The Westhampton neighborhood in Richmond’s Near West End is often compared to a village. The streets are dotted with mostly older homes within a short walk from all that a village offers — bakeries, markets, banks, schools, cafes, a library, a post office, shops and places of worship.
In the spirit of this village analogy, in recent years St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church has embraced its role as a “modern village green,” a free and open space at the center of things where all can gather. By adding a range of activities and encouraging the public to attend, the church has transformed itself from a place perceived as being for members only to one that welcomes all. In many ways, it is the heart of the village that beats strongly with enthusiastic support from its members and leadership.
“My hope for church as a village green is to help change people’s understanding of what a church is all about.” —The Rev. Gary Jones
“My hope for church as a village green is to help change people’s understanding of what a church is all about,” says the Rev. Gary Jones, rector of St. Stephen’s. “Church as village green, where all people equally belong and are equally cared for, where all are invited into healthy practices that care for our souls and bodies and for the earth — as in our farmers market, our emphasis on reverence in a time of contentiousness and our classes on meditation. A community where all are invited deeper into soul-nourishing experiences of beauty — as in poetry, art and music, where all are supported and cared for in intimate communities, as in all sorts of small groups, and where all are invited to lives of service, as in our ministries with prisoners, the unemployed, the distressed and the marginalized. This kind of egalitarian village green feels to me and to many of us like what the world needs most right now, and will always need.”
Jones’ supposition is proven true daily, as hundreds of people come and go around the clock. “There’s kind of a monastic rhythm here,” says Sarah Bartenstein, communications director for the church, which is located on a grassy, tree-shaded campus at the corner of Grove Avenue and Three Chopt Road. Established in 1911, the church has an imposing stone sanctuary. Early each day, the Café at St. Stephens serves people who stop by for coffee and a quick bite. Teachers from St. Bridget School next door come in to meet or grade papers. Students pop in after school for a snack. On Monday mornings, the Grocery Store, a food pantry, is open for anyone in need.
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Garner Stewart (left), manager of the church’s food pantry, with the Rev. Gary Jones, St. Stephen’s rector
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The sanctuary of the 91-year-old church
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May Fair House, the church’s shop, sells gifts and prepared meals.
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Longtime church member Millie Cain leads a prayer group at St. Stephen’s.
Each Saturday morning, the Farmers Market at St. Stephen’s is full of shoppers picking up fresh produce and perusing other merchandise as musicians entertain. Vendors such as Geescakes’ Genovia Brown, who makes 30 flavors of cheesecake, say they appreciate the market’s loyal following and that it’s open year-round.
Throughout the weekdays, there are lively sounds of young children playing on the church preschool’s playground and friends greeting one another in the hallways and bookshop. In the commercial kitchen, volunteers prepare dishes to freeze and sell at the church shop, May Fair House. Established in 1978, the shop sells gifts as well as the frozen foods, doing its part to further the community ministry just by word of mouth. “Someone comes in to buy a dinner for a sick neighbor who then comes in and buys a gift for a friend, and it goes on like that,” says JoAnne Palmore, part-time manager for the shop, which closes in the summer, from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
The Sunday-night Celtic service, which draws participants from all over Richmond, opens with poetry and has become a favorite place to reflect.
“What I love about it is the spaces between words, the silences that allow me to sink deeper into the peace that lies at our core,” says Millie Cain, who leads a contemplative prayer group at the church. “I love also that the community that gathers on any given Sunday is of many faiths, or no faith, and the liturgy is simple and inclusive.”
St. Stephen’s concept of community reaches beyond Richmond. There are those who come from around the country to train in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a Montessori-based children’s program. Others from afar vie for seats in an annual weeklong summer icon workshop in which students use traditional materials and techniques dating back before 1000 A.D. to create a religious icon. It’s so popular that Bartenstein says it “sells out like a Springsteen concert.”
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Shoppers visit the weekly Farmers Market at St. Stephen’s.
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Vendor Genovia Brown of Geescakes
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Broadfork Farm is one of the many vendors that donate excess produce to St. Stephen’s food pantry.
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Claire Hackley at the Café at St. Stephen’s
When Jones arrived in 2005, churches nationwide were seeing membership declines, and change was necessary to engage communities. Jones’ innovative ideas and experience were put to work. Since then, the church’s average Sunday attendance has grown from 773 to 1,150, and its membership of 4,700 is up by 1,032 — increases that the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia calls “unprecedented.”
Janet Allen, who coordinates membership, hears from people every week who “want to join this community — not even necessarily in an ‘official’ sense — and ask about our worship services,” she says. “They’ve come to our farmers market, or to attend a concert or hear a speaker, or to light a candle in one of our chapels, and they want to be part of this church. They might not want to be affiliated in the traditional way we think of church membership, but they want to be known by a community.”
“This kind of egalitarian village green feels to me and to many of us like what the world needs most right now, and will always need.” —The Rev. Gary Jones
Many come to St. Stephen’s through its website, she adds, “because when they visit it, they can see all these offerings and this welcome. And when they come to the church, they find the same sense of welcome.”
The church also walks the talk in small ways that may go unnoticed. A recent renovation added accessible ramps and doors for those with physical disabilities so that everyone can enter. Signs with invitations to come in are posted outside, and volunteers such as parishioner Sharon Machrone greet all who attend services.
“I am so proud to be part of a church that invites and welcomes so many kinds of people and groups,” Machrone says. “You don’t have to be a member of the church, an Episcopalian or even a Christian to find something at St. Stephen’s that will touch your heart and nourish your soul.”
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