St. Stephen's Church

Nice friendly staff always on hand to help run family friendly events

Didn't get inside but it's got a nice graveyard

I arrived at the service during the notices, which might mean I was slightly late. But, there was noone to greet or hand me any books at the door. I donned my mask and took a pew about half wayback. As far as I could tell there was no heating on at all. I was cold, but, like others, kept my coatand hat on.The church has a huge nave which was quite well populated, albeit the numbers thinned outtowards the front. People appeared to be making some effort to distance but I was the only person,as far as I could see, wearing a mask.The service followed a very traditional form, interspersed with 3 hymns from a book, published in2000. So, everything was from books, even though there was a screen hanging above the pulpit.The hymns made reference to ‘the saints’, ‘Mary’ and used phrases from the 19th century not incommon parlance.The sermon focussed on Zacchaeus and was well structured. The most memorable line for me washow ‘getting close to Jesus’ could be quite ‘dangerous’.The sound from the front was very clear, via a simple but effective address system. It probablyhelped that I was sitting immediately behind a speaker.The ‘peace’ involved a lot of waving at others – possibly a Covid hand-over. I chose not to takecommunion as there was no information given about the ingredients in the elements.My morning medication was kicking in by 11am, so I needed to find a toilet half way through theservice. I headed for the main entrance, where the Sunday School was meeting. There were about adozen children from a variety of heritages, who seemed to be having a good time. The teachershowed me the toilet. It turned out to be the only conversation that I would have whilst at StStephens!At full time, I was still digesting the meaning of some archaic hymn words, when I began my‘welcome test’ – that is, sitting quietly in my seat for 10 minutes to see if anyone initiated anyconversation. They did not!So, I slowly made my way around the church building to take a closer look. It is huge, with a notableside chapel in, I think, the south transept, which is furnished by newer, single seats. The space waslighter and more welcoming than other areas of the church and would be great for a smallergathering.I ended up in the opposite transept where hot drinks were being served. I queued for a fewminutes, but by now the isolation of over an hour without any meaningful human interaction wastaking its toll and I began to plan my exit.I was just behind the preacher in the drinks queue and felt sad that his excellent teaching onengaging with the outcast didn’t seem to motivate him to talk to me! Pondering on that , I slowly slipped out of the queue and made my way out of the church. No one stopped me to chat, so that was that!

Beautiful place!

A romantic and relaxing scenic with the tall trees around!

Very much like st Patrick's church in Newry in the North or Ireland.