A spiritual oasis in a busy city
A contemplative community with a Christian heart
A place to be who you are
We look forward to welcoming you on Sundays at 11am in St Augustine’s Hall – see Finding us for our location.
We have a Joint Service with St Luke’s. it’s usually on the fifth Sunday of the month and alternates between St Luke’s and St Augustine’s.
If you want to visit them you can find more about St Luke’s church here: http://stlukes.stlanorwich.org.uk/
Safeguarding
We take safeguarding very seriously at St Augustine’s. Need to talk to someone about a safeguarding concern?
Our Parish Safeguarding Officers are: Howard Green, 07879883045, howard_green@btinternet.com (vulnerable adults)
Dot Lenton, 07802717290, dotlenton@mac.com (children and young people) Our Vicar is: Graham Kirk-Spriggs, 07393532321, graham.kirk-spriggs@outlook.com
Our Diocesan Safeguarding Advisor is Sue Brice, 07598377079, sue.brice@dioceseofnorwich.org
More About Sundays
We are a small community church with a relaxed and contemplative style. This involves a small amount of chanting, silence and readings. We have a ‘community time’ for news and an update from the members of the church, and there is a sermon, with a small music group leading us in a few songs.
Holy Communion is usually on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month, led by an ordained member of our congregation. The morning worship service is led by members of the congregation.
History
The church itself dates from 1163. It was re-dedicated on 30 April 1429 following extensive rebuilding and re-roofing, possibly necessitated by damage to its fabric during the Peasants’ Revolt 40 years earlier.
In 1993 the congregation, numbering 40-50, moved out of the church because the roof was dangerous. About £80,000 was raised to renovate the church hall for worship. In 1999, during a long period without a vicar, the old church was declared redundant. By then our numbers had dropped to about 25.
We wanted to grow from there and identified quite a strong ‘alternative’ community living in our area, and made a decision to be less ‘churchy’. We re-ordered the building to make it more attractive, and rebranded ourselves as the Norwich Christian Meditation Centre, using modern marketing and advertising techniques to publicise our events. We encouraged the development of a Community Group to include those on the local estate. Since then we have organised various events to help those on the fringes of society and those in particular need, such as asylum seekers.
We still use the old church for special events, such as the Midnight Communion on Christmas Eve.
