The Building & Grounds Committee keeps our parish buildings and grounds welcoming and functional.

• The committee organizes two half day work parties each year. Everyone is invited to lend a hand with our running list of needed repairs, improvements and small fixes.

• Gardening: While we do hire landscapers to upkeep our outside spaces seasonally, on-going volunteers are needed to assist with watering, weeding, and raking leaves.

• Janitoral Supply Monitor: Our cleaners come once a week, but we track, organize, and reorder cleaning supplies on a volunteer basis.

Children’s Formation
During the 10:30 service, children gather downstairs in the nursery, the Godly Play room, and the Children’s Chapel. If you’re comfortable around children, there’s a place here.

• Nursery: Sunday mornings from 9:15 until Communion

• Godly Play: Teacher or door keeper, Sundays from 10:15 until Communion

No experience is necessary for any of these roles. You’ll be paired with an experienced teacher until you’re comfortable.

Liturgy

• Altar Servers take their place around the altar on Sunday mornings and holy days, serving in the visible work of the liturgy. Most new servers begin as crucifer - carrying the processional cross. Other roles include torch bearer, thurifer, and Eucharistic Minister.

• Bread bakers make the bread used at Communion. Working from the parish’s recipe, a baker bakes at home and brings the loaves in for Sunday. It is quiet work that ends up at the center of what we do together - every person who comes forward holds a piece of it.

• The flower ministry provides flowers for Sundays, feast days, and holidays, as well as for funerals and weddings. Typically, that means one large arrangement in front of the lectern and a smaller one at the Mary shrine.

• Lectors read the lessons from Holy Scripture at the Sunday Eucharist, helping the congregation hear and take in the readings. If you’re comfortable reading aloud to a room, you can do this.

• Morning Prayer takes place Monday-Saturday on Zoom. The gathering takes place at 8:30 and lasts for about half an hour, following the liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer. Simply join via the link here.

• Sacristans set up, clean up, and care for the materials used in worship. They clean the vessels used at the Eucharist, tend the candles and the places they are used, polish the silver, and wash the linens used at Mass. We’re a fairly introverted group - tasks can be done alone or with a partner.

Music

• The parish choir sings most Sundays from September through June, and at the great feasts of the year. The choir rehearses Thursday evenings during the season and gathers about an hour before each Mass to warm up.

• Other music opportunities include a new hand chime choir, an orchestra that gathers for the great feasts, and concerts and recitals through the year. Hand chimes need no musical experience at all and is a good fit for children and their families.

Our two primary outreach ministries are SPiN and the Little Free Pantry. The volunteer opportunities below benefit one or both of these ministries.

• SPiN Walkers bring food, warmth, and human connection to neighbors living outside. Every Sunday afternoon, a small team walks the neighborhood with a wagon distributing food and other essential supplies. The group meets at 11:45 to stock wagons and walk their circuit from about 12-1:30pm.

• Soup for SPiN: From October through April, the SPiN team takes along hot soup on their walks. This ministry includes volunteers who make the soup at home and drop it off at the church at their convenience and volunteers who reheat the soup on Sunday mornings and portion it out.

• A Knitting Group meets on the third Sunday of the month after 10:30 mass in the church library. Everything they make goes to our unhoused neighbors through SPiN and to families at Mary’s Place. All levels or knitting or crocheting welcome.

• Stocking the Little Free Pantry takes place every day of the week. Right outside our doors is a small cabinet that quietly feeds our neighbors. It is stocked with food and personal care items for anyone who needs them. Volunteers sign up to keep the pantry stocked, tidy, and welcoming once a week at their convenience.

• Receiving and restocking supplies for SPiN and the Little Free Pantry is an ongoing, but shared role. Deliveries are unpacked and stocked in their respective areas.

Have you ever been completely new to a place? This ministry works to make arriving at St. Paul’s - and staying - as welcoming and painless as it can be.

• Sunday Greeters welcome people at the door as they arrive. During the service, they distribute the offering plates, bring the gifts to the altar, and guide people to Communion.

• Newcomer Welcomers take the first step of introducing themselves to people no one has met yet. They follow up with newcomers, invite questions, ask about interests, and make connections.

If you like feeding people and enjoy a bit of bustle, consider hosting Coffee Hour. Coffee Hour hosts plan a simple food offering, get the room ready, keep things going during coffee hour, and put everything away at the end.

A few times a year, St. Paul’s hosts a reception or special event outside of Sunday coffee hour, for a funeral or other special event. Volunteers help with the hands-on work of a reception. The planning is often already handled, but volunteers are needed to help with setting up, welcoming people, and cleaning up.

Our tablecloth linens are all laundered on a volunteer basis. Each week, a volunteer takes the linens home, washes, folds and then returns the following week.

Parish Life also includes maintaining our library and archival records.

Some members of our parish family can’t be with us on Sundays - illness, age, grief, a hard stretch. Pastoral care is how the parish stays with them anyway. Pastoral care ministries assist the clergy in attending to the personal and spiritual needs of our extended parish family in the following ways:

• Visiting or connecting with people who are isolated

• Praying for those on the Chalice Prayer List

• Joining a meal train when a household needs one

• Taking communion to someone as a Eucharistic Visitor or alongside clergy

We believe that all things belong to God, who created all things, and that we are called to be stewards of the gifts God has given us. The following opportunities are examples of some of the ways we act as stewards together as a community.

• The Community Action Working Group (CAWG) was formed in 2025 in response to changes in our national government. The group sponsors education events, protests, an spiritual care during political crises, and works to connect members of St. Paul’s with ways to address political and social problems that touch our lives and our spirits. The group meets for a weekly protest on Sundays at noon outside of the church entrance. They also meet monthly on Zoom to encourage one another, organize, report back, and plan what’s next.

• The Creation Care Ministry pays attention to how the parish uses natural resources. Committed to being carbon neutral by the end of 2030, the group regularly calculates St. Paul’s carbon footprint and brings the Vestry recommendations on energy-efficient upgrades and carbon offsets.

• The Audit Committee conducts St. Paul’s annual audit. We audit another parish in the diocese and they audit us. A small group of parishioners does the reviewing a few weeks each spring.

• The Endowment Committee oversees the parish’s endowment funds. Most bequests come with conditions attached and the committee’s job is to see that each fund is used as the donor intended. They also set how much is withdrawn each year to support the annual operating budget - balancing long-term stability against the parish’s present needs.

• The Anti-Racism Commission has been dormant in recent years. Restarting it means deciding, together, what this work looks like now. In the past, the group has led Sacred Ground groups, developed our Land Acknowledgement, initiated a budget line item for Real Rent to the Duwamish Tribe, and audited the parish’s Godly Play content.

For those who care about the whole of St. Paul’s - not just one corner of it - taking on additional leadership roles might be a good option for your to prayerfully consider.

• The Vestry collaborates with the Rector in running the parish - something like a role of directors for a nonprofit. It’s main areas of oversight are parish finances and the care of our buildings and grounds, setting the annual budget, overseeing the annual audit, approving expenditures, and responding to the property’s maintenance needs.
  
  The Vestry also supports parishioners in formation for ordination. When the Rector recommends someone for the path to the priesthood or diaconate, the Vestry votes on their advancement.
  
  In recent years, Vestry members have served in rotation as Officer of the Sunday - a goodwill ambassador on Sunday mornings who greets newcomers, assists other volunteers, and oversees lockup at the end of the day.

• The Nominating Committee is a small group of parishioners who work together to secure vestry members and convention delegates on an annual basis.