The community of St. Paul’s Parish works together on a variety of ministries within and beyond our walls. We welcome your involvement as we invest our talents, time, and interests in the family of God and as a witness to the world around us. Please contact the ministry coordinator if you would like more information about a particular ministry.

Social Outreach and International Ministries ... including Hunger/Homeless, neighborhood school tutoring, Malawi and Honduras outreaches: >> Jump to Missions

Music ... including choirs for adults, boys, and girls: >> Jump to Music

Christian Formation ... including formation opportunities for youth, college students, and adults: >> Jump to Christian Formation
 

Parish Ministries

Altar Guild
The St. Paul's Altar Guild is the ministry of preparing the sanctuary for worship.  The Altar Guild is under the direction of the Rector, and, because of the high privilege of serving in God's sanctuary, membership is approved by the Rector and extended through the Director of the Altar Guild.  The work of the Guild is done largely "behind the scenes" by members who are faithfully on duty at the Altar year round.  The duties of the Guild involve the preparation of the sanctuary and chapels for Mass on weekdays and Sundays, holy days, festival days, and special occasions including weddings, funerals, and baptisms.  Altar Guild members provide "set-up" and "clean-up" for services throughout the week and are assigned to a mutually agreeable duty schedule.   The Altar Guild also cares for the linens and vessels used in the Eucharist, as well as brass furnishings, altar frontals, vestments, and other liturgical garments.  If you are a member of St. Paul's Parish and are interested in this important ministry or would like further information, please contact the Rector or the Director of the Altar Guild at the church office (202-337-2020), or the Director of the Altar Guild, Lynne Walker at 703-643-0142 or momamouse@hotmail.com. 


Acolytes
Members of the Acolyte Guild serve daily and Sunday Masses, Solemn Evensong and Benediction, and seasonal liturgies.  Girls and boys, women, and men are trained in a variety of liturgical roles to complement the worship of God.  For further information, contact the Master of Acolytes, Dr. David B. J. Chase, teachdoc@verizon.net or  h-301-208-8310, w-301-469-1150.

Christmas/Easter Flower Distribution Team
The purpose of the Christmas/Easter Flower Distribution Team is to connect with members of the parish who are home-bound, by sharing flowers with them during holiday seasons.  For more information, contact Arnitta Coley at 202-678-1863 or coleyarnitta@yahoo.com 

Columbarium
St. Paul's Columbarium has a total of 261 niches. Interments have occurred in 106 of them, another 94 have been purchased, and 61 remain available. Each niche can contain only one urn. The purchase price is $500.00 per niche. For further information, pick up a Columbarium brochure from the tract rack or call Atlee Shidler at 202-333-3022.

Flower Guild
The altar flowers at Saint Paul's, which add to the beauty of the church and enhance our worship, are planned and arranged by the volunteers of the Flower Guild. Included in this, these volunteers:

1. Order the flowers and/or go to one of our wholesalers and choose and pick up the flowers
2. Bring them into the Sacristy or Pillsbury House and condition them in preparation for arranging. This includes recutting the stems, trimming off extra leaves, anthers of lilies (which drop unwanted pollen), rose thorns, etc., and leaving them in water with preservative to strengthen them for arranging.
3. The actual arranging of the flowers and placing them on or at the altars.
4. Also, the volunteers participate in training to learn new techniques when possible.

The demands are great on these volunteers:  providing flowers for 43 Sundays of the year (every Sunday except the five Sundays of Lent and the four Sundays of Advent), plus special feast days, weddings and funerals upon request, and the very demanding provisions for Christmas and Easter. Therefore, we are always looking for new volunteers. Experience is not necessary, and other volunteers will work with newcomers as you learn our ways. If there is interest, we may have a Saturday training session during fall 2002, and training on an individual basis is always possible. Also, great courses are offered by the Flower & Altar Guild at the National Cathedral; scholarships to attend one of these courses may be made available to Saint Paul’s Flower Guild members in consultation with David Boulet, Flower Guild Coordinator, and Fr. Sloane. Call David Boulet at 202-548-0494 (work) or 202-588-9030 (home) or at dvdboulet@hotmail.com, if you have questions or to volunteer.

Friends of St. Paul's
The Friends of St. Paul’s was established in 1993 to address the needs of visitors, former parishioners living outside Washington, and others who wish to maintain ties to St. Paul’s and support its work, witness, and ministry with their prayers, activities, and contributions. With an annual $25.00 contribution, members receive regular mailings of The Epistle, seasonal activities calendars, occasional parish publications, and an invitation to the annual “Friends of St. Paul’s” Celebration. For further information, contact Jo Stelzig at 703-426-0487 (jastelzig@yahoo.com).

Grounds
The gardens of St. Paul's parish are planted almost entirely with perennials in the interest of low-maintenance requirements.  The plantings include arbor vitae, autumn joy, azaleas, begonias, black-eyed susans, bleeding heart, butterfly weed, camelias, chionadoxis, chrysanthemums, coneflowers, crocosima, crocuses, daffodils, day lilies, forsythia, galtonia, grape hyacinths, ground ivy, hellebores (lenten roses), hollies, hostas, hydrangeas, impatiens, irises, Japanese anemone, Japanese maple, lambs ear, lilyleaf ladybell, liriope, lithrum, ornamental grass, pachasandra, peonies, phlox, photinia, pushkinnias, purple cornflowers, rhododendron, roses (tea, tree, and climbers), Russian sage, scabioasas, snowdrops, solomon's seal, star of Bethlehem, trout lilies, trumpet lily, tulips, veronica, yarrow, and yews.  A Grounds Committee is now basically an action committee. The action consists principally of participating in Spring, Summer, and Fall cleanups -- mulching, trimming, weeding, deadheading, fertilizing, and other routine garden chores.  To volunteer with the Grounds Committee, call Atlee Shidler at 202-333-3022.

Hospitality
Working with the Committee is a wonderful opportunity to meet new friends while restoring and maintaining order in Pillsbury House.  Candie Bruse and Robert Baldré serve as chair and co-chair of the Hospitality Committee 2006-2007.  Because we are spread so geographically across the Washington Metropolitan area, the Hospitality Committee provides most of the opportunities that we enjoy as a parish to get to know each other and develop fellowship within the parish.  The  committee is responsible for organizing receptions that complement our liturgical life, Lenten dinners, the coffee hours following the Sunday masses, the traditional parish party, and other events from time to time.  This is a tremendous task.  Candie and Robert welcome your cooperation and assistance to provide the parish with these important opportunities for fellowship that are so vital to our parish life. 

Lectors
The St. Paul's Lectors’ Guild exists to fulfill the rubric at page 322 of the Book of Common Prayer that at celebrations of the Holy Eucharist, "lay persons appointed by the celebrant should normally be assigned the reading of the Lessons which precede the Gospel." The Lectors’ Guild is composed of approximately 50 persons who have been selected and trained to read the Lessons at the three Sunday Masses, at Evensong and Benediction, on major Feast Days and at the Great Vigil of Easter. Lectors are assigned to read the Lessons on a rotating basis and are expected to do so clearly and with dignity and to be able to project their voices throughout the church without amplification. Recruitment and qualification sessions for persons seeking to become lectors are held annually, and refresher training sessions for those already serving as lectors are held as needed. If you are interested in participating in this important ministry, you may contact Larry Toombs at SPC@Toombslaw.com or 703-548-8847.

>> View upcoming lectionary readings and download Lectors' Schedules
 

Parking
For a downtown parish, we are fortunate to be able to park up to 63 cars for the Sunday morning 9:00 a.m. service and for all special services, including weddings and funerals.  And we can park 53 cars for the 11:15 a.m. Sunday service.  Three of the 63 spaces are available through the courtesy of D.C. Police Precinct #2 and 12 through the courtesy of the Madison Hotel, which owns the 925 Apartments on 25th Street and the warehouse behind the apartments at the south end of Snow’s Court.  (An interesting Foggy Bottom story is that the warehouse was once used as stables for the White House.)

In addition, through the courtesy of George Washington University, we have overflow parking privileges at a surface lot on New Hampshire Avenue, just off Washington Circle, and in a garage at 2211 H Street.  Parking lot attendants will give persons who arrive after the regular spaces are filled directions and materials authorizing them to use either the lot or the garage at no cost to them.  However, persons using those facilities without first obtaining authorizing materials from our parking lot attendants will be ticketed at the lot and charged the regular parking fee at the garage. 

To be reasonably certain of obtaining a parking place in the St. Paul’s lot on Sunday morning, parishioners and visitors should arrive prior to the beginning of the service they are attending, although there often are spaces available for latecomers.  Be aware, however, that at 9:15 a.m. the attendants leave the lot and block off any remaining spaces in the middle of the lot where parkers surrender their keys.  We close off those remaining spaces because we are required to have keys for all cars in the middle in the event of an emergency during the service.  The keys that are surrendered are secured in the sacristy and are returned to the cars immediately after the service ends.

To be reasonably assured of parking in our lot on major Feast Days, you should arrive no later than a half hour before the service and even earlier for Maundy Thursday, Easter Vigil, and Christmas Eve services.

The 12 spaces made available by the Madison Hotel at the south end of Snow’s Court are reserved for the Choir, and 4 of our regular spaces are reserved for the clergy and the Music Director.  That leaves 47 spaces for other parishioners and visitors on a first-come-first-served basis.  Spaces may be reserved, however, for the handicapped, visiting clergy, or parishioners who have been assigned special duties that require them to arrive at other than regular times.

The parking lot is accessed by proceeding north on 25^th Street to Snow’s Court, which is midway between I and K Streets.  Turn right into Snow’s Court (the only alley between I and K Streets).  At the end of the alley, turn left and proceed about 50 feet to the lot.

For further information, please call Atlee Shidler, St. Paul’s Parking Director, at 202-333-3022.  If he is unavailable, call Melva Willis, Parish Administrator, at 202-337-2020 ext.13.