Prayer

Contemplative Worship Services

Sunday 5:30 p.m. Celtic Service

At 5:30 p.m. each Sunday evening, St. Stephen’s Church offers Celtic Evensong and Communion. This service draws from the liturgical traditions of Iona and Northumbria. In addition to prayer, the service includes poetry. Music is largely instrumental–piano with a variety of other instruments from week to week (classical guitar, violin, cello, oboe, flute), but no organ–with some congregational hymns. The service is quiet and contemplative and offers periods of silence for prayer and reflection. There is also an opportunity for healing prayer for those who wish it.

Sunday 8 p.m. Compline Service

From the ancient monastic practice of ending the day in prayer and praise of God, a weekly Compline service is held every Sunday at 8:00 p.m. This stunningly lit beautiful candlelit service features a small group of singers, “Sanctuary,” offering Gregorian Chant and Renaissance polyphony. This service was inaugurated in September 2010 to mark our Centennial Year, but proved so popular that we have continued to offer it. Read more (and watch a video) here.

Weekday Morning Prayer

The services known collectively as “The Daily Office” are found in the Book of Common Prayer on page 35. These include services for each portion of the day, beginning with Morning Prayer, and continuing with Noonday Prayers, Evening Prayer, and Compline, the last service of the day. The Daily Office also includes devotions for individuals and families to use at home. These services do not include Communion, though sometimes churches or other communities will follow a service with Communion from the Reserved Sacrament (bread and wine that have been consecrated during a Communion service and set aside).

At St. Stephen’s, we offer Morning Prayer each weekday at 8:10 a.m. in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit. This is the side chapel in the church and is located on the Grove Avenue side. The service is also available via livestream.

We also have Compline on Sunday nights at 8 p.m. See “Contemplative Services” for details.

Please note that Morning Prayer does not take place on days when the church and office are closed for a holiday or inclement weather.

Forward Day by Day

Forward Movement is a ministry of the Episcopal Church which provides resources for strengthening your prayer practice. The most well-known of their offerings is “Forward Day by Day,” a small paperback booklet that provides brief reflections on the lessons appointed in the Daily Office lectionary. (The lectionary is a schedule of scripture readings that the Episcopal Church and many other denominations use. There are lessons from the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament and from the New Testament assigned for each Sunday in the church year, and on weekdays for the Daily Office.)

At St. Stephen’s we make these booklets available at “Information Central,” a large table with literature racks on either side, just outside the church office in the parish house. Each booklet covers three months of daily prayers and the suggested donation is $1 per copy.

You can also read the prayers and reflections online.

Daughters of the King

At St. Stephen’s Church, we care for one another in many ways, including through prayer. We pray for one another in small groups, through the parish prayer list we publish each Sunday, and through our spoken and silent prayers during worship services, and in healing prayer during the Celtic service on Sunday evenings.

Sometimes, you may want a request for prayer to remain private. The Daughters of the King is an order for women with members who are Episcopalian, Anglican, Lutheran and Roman Catholic. Members of this order participate in a ministry of intercessory prayer held in strict confidence.

St. Stephen’s established a parish chapter of the Daughters of the King, named the St. Therese Chapter, in January 2018, for which parishioner Sherlyn Dibble serves as the convener.

If you would like to request intercessory prayer by the Daughters of the King, please use one of the cards and envelopes placed in the narthex (the entryway to the church), at Information Central or any Welcome Table. Seal the completed form in the accompanying envelope and place it in any of the black boxes on those tables. Envelopes will be opened only by members of the Daughters of the King. Or you may use the online prayer request form.

If you have questions about this ministry, or you would like to explore a vocation as a member of this order, please be in touch with Sherlyn or any member of the clergy.

Healing Prayer Ministry

Jesus, our healer

Jesus was known for many things in the first century. He was considered a social prophet and a rabbi. He was known as a teacher of wisdom and the leader of a new movement. And he was known far and wide as a healer. As one New Testament scholar has pointed out, “More healing stories are told about Jesus than about any other figure in the Jewish tradition” (Borg, The Heart of Christianity). Jesus also sent his disciples out to heal others, and he promised that they would do greater things than he had done. The ministries of healing prayer and anointing have been part of the Christian experience from the very beginning.

Healing prayer at St. Stephen’s Church

As a part of our Sunday evening service, we offer the ministries of healing prayer or anointing in the side chapels, during the administration of Communion. After you have received Communion, we invite you to approach either a healing prayer minister or an anointer, if you wish. If you would like to rest for a moment in silent prayer with a minister who will lay hands on your shoulders, we invite you to approach one of the vested healing prayer ministers who will be standing next to a chair at the head of either side chapel. Alternatively, you may choose to present yourself for a briefer anointing offered by a vested anointer who will be standing at the outside wall of each chapel.

If you wish to sit for a moment with a healing prayer minister, it is often helpful if you tell the person your name and the concern for which you are asking prayer. The healing prayer minister will lay hands on you and join with you in silently opening ourselves to God and offering our prayer concern to the healing One who is with us always. This is not a ministry of magical incantations. Instead, it is simply about fellow pilgrims opening ourselves more completely to the healing love of God.  Much as a group of friends once brought a paralytic to Jesus so that Jesus might heal him, so we sometimes benefit from the loving care of others who bring us more fully into the presence of God.

If you would like to receive anointing with healing oil, simply approach the anointer with open hands.  In keeping with ancient tradition, he or she will anoint your forehead and hands, as an act of healing and consecrating your life anew to God.  This sacramental act is briefer than the time of healing prayer, but there are over 400 instances of such anointing with fragrant oil in the Bible.  When we present ourselves in this way, we are joining in a longstanding, sacred act of union with the Divine.

Healing prayer and anointing will continue after the service ends, so we welcome any who wish to remain in prayer to do so.  When you leave, therefore, we invite you to leave silently, in order to maintain an atmosphere that is conducive to prayer. Whether or not you choose to present yourself for healing prayer or anointing on any given night, you can contribute to the climate of healing by offering your personal prayers. Pray for yourself, of course, and please pray that all who worship here may know the healing love of God in their lives.

Explore a call to serve

Those who pray with people in this way have received training and ongoing support for this ministry. If you would like to speak with someone about the possibility of becoming a healing prayer minister, please be in touch with Gayle Royals.

Prayer Shawl Ministry

St. Stephen’s prayer shawl ministry began as a group of knitters who gathered each week following the Wonderful Wednesdays supper. During their time together, they knitted, talked, and prayed. While the group did not meet in person during the height of the pandemic, many continued to knit at home, bringing shawls to the church office as they were completed. Now that we are meeting in person, this ministry has become more expansive. In addition to knitting or crocheting prayer shawls, we are quilting lap blankets to serve the same function. Some stitchers wish to be with others for prayer and companionship as they work, while others prefer to craft shawls at home. Either approach is fine!

A priest blesses completed prayer shawls before these tangible symbols of prayer are distributed to those who are ill, recuperating, shut in or who would otherwise benefit from an expression of God’s love and care–and ours.

To learn more about this contemplative practice–in community or solitude–please send an email to Mary Feldman.