St. Paul’s popular Vacation Bible School program will be back this summer! Applications are available now in the church office and at our VBS page. All are welcome, so invite your friends now! We've extended Camper registration - postmark your applications by May 1! (Please note, we can't take new campers at the door.)  Campers age 3 through those entering Grade 5 will enjoy Bible stories, games, crafts, snacks, and fun during “Passport to Summer Fun: Travels through the Bible,” June 18-21, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.  See our VBS page for more info!

All students age 2 through grade 12 are invited to attend Sunday School during the 10:30 am worship hour most Sundays throughout the school year, although youth attend Worship in the Sanctuary on the first Sunday of each month. 

Sunday School Details for April 21: We will not have Sunday School on Easter Sunday so all students and teachers may participate in worship. Nursery care is available on Easter during 9:00 and 10:30 worship services. Regular Sunday School programming resumes on April 28.

Please visit our CHILDREN's page  http://stpaulsk.org/community/children for more detailed information!

Pancake breakfasts are held on the first Saturday of the month, now through June. Serving hours are 8:00-10:30 a.m. and we offer pancakes, eggs, sausage, ham, fruit, and other dishes. All proceeds are donated to charities that work to aid those throughout our region and the world. Read more at our Pancake Breakfast page!

Thinking about becoming a member or just want to learn more about life at St. Paul’s? Our next Pie with the Pastors is scheduled for May 4. Please RSVP by contacting the church office (stpaulsunited@stpaulsk.org, 301-933-7933) no later than the Thursday before. Plan to join the pastors at 10:00 a.m. in Room 109 for homemade pie and relaxing conversation about the Christian faith and this church we call home. Childcare is available upon request.

The Hunger Ministry's regular monthly Communion Collect will be on Sunday, May 5 with volunteers needed for food sorting after worship. Distribution night is Monday, May 6. Nonperishable food items are welcome in the bins in the Narthex at any time! Grocery store gift cards and monetary donations are also welcome. Donations receipts are available in the church office. Thank you for helping provide food for hungry families throughout the 20895 ZIP code area. Please read more at our Hunger Ministry page!

Folks in the 20s-to-40s age range (and their families!) are invited to a Cinco de Mayo fiesta for our lunchtime gathering on May 5! Please come celebrate with your St. Paul’s 2x4 friends at the home of Pat and Lesley Maloney. Pat and Lesley will provide taco meat and queso, but attendees will provide the rest. Please RSVP on the evite http://evite.me/CUGPnsNhXQ and sign up for what you’d like to bring. We look forward to celebrating with you! 

All persons working with children and youth at St. Paul’s participate in Safe Sanctuaries Training each year. The 90-minute training session will be offered twice this spring: Saturday, May 11, 10:30 AM - 12:00 noon, and Monday, May 13, 7:00-8:30 PM. Each session will be held in Room 109 and childcare will be provided upon request. Training will also be offered in August before the school year starts. Please sign up here: http://tinyurl.com/y6r8jeng. For more information, contact Meg Baker, mbaker@stpaulsk.org or 301-933-7933 ext. 104.

Readers in the (roughly) 20s-to-40s age range: 2x4s Book Club will meet May 13, 7:30 - 9:00 p.m. at the home of Jim & Rachel King. We will discuss The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott. (Contact the church office, or Rachel King directly, for more information!)

In this work of historical fiction, Alice Barrow escapes life on her family’s farm and moves to Lowell to work in the new cotton mills. The hours are long and the work is dangerous, but Alice gains access to journals, exciting speakers, and new friends. When her friend Lovey is found dead under suspicious circumstances, the tensions between mill owners and workers rise to a boiling point. As Alice fights for justice, she also attracts the attention of the mill owner’s sympathetic son, a man with whom she has no business falling in love.

“Offers up a compelling slice of both feminist and Industrial Age history.” —Christian Science Monitor

Online Registration is now open for the summer Youth adventures! Go the the Youth page to sign up.

• Borderlands offers a cultural immersion trip to the desert southwest with natural wonders, local food, and a deep dive into policy issues that affect this region, including conservation and immigration. Borderlands is open to all high school youth.
• Wilderness Trail is open to all Middle High and Senior High youth and adult chaperones who want to take in God's natural world while hiking and backpacking along the Appalachian Trail. 

Financial aid is available for Youth activities!

We have some great books ready to find a new home! The United Methodist Women at St. Paul’s maintained a reading program for many years and our Church Library has been the beneficiary of many donated books from this program. We have kept several books for the library but as our library collection is focused on religion, Bible study, and the impact of faith on our lives, many books on other topics are no longer needed. There is a book cart with free books in the Library - you may take home any books that you find on this cart, free of charge. Please contact Debra McCurry at DebraJMcCurry@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Join seniors from throughout the area for this time of fellowship, food, and entertainment. The next meeting is 11:30 am on Tuesday, May 14 in Heavener Hall. Stay for lunch and entertainment. Come as we make our golden years our great years.

This monthly time to enjoy music, prayer, and lunch opens with an opportunity to share a few of our favorite hymns, then moves into a short program focusing on a composer, lyricist, or theme so we can learn the stories behind the songs we love. Come on Tuesday, May 21 when Rev. Kate Mackereth Fulton, Meg Baker, and Erin Steele will be leading us in the Octagon at 12:00 noon. Stay for a tasty lunch provided by Ginny Hagberg. There is no registration and no cost to attend, although donations for lunch are welcome. There is no registration and no cost to attend, although donations for lunch are welcome.

Are you smarter than a 7th grader? 77 members of the St Paul's community took the online, anonymous quiz on The Sacraments. As part of their Confirmation Class journey, Rev. Snell challenges the confirmation students to take this quiz each year. Click here to read the results, in detail, with notes from Rev. Snell.

Summer Sunday School in 2019 runs from May 26 through September 2 and we are looking for adults who can volunteer their time for one or more Sundays. At least two adult volunteers are needed each week. All materials – curriculum, suggested activities, and snacks – will be provided. Youth helpers are also welcome and encouraged to participate. Please consider serving our church community in this way! Sign up in the church office or online at https://tinyurl.com/y68848pm. Thank you!

There are many resources available to help our members and friends learn about what happened at the global United Methodist Church's special general conference held February 23-26 in St. Louis, called to address issues of human sexuality and new rules governing LGBTQ+ participation. Please visit our page on The Way Forward to learn more about the results and our on-going response.

Last spring nearly 70 members of St. Paul’s joined together in a workshop to explore the things that unite us as United Methodists and as congregants of St. Paul’s. This workshop identified seven unifying themes. In light of the recent decisions made at the 2019 General Conference, we are challenged with an important question: “What kind of church does God call St. Paul’s to be?” This Lenten season you are invited to contemplate this question through a guided meditation on the seven unifying themes identified by last spring’s workshop. Click here to download this guide as a *pdf. A limited number of printed booklets for this Lenten practice will be available in the Narthex.

Join us in the Sanctuary or Octagon at 7:00 p.m. each Wednesdays. Bring your desire for stillness and God’s loving and eternal presence to this weekly offering of reflection, silence, and prayer. Each week will have a different focus or form of moving closer to the divine. For more information, visit the Still Wednesday page.

St. Paul’s will not be having a mulch sale this year. We want to thank all our volunteers and loyal customers for your years supporting our Hunger Ministry through this effort. Selling mulch has become a very popular fundraising activity in the area. Many local high schools (including Einstein, Walter Johnson, and Bethesda-Chevy Chase) and Scout troops are embracing this opportunity, and we hope you will support them as you better your gardens this year.

All are welcome to gather in the Octagon for refreshments and conversation after worship. Helping to set up and serve coffee is a great way to feel like a part of our church community. Every Sunday, we need at least two adult volunteers to serve as hosts after the 10:30 a.m. service. The set-up host arrives about an hour before worship to plug in the coffee urn and set out cups, sugar, cream, snacks, etc., and stays after to clean up when coffee hour is finished. If you have questions or would like to learn more, please contact Dupeh Ochieng at dupehpalmer@gmail.com or call 240-418-1379. Sign up sheets are available in the Octagon during Sunday fellowship time, and in the Octagon kitchen during the week.

We are welcoming new Lay Readers (to read the scripture) and Communion Stewards (to help serve communion) who would like to assist in the first worship service, 9:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings. There are dates available in Februaryand March. To sign up online, simply add your name and email address to the sign-up sheet found here: goo.gl/Xz5T79. If you have questions, please contact the church office or Rev. Kate Mackereth Fulton (kfulton@stpaulsk.org).

The Biblical Archaeology Forum, usually hosted at the Bender JCC in Rockville MD, offers a monthly presentation that brings together historians, archaeologists, and biblical scholars to look at intriguing questions and broaden our understanding of the biblical world. 

Go to our Adult Education Page to lean more about upcoming lectures, to find the full schedule for 2018-2019, and to access links to other Biblical Archaeology Forum resources.

The United Methodist Committee on Relief is at work in the U.S. assisting those affected by natural disasters, from hurricanes on the east coast to devastating fires out west. You can help support the work of UMCOR’s early response teams, disaster coordinators, and local churches. Checks should be made payable to St. Paul’s UMC with “UMCOR” on the memo line. To read more about UMCOR, visit https://tinyurl.com/ycgfn3kz for Current Disaster Response news.

Both Middle High and Senior High youth groups are meeting on Sundays this year, unless we have another event planned. Normally, Middle High will meet 4:30-6:00 p.m., then there’s a half hour grace period before the Senior High meeting time, 6:30-8:30 p.m. There's also a Youth Choir (meeting 6:00-6:30 most Sundays), and lots of seasonal events.  Go to our Youth page for dates and more information about activities, Retreats, and trips. 

Prayer Lift gathers each Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. in the DuVall Chapel to lift up the prayer requests of the St. Paul's community. Bible Study sessions are held each week on Tuesday mornings at 10:45 a.m. in the Cleveland Library. All are welcome at this drop-in Bible study led by Rev. Kate Mackereth Fulton - there is no registration or fee, and visitors are welcome.

Spread the love of St. Paul's by delivering flowers to those who are in need of a little extra cheer. A sign-up sheet is available in the church office. Flower Delivery people collect a bunch of flowers from the Sanctuary following the 10:30 a.m. worship service, then use a map and card provided to stop by the home of a church member or friend. It's an easy, family-friendly way to minister to our faith community. Please contact the church office or Ginny Hagberg if you have any questions.

If our Heritage Sunday celebration in April sparked your interest, you can find the book The Spirit of Methodism in Kensington on sale in the church office during the week. The St. Paul's history book is an award-winning trove of information about St. Paul's and is full of historical photos and interesting stories, recounting everything from musical performances at the White House to cream pies being thrown at a former pastor. The cost is $10.