• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
St. Anne's Episcopal Church

St. Anne's Episcopal Church

Knowing that all things come from God, we seek to manifest the love of Christ through worship, justice, and community.

  • About
    • Who We Are
    • The Episcopal Church
    • Staff & Leadership
    • Our History
    • The Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina
  • Worship
    • Services
    • Recorded Services
    • Baptism
    • Confirmation & Reception
    • Weddings
    • Funerals
    • Service Participants
    • Lectionary Readings
  • Learn With Us
    • Adult Formation
    • Child & Youth Formation
  • Get Involved
    • Joining St. Anne’s
    • Newcomers Class
    • Service & Committee Opportunities
    • Stewardship
  • More
    • Calendar
    • Announcements
    • Give
    • Weekly Email Announcements
    • Announcement Submission Form
    • Parish Directory
    • Contact Us
  • Visitor’s Card

Our History

On August 7, 1966, a group of people met in the parking lot of Reynolda Manor Shopping Center and walked up Fairlawn Drive to the site of what would be St. Anne’s Episcopal Church. What was unusual about this procession to the groundbreaking ceremony was that it comprised black people and white people who had been worshiping together for over a year.

Bishop Thomas Fraser had assured that this would be a different kind of Episcopal church when he invited members of Winston-Salem’s three existing parishes to leave their churches and lead the new mission. This made St. Anne’s intentionally racially integrated from the beginning in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, one of the most segregated cities in the United States at that time.

From May 1965 until early 1967, St. Anne’s met at the Old Town Civic Club. Women wore hats to the worship services or were provided with doilies to cover their heads. Even though our name–St. Anne’s– was chosen in part to honor the fact that women had recently been allowed to serve on vestries, the invitation to serve as acolytes during services was only extended to boys, and the invitation to serve as lay readers requested men only. A chapter of Episcopal Church Women (ECW) was started. The groundbreaking in 1966 was for what was intended to be the first building of a typical Episcopal church campus consisting of a sanctuary, parish hall and education building.

All of this changed fairly quickly. Casual dress was adopted. Girls learned to be acolytes. Women became lay readers and served on the governing mission committee. The ECW chapter died out for lack of interest. St. Anne’s decided that it wouldn’t have any women-only or men-only groups.

The building, designed to be the parish hall and intended for only temporary use as the sanctuary, has been the place where St. Anne’s congregation has worshipped from 1967 to the present. Until 2006, it was the only building on the site–serving as sanctuary, parish hall, church offices, Sunday School, child care center, kitchen, and a Forsyth County polling place. What might have surprised the architects is that the long-awaited second building was not a sanctuary, but a new and improve parish hall.

For 40 years, the ritualistic folding and unfolding of metal chairs in the sanctuary was a prominent feature of this life in community. Parishioners set up chairs for each service–in the round for some years, in conventional rows in others. The chairs had to be stacked against the walls at the end of the service, unless there was to be a lunch in that multipurpose room, or an agape or picnic on the lawn, where the chairs would be set up again.

These space considerations seem to have aligned with countercultural trends that were sweeping the country in the 1960s. That freed-up, pared-down quality extended to many facets of the worship service and community life. Handcrafted hangings and clerical vestments, homemade bread for communion, bottles of wine on the tables at potluck suppers and noon-time agapes, autoharps and guitars for music, and little children included in everything, were some of the practices that made St. Anne’s different in its first few decades.

St. Anne’s willingness to try something new, and be the first to give shape to emerging ideas and respond to emerging needs, continues today.

Footer

St. Anne's Episcopal Church

2690 Fairlawn Dr
Winston-Salem, NC 27106
parishoffice@stannes-ws.org
336-768-0174
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
A Congregation of The Episcopal Church & Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina.

Part of the Worldwide Anglican Communion.

About

  • Who We Are
  • The Episcopal Church
  • Staff & Leadership
  • St. Anne’s History
  • The Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina

Worship & Prayer

  • Services
  • Recorded Services
  • Baptism
  • Confirmation & Reception
  • Weddings
  • Funerals
  • Service Participants
  • Lectionary Readings

About

Who We Are
The Episcopal Church
Staff & Leadership
St. Anne’s History
The Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina

Worship & Prayer

Services
Recorded Services
Baptism
Confirmation & Reception
Weddings
Funerals
Service Participants
Lectionary Readings

Learn With Us

Adult Formation
Child & Youth Formation

Get Involved

Joining St. Anne’s
Newcomers Class
Service & Committee Opportunities
How We Serve
Stewardship

News & Announcements

Calendar
Announcements
Give
Weekly Email Announcements
Parish Directory
Contact Us

Learn With Us

  • Adult Formation
  • Child & Youth Formation

Get Involved

  • Joining St. Anne’s
  • Newcomers Class
  • Service & Committee Opportunities
  • How We Serve
  • Stewardship

News & Announcements

  • Calendar
  • Announcements
  • Give
  • Weekly Email Announcements
  • Parish Directory
  • Contact Us

Copyright © 2023 · St. Anne's Episcopal Church a member of The Faith Growth Digital Ministry Network