On Sunday 8th October, five members of St Stephen’s community were Confirmed in a special service by The Right Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Bishop of Dover.
Please continue to remember them all in your prayers.
Ride and Stride this year is on Saturday 9th September and sponsorship forms are available at the back of the church.
Remember that 50% of the money received goes to our church and the remaining 50% goes to a fund administered by the Friends of Kent Churches for urgent repairs.
Please think about how you can take part, either walking or cycling around as many churches as you can on the day, and find friends or relatives to sponsor you.
The local organiser for St Stephen’s is Peter Brown who will he happy to answer any questions.
Participants can download forms by following the links below:
UPDATE!
Thank you to everyone who sponsored the choir team this year, raising a fantastic £252.00 which will be shared between the Friends of Kent Churches and St Stephen’s.
This Sunday (16th July), St Stephen’s Choir are singing the services in Southwark Cathedral. Music at the Sung Eucharist (11.00am) will include a second performance of My spirit longs for thee, composed for us by Christopher Gower and our own Director of Music’s Canterbury Service. At Choral Evensong (3.00pm) the choir will sing canticles by Herbert Howells and Fauré’s beautiful Cantique de Jean Racine.
For more information visit the choir’s trip page.
On Sunday 9th July, our choir sang a new anthem at our Sung Eucharist that had been composed especially for them by Christopher Gower. Christopher has had a long and distinguished career as a cathedral Organist and Choirmaster, holding positions at Exeter Cathedral, Portsmouth Cathedral and Peterborough Cathedral. On his retirement he moved to Canterbury.
Having given the world premiere, our choir will be giving the London premiere in Southwark Cathedral on Sunday 16th July.
6.00pm Sunday 2nd July 2023
We will be holding a ‘Songs of Praise’ service at St Stephen’s at 6pm on Sunday 2nd July 2023. All of the hymns at the service will be chosen by you – some will be chosen by popularity, based on the most votes that they receive, but others (as this is also an opportunity to raise some funds for St Stephen’s) will be selected by receiving the highest bid. However… it is also possible to bid to block a hymn from being sung!
To vote for your favourite hymn, please complete the form below and make your bid donation no later than Sunday 18th June. It would also be lovely to hear why you have chosen the hymn, so please indicate on the form if you’d be willing to speak about your choice during the service. If you’ve got lots of favourites, you can always submit an additional form or two!
The Annual Parochial Church Meeting is being held in church on Sunday 16th April 2023 at 11.45am, immediately following the Sung Eucharist. You can download the Agenda and Reports document below.
To join the meeting on Zoom, click here.
Every Sunday during the season of Lent (apart from March 19th), I will be in the Church Hall after Eucharist, with boxes and bags to collect your unwanted tools and donate them to the excellent charity Tools with a Mission. They collect the tools we no longer want and deliver them to Africans who desperately need them – a simple yet brilliant idea, which is eco-friendly to boot.
You can find a full list of what TWAM does and doesn’t want here:
https://www.twam.uk/donatetools?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_9e2qpGY_QIVR57tCh1DDwv6EAAYASABEgIKl_D_BwE
By the way, their definition of tool is pretty broad – it encompasses Bibles in plain English (presumably not King James), so if you have any of those, they would also be very gratefully received.
Please get in touch with me at {This email is obscured. Your must have javascript enabled to see it} if you would like to donate tools and/or Bibles, as it will help me to get a reasonable idea of how many boxes and bags I’ll need! Please do consult the webpage mentioned above, as there is quite a list of things they don’t want. Finally, please bear in mind that I have limited storage space, so I can’t accept anything much larger than a small sewing machine or a laptop computer.
I must say I’m really looking forward to this collection – many thanks in advance for all your donations!
James
Eco Church Rep
This year’s World Day of Prayer is on Friday 3rd March. There will be a service at St Stephen’s welcoming people from across Canterbury at 11.00am, followed by a soup lunch in the church hall. It would be lovely to have a good number from St Stephen’s joining us if you’re able to.
This year, Lent begins on Wednesday 22nd February. We will be marking Ash Wednesday with two services, our regular 10am Holy Communion, and a special Sung Eucharist at 7.30pm. The Imposition of Ashes is when a cross of ash made from last year’s Palm Crosses is placed on the forehead remind us to ‘remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return, turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ’. This will be a part of both services for those who wish to partake.
As is our custom, we will be commemorating Lady Loretta, anchoress from 1221, around the anniversary of her death here on 4th March 1266 with talks on her life and witness followed by a short midday service.
Saturday March 4th 2023
11.00 am St Stephen’s Church Hales Place
Two short Reflections:
The Social, religious and political context of Lady Loretta’s life
Revd Dr Kevin Maddy
What can we learn from the anchoresses in the 21st Century?
Dr Peter D Toon
followed by Questions and discussion
Then at Noon there will be Midday prayers and dedication of Memorial Plaque to Lady Loretta led by Canterbury Gregorian Music Society.