Sunday Schedule

Worship Together on Sundays @ 10 am

Holy Scripture & CommunioN

Sunday School for All Ages @ 9 am

Bishop Stanton teaches adult class - Examining the bible

Nursery Opens @ 9 am

Children’s Church is available during the 10 am Worship Service

The Gospel

The gospel proclaims that Jesus saves sinners from sin, and the gospel is more than that. Ultimately the gospel is about proclaiming Jesus as King and following Him as He brings complete healing and flourishing for His kingdom to come to this earth, both now through His church, and more fully when He returns to physically reign here on earth.

Accessibility

While our church tradition and liturgy is ancient and rooted in history, it is also modern and accessible to all people. The pattern of our worship and faith can be practiced by people of all ages including those with mental or physical challenges. Worship is more about being still and letting God come to us rather than doing repetitive man-centered actions to seek God’s approval in order to get to Him.

Mystery

While God is accessible, He cannot be fully explained. We live with Him by faith and lean on the truths of the creeds of our faith. St. Paul is more of a creedal church than a doctrinal church.

Rootedness

Our sacred faith is rooted in history, in Christ, and in Ellis County.

Physical Presence

While God is spiritual, He is also physically present in real and tangible ways as He seeks to bring His kingdom to this earth each day.

Vulnerability

We seek to be people who do not ignore our weaknesses and acknowledge how fragile we are and our faith is at times.

Emotional Honesty

We seek to name our feelings and not ignore them. We hope to push through them in prayer to God, knowing that He knows us, and wants us to poor our hearts out to Him.

Wholeness

God provides complete healing through the tough things of humanity so that His church can flourish both now and forever. He does this in ways that do not look like the success of the world, but show the glory of God.

Integrated Imagination

Enlightenment and entertainment do not take place in separate places of the body at separate times. Both of these things happen at the same time. We are not brains on a stick and most of what directs our desires and passions takes place in our imagination. We don’t seek to get information from God to apply to only to our spiritual lives leaving other parts of our lives for less important things. We seek to have a integrated imagination that leaves a whole life with God. Our imagination and our intellect are not in opposition to each other. They work together just like faith and science.

Story

The liturgical church calendar, liturgy, and creeds that we engage with all proclaim the story of Jesus. His story arch shapes our lives to grow in maturity with Him. Story can form more than just the knowledge of our minds. Story can form our hearts and actions in ways that continue to proclaim the story of Jesus to those around us as we live out our lives each day.

Beauty

All of creation represents God and His beauty. We value art and creativity that proclaim the glory of God in the world. We also seek to honor God by protecting and being good stewards of His creation.

Music

Music is a part of the way we worship within our sacred and active liturgy. We believe the liturgy rightly frames music in ways that keeps it from being over emphasized or provoking personal choices of style preferences. God is the only audience of worship.

Inclusivity

We seek to accept all people in worship of God and in caring for one another and the world.

Kindness

We hope to be warm and welcoming to all people with the compassion and empathy of Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Formation

Formation starts inside each of us as individuals who seek to grow in the development of God’s kingdom virtues and actions from the inside out to all of those around us.

Spiritual Disciplines

Formation happens in us and to others as we are faithful to exercise spiritual disciplines of faith. We seek to live in God’s reality for our lives instead of our ego or other personal dreams. We do this by pressing into the pains and joys of life to more fully accept our broken humanity and receive a life of complete peace with God, as His redeemed children.

Incarnate Life

Once we fully accept who we really are we can allow for space where God can live more fully in and through us to show His heart and abundant life to those around us.

The Bible

The Bible is of extraordinary importance to St. Paul worship; during a Sunday morning service, the congregation will usually hear at least three readings from Scripture, and much of the liturgy from The Book of Common Prayer is based explicitly on the Bible. The Bible is also lived in from day to day by the St. Paul family with hopes of living like Jesus Christ to all those around us on a daily basis.

Book of Common Prayer

The Book of Common Prayer is a treasure chest full resources for individuals and congregations, and it is the primary symbol of our unity. We, who are many and diverse, come together in Christ through our worship, our common prayer. The prayer book contains our liturgies, our prayers, our theological documents, and much, much more.

The Creeds

While we will always have questions about God, the Church, and our own faith, we have two foundational creeds that we use during worship: The Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. In reciting and affirming these creeds, we join Christians across the world and throughout the ages in affirming our faith in the one God who created us, redeemed us, and sanctifies us.

The Sacraments

Our Anglican tradition recognizes sacraments as “outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace.” Holy Baptism and the Eucharist (or Holy Communion) are the two great sacraments given by Christ to his Church. In the case of Baptism, the outward and visible sign is water, in which the person is baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; the inward and spiritual grace is union with Christ in his death and resurrection, birth into God’s family the Church, forgiveness of sins, and new life in the Holy Spirit. In the case of the Eucharist, the outward and visible sign is bread and wine, given and received according to Christ’s command. The inward and spiritual grace is the Body and Blood of Christ given to his people, and received by faith. In addition to these two, there are other spiritual markers in our journey of faith that can serve as means of grace. These include: Confirmation: the adult affirmation of our baptismal vows, Reconciliation of a Penitent: private confession, Matrimony: Christian marriage, Orders: ordination to the diaconate, priesthood, or episcopacy, Unction: anointing those who are sick or dying with holy oil. All of these sacraments help enlighten God’s visible presence to us in real and tangible ways on a day to day basis and help us be more attentive to His presence as we live a sacramental life with God.

Church Leadership

Both women and men serve as bishops, priests, and deacons in our church. Laypeople and clergy cooperate as leaders at all levels of our church. Leadership is a gift from God, and we do not believe that it can be expressed by those pursing an unbiblical or unrepentant lifestyle.

Church Affiliation

St. Paul Ellis County is a part of the Worldwide Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas.