On Kimberly Drive in Hope Valley
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church sits on fourteen wooded acres in the residential Hope Valley area of southwest Durham, North Carolina. The campus is home not just to a 1978 church building and its companion chapel, but to a labyrinth, an outdoor chapel, Stations of the Cross, two memorial gardens, a playground, and a meditation trail that the congregation has marked with QR-coded trail markers. Locals know the parish for its pipe organ concerts, its Sunday morning coffee hour, and a congregation that has spent more than forty years serving lunch at Urban Ministries of Durham downtown.
The parish is part of the Episcopal Church, one of the autonomous provinces of the Anglican Communion. St. Stephen's describes itself as a community dedicated to spreading the love of God through worship, lifelong education, and acts of service, and members gather from across the Triangle area to share in that work.
A Mission That Grew into a Parish
The story of St. Stephen's begins in 1957, when three local families set out to plant a mission church in the rapidly growing southwest section of Durham. Two years later, with the approval of the Rt. Rev. Edwin A. Penick, Bishop of North Carolina, and the support of the vestry at St. Philip's Church in downtown Durham, the mission became a reality. The congregation organized at Hope Valley School on April 21, 1959, choosing the name St. Stephen's after the first Christian martyr, who was one of seven deacons appointed by the Apostles to distribute food and charitable aid to the poor in the early church. Frank Kenan was elected senior warden, and the Rev. John William Sutphin Davis became the first Priest-in-Charge.
Thirty families were affiliated with the new mission when the first service was held on the grounds of the church property on Kimberly Drive on July 5, 1959. A year later, on May 10, 1960, the diocesan convention granted parish status to the congregation, which then numbered sixty families. Worship continued at Hope Valley School until the parish house was complete. Architect G. Milton Small Associates of Raleigh designed that first building, ground was broken on March 12, 1961, and the first service in the new parish house was held on Thanksgiving Day of that year. The Rt. Rev. Richard Baker, Bishop of North Carolina, formally dedicated the building on December 3, 1961.
In 1962, Mrs. A.W. Kennon founded a preschool for three- and four-year-olds as a community ministry of the parish, the first director of what would grow into a significant outreach of its own. The Children's Education building was completed in 1969 to house the preschool and Sunday church school.
By 1976, the congregation had grown enough to need a true church building. The Sarah Graham Kenan Foundation made funds available, G. Milton Small was again retained as architect, and the Nello Teer Company as contractor. Ground was broken on May 30, 1976. The Nello L. Teer family gave a chapel in memory of Dorothy Foster Teer, built on the site of the original choir and sanctuary of the parish house, and the rector dedicated the Dorothy Foster Teer Chapel on October 31, 1977.
The new church opened on January 29, 1978, with two features that have shaped the parish's identity ever since: stained-glass windows designed by Leandro Velasco and executed by Rambusch Studio, and a Flentrop organ built for St. Stephen's by the Flentrop Organ Company of Zaandam, Holland. The Bishop of North Carolina, the Rt. Rev. Thomas Fraser, returned to dedicate the building on May 7, 1978.
Four rectors have led the parish over its history: the Rev. John William Sutphin Davis (1959 to 1973), the Rev. Joshua Tayloe MacKenzie (1974 to 1986), the Rev. Samuel Mason (1990 to 2003), and the Rev. Robert K. Kaynor (2005 to 2020). The parish celebrated its sixtieth anniversary in 2019.
Worship at St. Stephen's
St. Stephen's is part of the Anglican Communion, the third-largest Christian community in the world, which traces its origins to 1534 and the Church of England. The parish uses the Book of Common Prayer and follows the church year, with vestments, candles, and hymnody that visitors sometimes describe as stepping back in time. But the parish also notes that it is modern in its language and concerns: the words spoken and sung are in contemporary English and address the needs of the present moment.
The Sunday schedule offers two celebrations of the Holy Eucharist. At 8:00 a.m., the congregation gathers in the chapel for Holy Eucharist, Rite I, a quieter service drawn from the more traditional language of the prayer book. At 10:15 a.m., the larger congregation gathers in the main church for Holy Eucharist, Rite II, with music from the Parish Choir. Both services are followed by a coffee hour. The 10:15 a.m. service is livestreamed on YouTube and bulletins are available online.
Midweek worship is also part of the rhythm. A simple Holy Eucharist, Rite II is celebrated at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesdays, and a Holy Eucharist, Rite II with prayers for healing is offered at 11:30 a.m. on Thursdays in the chapel.
Children are welcome and encouraged to worship with their families. The parish acknowledges that children are naturally curious and naturally wiggly, and offers a few pieces of practical advice: sit near the front so children can see, feel free to quietly explain what is happening, and step out and return when needed. Red activity bags are available in the narthex for use during worship. Nursery care is provided for infants and children up through age four in the nursery located in the Office Building; when entering from the breezeway outside the church, the nursery is immediately to the right.
Each Sunday the Eucharist stands at the center of worship. The parish teaches that in the Eucharist, which means Thanksgiving, Christ is truly and really present in the bread and wine and in the community gathered around the table. The mix of ancient and modern is what leads people to say that attending worship at St. Stephen's feels like home.
The Music Program
The music program at St. Stephen's is built around the Frank H. Kenan Memorial Organ, made possible by Thomas S. Kenan III and the late Owen G. Kenan in honor of their father, Frank Hawkins Kenan, a founding member of the parish. The organ was built in 1978 in Zaandam, Holland by Flentrop Orgelbouw, designed by Hans Steketee with Fenner Douglass as consultant. It is a three-manual, 45-rank tracker instrument of classical French design, sitting in the balcony at the west end of the church. The organ was refurbished by Richards, Fowkes & Co. and reinstalled in November 2024. Concert organist Nathan Laube played two recitals in September 2025 to dedicate the refurbished instrument.
A second Flentrop instrument, a one-manual chamber organ with three stops (Bourdon 8', Rohrflute 4', Fifteenth 2'), lives in the Teer Chapel and is used for smaller services and concerts. The church also owns a French double harpsichord built by William Dowd and modeled after an instrument at Versailles, a Yamaha grand piano donated by the Kitchen family, a five-octave set of Malmark handbells, and a set of hand chimes.
The St. Stephen's Parish Choir is open to anyone from sixth grade through adults. The choir rehearses Wednesday evenings from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. and Sunday mornings from 9:30 to 10:00 a.m. in the Choir Room, and sings at the 10:15 a.m. Sunday service as well as seasonal services including Evensong, Lessons and Carols, Ash Wednesday, and the Easter Vigil. The repertoire includes anthems, psalmody, and congregational song from a wide range of musical styles and eras.
The parish has reinstated the Kenan Choral Scholars program, hosting four student singers on generous stipends. Soprano Lainey Burlington (Elon University), alto Alex Fountain (NC State University), tenor Weston Curnow (Duke University), and bass Charlie Du (Green Hope High School) sing in the choir through the spring semester. Dixon Crews is serving as the parish's first Kenan Organ Scholar, taking organ lessons, accompanying the Parish Choir, and learning to lead congregational song in the liturgy.
A children's music program, Musikgarten, runs during the Sunday morning formation hour. The God's Children Sing class is a six-week parent-child music and movement course for children ages 18 months to five years, offered free of charge with a small materials fee, and meets on Tuesday mornings followed by snacks and playground time.
Clergy
The Very Rev'd Sanford "Sandy" Key serves as Rector. Fr. Sandy is a retired police officer from Charleston, South Carolina, who answered a lifelong call to ministry and earned his Master of Divinity from the School of Theology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. He has served as rector and associate rector in New York and Connecticut, and earlier in Charlotte, Charleston, and Williamsburg. He and his wife, Laura, have two sons.
The Ven. Sarah Woodard serves as Archdeacon. A Durham resident, she graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill and built a forty-two-year career at Duke University and the Health System, most recently in Human Resources. She was ordained to the diaconate in 2009 and has served at St. Titus' Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Center at Duke. She is a longtime hospital chaplain and Dean of the Durham Convocation, and serves on the boards of the Eno River Association, the North Carolina Council of Churches, and the Johnson Service Corps.
The Rev'd Dr. Jeremy Godwin joined St. Stephen's in the summer of 2013 as Associate Rector, fresh from Yale Divinity School. He completed a Ph.D. in education at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2019, with dissertation research at St. Stephen's that led to the launch of the parish's Creative Belonging project, a program that seeks to build community across lines of difference, especially race. He serves as Director of Formation, overseeing the Sunday morning formation hour and the adult and youth Inquirer's Classes for those preparing for baptism, confirmation, or reception into the Episcopal Church.
The Rev'd Dr. David Decosimo joined as an Assisting Priest in 2025 after ordination at Duke's Goodson Chapel. He is a philosopher and theologian on the faculty at UNC, a chaplain for the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies at Duke, and the author of Ethics as a Work of Charity: Thomas Aquinas and Pagan Virtue.
Two retired clergy remain active at the parish: the Rev. Gail Davis, Priest Associate, and the Rev. Stephen Elkins-Williams, Priest Associate, former rector of Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill.
Dr. Filippa Duke is Director of Music. A native of Henderson, North Carolina, she earned her doctorate in Church Music from the University of Kansas with a dual emphasis in organ and choral conducting. Her doctoral document, What Sweeter Musick, surveys contemporary American anthem literature written for the Episcopal Church by six living composers. Most recently she served as interim Professor of Organ and Sacred Music at East Carolina University and as Director of Music and Worship Arts at Edenton Street United Methodist Church in downtown Raleigh.
Formation for Every Age
Christian formation at St. Stephen's is built around the Sunday morning 9:00 a.m. formation hour, with classes for adults in the Davis Room, youth in sixth through twelfth grade in the Youth Room, and children from kindergarten through fifth grade in the Music Room and Formation Room. Children from birth through pre-kindergarten are cared for in the nursery. Music is part of every Sunday for the children's formation: from 9:00 to 9:30 a.m., children explore how music shapes the liturgy using hand chimes, percussion, singing, psalms, and hymnals. From 9:30 to 10:00 a.m., the children rotate between Scripture sessions on the Wisdom theme, worship and liturgy classes with the rector and archdeacon, and monthly mini-mission projects.
The parish is in the second year of a three-year formation cycle built around the theme of Wisdom. Each year is organized around Scripture thematically and integrates three settings for engagement: at home with physical and digital resources, in small groups such as the Sunday morning adult class, and across the whole parish through liturgies, retreats, and other offerings. The current focus is Proverbs: Sayings for Every Season, exploring wisdom in everyday life through Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Wisdom of Solomon, and Sirach.
Three weekly Bible studies meet alongside the Sunday formation hour. The Men's Bible Study meets on Tuesdays at 7:30 a.m., mainly on Zoom, led by the Rev. Stephen Elkins-Williams. The Women's Bible Study meets on Thursdays at 10:00 a.m. in the Conference Room, led by Dr. Jeremy Godwin, currently working through the book of Acts. The Forest at Duke Bible Study meets on Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m., led by the rector.
For those preparing for baptism, confirmation, or reception into the Episcopal Church, the parish offers an Adult Inquirer's Class, typically meeting for six to eight sessions prior to the bishop's annual visitation, using Jenifer Gamber's Your Faith, Your Life as a primary text. A parallel Youth Inquirer's Class for students in sixth through twelfth grade uses Gamber's My Faith, My Life and meets once a week for eight sessions before the bishop's visit.
A Campus Built for the Body and the Spirit
The fourteen acres that make up the St. Stephen's campus offer more than a place to worship. The Meditation Trail winds past the Outdoor Chapel, the Stations of the Cross, and a labyrinth. In 2017, a Boy Scout named Cameron Hayward of Troop 486, a member of the parish, completed an Eagle Scout project that added QR-coded trail markers to the route. Scanning the markers with a smartphone opens audio entries recorded by scouts in the troop and online articles about each landmark, a blend of older pilgrimage traditions with newer technology.
The Outdoor Chapel on the trail had existed for years but was restored in 2012 by the Men's Group, with a new wooden altar, benches, and a handmade cross. It is most often used for services during Lent, when Christ spent forty days in the wilderness. The altar is engraved with the words "For God so loved the World."
The labyrinth is a six-circuit medieval-style labyrinth installed in the spring of 2013 by the Men's Group, located adjacent to the playground behind the Children's Education building. Its entrance faces east, like the altars of many churches, and benches surround the path for reflection. Walking the labyrinth is described as a spiritual journey in three movements: purgation, or releasing what one carries, as one moves toward the center; illumination, a pause to pray or meditate at the center; and union, returning from the center reunited with God.
The Stations of the Cross are also marked along the trail, with a video walkthrough available online. The two Memorial Gardens, one upper and one lower, are quiet places on the property for remembering. Children have their own space in the playground, and a gazebo anchors other gathering points on the campus.
Outreach in Durham and Beyond
The parish frames its outreach work around four key issues: homelessness and housing insecurity, hunger and food insecurity, the educational and developmental needs of children and youth, and creation care. Most of this work happens in partnership with a few established local organizations, with a smaller share directed to global agencies.
Housing for New Hope (HNH) is one of the parish's longest-running partners. HNH serves those who are or are at risk of becoming homeless in Durham and Orange counties, providing rapid rehousing, case management, and permanent supportive housing for individuals with disabilities. St. Stephen's supports HNH financially, participates in its congregational engagement work, and provides Hearts to Homes Welcome Kits for clients moving into new housing. The parish has also directed contributions to the HNH Emergency Assistance Fund to help clients with rent, utilities, and groceries.
Urban Ministries of Durham (UMD) is another long-time partner. UMD serves three meals daily in its Community Café, operates a shelter, runs the Food Pantry and Clothing Closet, and provides case management and pastoral care through a program called Bread for the Journey. St. Stephen's serves lunch at the Community Café on the Saturday of every month with a fifth weekend, an arrangement that has been in place for forty years. The parish also collects non-perishable food and personal care items year-round in bins in the courtyard near the reception area, and parishioners support UMD's Project ROOF (Removing Obstacles to Occupancy Funds), which helps with rental deposits, first month's rent, utility hook-ups, and other housing-related expenses.
For children, the parish has long supported BackPack Buddies, which provides Durham students with backpacks filled with food for weekends when school meals are not available, and Crayons2Calculators, which supplies materials to children across Durham Public Schools. Past campaigns have supported the Durham Public Schools Foundation's digital equity initiative and supplied back-to-school materials for students at Hope Valley Elementary, Forest View Elementary, and the UNC Hospital School. Children in the parish also participate in Pennies for Change, with jars in the narthex collecting coins that are donated to organizations serving children every few months.
Creation Care at St. Stephen's is rooted in the wooded campus itself. The parish uses reusable or recyclable items in the Parish Hall and kitchen, recycles paper and boxes in the narthex and offices, and is exploring how to develop more of its land with pollinator gardens and community gardens that could feed hungry neighbors.
Other community partnerships include Durham Congregations in Action, where St. Stephen's is one of fifty-eight member congregations; the CROP Hunger Walk, which the youth group leads; the Adopt-A-Highway program along Hope Valley Road; the Episcopal Center at Duke, which St. Stephen's supports with dinners and volunteers; Episcopal Relief and Development, which provides international disaster response and poverty alleviation; Health in Harmony and its ASRI project in West Kalimantan, Indonesia; a Little Free Library in the parking lot; food drives for Meals on Wheels of Durham; Penick Village in Southern Pines, supported through the annual Mother's Day offering; Salvation Army Red Kettle bell ringing each December; and Easter basket collection for Duke and UNC Children's Hospitals.
Becoming a Member
Anyone is welcome to become an active part of the St. Stephen's community. Membership conversations with one of the clergy are always available, and the parish office can assist those transferring membership from another church. For those who have not been baptized, baptism is offered at four feasts during the church year: the Baptism of our Lord in early January, the Easter Vigil, the Day of Pentecost, and All Saints' Day, with other Sundays available by arrangement. Baptisms are typically celebrated during the principal Sunday service so that the whole congregation can renew its own baptismal promises and welcome the newly baptized.
Giving and Stewardship
St. Stephen's frames giving in three movements: gratitude, consideration, and trust. The parish teaches that lives are deepened when people give from a grace-filled and grateful heart, upon reflection, and with loving intent. Each fall the parish runs an annual pledge campaign, and parishioners are invited to make a financial commitment for the following year either by submitting a pledge card or through an online form. In addition to the annual pledge card that sustains the life and work of St. Stephen's, a second pledge card supports the Breakfast Ministry at St. Joseph's Episcopal Church in Durham, which welcomes, feeds, and cares for neighbors in need. The annual giving effort also underwrites the work of outreach partners such as Housing for New Hope and Urban Ministries of Durham, formation offerings, and the music ministries.
Online giving is available for pledge payments, general donations, or contributions directed to specific outreach efforts, including recurring giving. For longer-term generosity, the parish maintains a Planned Giving program and a Founders Legacy Society for those who have included St. Stephen's in their estate plans, whether through a bequest, a retirement account or life insurance beneficiary designation, a donor-advised fund, a charitable gift annuity, or one of several kinds of trusts.
The Heart of the Week
Beyond the Sunday morning schedule, the parish runs a steady rhythm of formation programs, Bible studies, choir rehearsals, youth group activities, fellowship events, and outreach volunteer opportunities. The Mission and Outreach Team is currently recruiting new members, and the Men's and Women's Bible Study groups meet during the week in addition to the Forest at Duke Bible Study on Wednesday mornings. The 10:15 a.m. Sunday Eucharist stands as the central gathering of the parish week, livestreamed on YouTube for those unable to attend in person. The office is open from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on weekdays, and the parish office, the church, and the grounds are all reachable from 82 Kimberly Drive in southwest Durham.