . It's not going to make a final decision about anything.''

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, has drawn up the guest list and guided the design for the meeting, July 16-Aug. 3 in Canterbury, England.

The new informal structure contrasts with the last meeting, in 1998, when conservatives pushed through a nonbinding resolution that declared homosexuality ''incompatible with Scripture'' and condemned gay marriage.

Anglicans, who now live in 164 countries, have held the decennial meetings since the 1860s, according to Episcopal leaders. As the church spreads, however, it can be difficult to find theological unity among the diverse provinces.

In response to tensions in the 77 million-member communion, which is bitterly divided over homosexuality and the interpretation of Scripture, Williams has dispensed with tradition and authorized a new type of Lambeth Conference.

''Its aim is not to negotiate a formula that will keep everyone happy but to go to the heart of an issue and find what the true challenges are before seeking God's way forward,'' Williams said in a May 12 letter to bishops around the world.

Gone are parliamentary procedure and arm-twisting by bishops to forge binding resolutions. In are ''ndaba'' groups, taken from a Zulu word meaning ''purposeful conversation,'' said the Rev. Ian Douglas, a member of the international committee that designed the conference.

''This is a bold, new, exciting thing that we are walking into together,'' said Douglas, who teaches at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass.