Worship

Sunday morning at St. Paul’s

Before you even enter the church, you can hear the church bell tolling.

You push open the heavy oak door and enter the vestibule, which is illuminated by colored light through the stained glass windows.

Organist Bill Briggs is playing the prelude, welcoming all to a contemplative worship experience.

After you take off your coat and are comfortably seated in St. Paul’s old wooden pews, you may feel like Ralph Waldo Emerson did: “I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.”

With the first hymn, the congregation stands to sing, and the priest takes his or her place at the altar. On feast days and during festal seasons like Christmas and Easter, he or she will cense the altar, filling the church with scent as smoke rises to the rafters.

The service continues with readings, a sermon, and periods of silence, during which you can contemplate the relevance of the Scripture in your own life.

After greeting your fellow worshipers during the Peace, you join your friends and neighbors at the altar rail for Communion, the centerpiece of the service: “The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ keep you in everlasting life. The Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.”

On Sundays when morning prayer is offered, parishioners take turns leading the simple Prayer Book service. Scripture is read, and the psalm is chanted.

Bill Briggs’s organ voluntary at the end of the service fills you with peace as you watch the candles being extinguished on the altar.

Let us bless the Lord! Thanks be to God!