Getting involved
There are lots of ways to get involved at St Mary's. Whatever you choose to do, we hope you will find relationships deepening and also discover fulfilment in contributing to our common purpose.
Home groups
Currently, we have three home groups running, two meeting in the evening and one in the daytime. This is a great way to grow in understanding of Christian faith and get to know other people in our church family.
Community Café
Our community café runs every Saturday morning and once a month on a Tuesday. We'd love to open more often! More volunteers would help us to do that.
Choir
Our choir sing at the main Sunday morning service and also at our (roughly) monthly afternoon service, as well as on special occasions. They rehearse on a Thursday evening.
Care for our building
Our congregation is responsible for a wonderful historic building that serves as a venue for the arts in Ashford as well as church life. We rely on volunteers for much of the day to day work that needs doing to keep things running smoothly.
Social events
We enjoy getting together for social events where we can also welcome the wider community to join us - often with food! New members are always welcome to join the team who support this.
Hosting visitors
We try to keep our church building open as much as we can for visitors to come in during the week. We'd really like to do that more often - but for that we need volunteers who're willing to welcome them and help them with information about what they see when they look round.
Ignite
In Canterbury Diocese a pioneering café-style church, launched in Margate, is being used as a blue print for new worshipping communities, known as Ignite. We host one at St Mary's, at 11.30 a.m. most Thursdays, with many people coming from marginalised and socially deprived communities.
Sunday mornings
Sunday services rely on congregation members taking on a whole range of roles - intercessors, servers, welcomers, hospitality team, working with our children. There are many ways to get involved!