On this form, you may indicate your interest in serving in parish life ministries and you will find information about each ministry.

If you are interested in children, youth, and family ministries, you can learn more here. Register for these ministries here.

Indicating your interest on this form is not a commitment; it begins a conversation with a ministry leader who will contact you to discuss your interest and questions so that you feel ready to decide whether to commit.

What time commitment is expected in a ministry? To participate in a parish life ministry, we ask that you to commit to one full year's cycle, through the next September. After one year, you should feel comfortable and competent in your ministry, have met others who share your interest and devotion, and you will have grown through the experience. Every September, we ask all ministers to clarify whether they wish to continue serving, so while some choose to serve for many years there always is an annual point in time to change course when that seems right.

The frequency of service and time commitment of specific ministries vary considerably. You will find more information about this throughout this form and can discuss details when you are contacted by a ministry’s leader(s).

On this form, parish life ministries are organized into six groupings:

1. Pastoral care
2. Kitchen ministries
3. The Women of St. Stephen's and May Fair House
4. Community life
5. Racial healing
6. Creation care

On each ministry group page, you may indicate a primary interest and where applicable, additional interest(s). Click NEXT at the end of each page. The SUBMIT button is at the end of the final page.

Next steps: After submitting this form, relevant ministry leaders will be notified of your interest and will contact you within one week. Kindly notify Mary Feldman if you have not been contacted after two weeks. Ministries incorporate new participants differently, so the leaders will clarify next steps about on-boarding, training, and expectations.

Thank you for sharing your gifts in parish life ministries. If you have further questions about any part of this form or process, please contact Mary Feldman. 

Pastoral care ministries ensure that all members of our community are supported through the changes and chances of life. 

Find information about each ministry lower on this page:

• Lay pastoral visitors
• Lay Eucharistic visitors
• Prayer shawl ministry

Pastoral Care Ministries 

At St. Stephen’s Church, pastoral care is a ministry carried out both by clergy and lay people and takes many forms. 

Find information about pastoral care ministries on our website.

Lay pastoral visitors

Lay pastoral visitors are volunteers who regularly reach out to fellow parishioners identified as having pastoral needs. Visitors connect with in-person visits, phone calls, or notes, as assigned. Monthly meetings cover training, time to share pastoral experiences, and identification of needs as they arise.

Lay Eucharistic visitors

Eucharistic visitors share Communion with fellow parishioners who are not able to attend church in person. Eucharistic visitors discern a call to this ministry and undergo training preparing them to offer the sacrament of Communion. Eucharistic visitors also have a role in our morning liturgy; the congregation commissions the visitor each Sunday to signify that our whole community shares Communion with those who receive the sacrament at home. Eucharistic visitors serve on a rotating schedule, not every Sunday.

Prayer shawl ministry 

Prayer shawls are crafted for distribution to those in our parish to whom we wish to give a tangible expression of our love and prayers. Clergy and lay pastoral visitors offer shawls to those who are sick, those who are isolated at home, new parents and infants, and others. Shawls are usually knitted, crocheted, or quilted.

Kitchen ministries are inspired by the Eucharist, the central act of worship in the Christian faith.

Scheduling is handled in several ways for different ministries (teams, rotations, voluntary election) and is organized by each ministry's respective coordinator.

Descriptions about the following ministry roles are found lower on this page:

• Wednesday and Sunday supper teams

Note:

• Information about additional food ministries, such as the Farmers Market @ St. Stephen's and our food pantry, can be found here.

Wednesday night supper

Wednesday night suppers provide fellowship and comforting, homestyle food. Meals cost $10 for older children (age 10 and up) and adults, $5 for children age 9 and younger, and a family maximum of $30. 

Volunteers on Wednesdays mainly help prepare and set up the food and utensils for the meal. Volunteers also monitor food levels at the buffet and answer questions from parishioners.

No prior cooking experience is necessary. Seating is available in the kitchen for those who need it; prep roles can be customized to accommodate varying ability needs.

Sunday night supper

Sunday evening suppers provide fellowship and delicious, nutritious food. The meals are prepared for the whole community–all are welcome and no reservations are required. 

Cook teams serve in two shifts: preparation from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. and/or serving and clean-up from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. No prior kitchen experience is required; seating is available in the kitchen for those who need it; prep roles can be customized to accommodate varying ability needs.

Note: information about other food ministries, such as the Farmers Market @ St. Stephen's or our food pantry, can be found on our website.

At St. Stephen's, women are involved in all aspects of our community's life in both lay and ordained roles, as leaders and participants. Among the opportunities for women are those offered by a group known as the Women of St. Stephen's which dates from the earliest days of St. Stephen's Church. While women's roles in the church were far less expansive when this group formed, they continue to provide important forms of fellowship, learning, outreach, and fundraising. The Women of St. Stephen's also manage the May Fair House, a food and gift shop that generates significant funding for community grants.

Opportunities for serving in the Women of St. Stephen's include such areas as program planning, outreach, grant selection, and many others.

The May Fair House welcomes parishioners to work in the shop once a month, and/or to serve on a team with others who prepare casseroles and other dishes which are cooked in St. Stephen's kitchen and sold in the shop.

Information about these two ministries can be found on our website using the links below:

• Women of St. Stephen's
• May Fair House

Life at St. Stephen's Church is full, offering a place for every person to connect and serve. In order to offer our ministries sustainably, we invite lay leaders into ministries that support staff, programming, and other needs that arise throughout the year.

Descriptions about each of the following ministry roles are found lower on this page:

• EpiscoPals
• Front office support
• Bulletin collating team

EpiscoPals

The EpiscoPals are a group of retired parishioners who contribute to our parish life in a variety of ways, from bringing snacks and goodies to the staff to assisting in the parish office to working with our buildings and grounds staff and our food pantry. This fall, the EpiscoPals plan to assist with Wednesday Night Suppers, dust the main church, and continue to support staff events and training.

Front office support

During the week, there are opportunities for parishioners to assist our front office team in a variety of ways. Volunteers answer phones during all-staff meetings, collate bulletins for Sunday worship and special services, help prepare mailings, and more. 

Bulletin collating

The collating crew is a group of parishioners who arrive each Friday morning around 8:30 a.m. and collate the church bulletins for all upcoming Sunday services. Collating involves putting the bulletins together and inserting a copy of our weekly Spirit newsletter. They also handle bulletin collating for special services, such as the Thanksgiving Day service and All Saints Day service, as well as Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Holy Week, and Easter. The collating crew is vital to getting the church’s bulletins properly assembled and in place for services.

St. Stephen's is committed to the work of racial healing, which we understand to be a ministry of both spiritual transformation and radical discipleship. We are working to expand and strengthen this ministry, using formation offerings, worship, conversation, and outreach to imagine what a just and flourishing world could look like. Together we seek to make that world a reality here in Richmond. 

Descriptions about each of the following ministry roles are found lower on this page:

• Racial Healing Commission
• Sacred Ground
• Sons and Daughters of Ham Cemetery
• Civil rights pilgrimage

Racial healing commission

St. Stephen’s Racial Healing Commission is envisioning and planning opportunities to further the reflection and engagement of parishioners in the vital work of racial healing. This commission works alongside clergy and staff to facilitate those next steps. It functions as a joint commission of the Adult Formation Committee and the Outreach Committee, with committee representatives joining additional at-large members invited from the broader parish.

Sacred Ground

Sacred Ground is a film- and readings-based dialogue series on race, grounded in faith.  Small groups are invited to walk through chapters of America’s history of race and racism, while weaving in threads of family story, economic class, and political and regional identity. We offer this program at least once per year; new groups will launch in January 2025.

Sons and Daughters of Ham Cemetery

The Sons and Daughters of Ham Cemetery is a historic site located in Bandy Field Nature Park. Once the cemetery of community of freed African Americans, this holy place has been hidden in Bandy Field for many decades. Through the Friends of the Sons and Daughters of Ham, the cemetery and its history are being revived and restored. St. Stephen's is partnering with the Friends to support this important work of preservation and to honor the full story of the neighborhood in which we are located.

Civil rights pilgrimage

Clergy and lay leaders are in the beginning stages of planning a pilgrimage to key sites of the 1960s Civil Rights movement. Together, participants will explore our shared American history in order to witness, lament, and find hope. Additional information will be available in the new year.

At the beginning of all things, God calls humanity to care for creation--a mighty responsibility. At St. Stephen's Church, parishioners and staff work together to explore ways to improve our environmental practices as individuals and as a parish community, and make recommendations to our vestry.

To learn more about the work of our Creation Care ministry, visit our website here.