On a curve of El Camino Real in Burlingame, a salmon-pink sanctuary with tall white spires and a belltower has welcomed worshipers since 1927. St. Paul's Episcopal Church grew out of a storefront Sunday school held above a dry-goods store in 1908, took its independence from its parent parish in 1920, and filled the larger building it still occupies seven years later. Today, with a membership that draws from Burlingame, Hillsborough, Millbrae, San Bruno, and San Mateo, St. Paul's is known for a heritage organ, an unusually robust Choir School for children and teens, twice-yearly rummage sales that draw thousands of bargain hunters to its campus, and the steady rhythm of three Sunday liturgies in English and Tongan.

From a Dry-Goods Store to a Salmon-Pink Sanctuary

The story begins with the earthquake of 1906, when thousands of San Franciscans fled across the Bay to the Peninsula. St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in San Mateo responded by planting a mission to serve the new arrivals, and on February 16, 1908, the first service of what would become St. Paul's was held above Jacob and Rose Weinberg's dry-goods store on what is now the parking lot for Steelhead Brewery. For a year, the church shared Weinberg Hall with the fire and police departments in the newly incorporated Town of Burlingame, then completed a modest wood-and-stucco building near the present parking lot on Occidental and Chapin.

By 1915, the Diocese of California had taken direct responsibility for the mission and called as its leader the Rev. William A. Brewer, the former head of St. Matthew's Military Academy and Mayor of Hillsborough. Membership grew rapidly, and in 1920 the congregation assumed full financial responsibility for itself. The town's population jumped from 4,000 to 11,500 between 1920 and 1925, and the original 125-seat building had long since overflowed. After a fundraising campaign and the sale of a North Burlingame outpost to the Roman Catholics for $10,000, the parish laid the cornerstone of the present sanctuary in 1926 and dedicated it in February 1927, with more than 2,000 people attending the opening service.

The salmon-pink color that distinguishes the building along El Camino Real dates to that original construction, and the street that branches off Barroilhet Avenue near the parish hall still carries Brewer's name. The parish outgrew its postwar neighborhood again in the 1950s and spawned the Church of the Ascension in the Mills Estate hills; that mission closed in 1979. The current campus, the parish's centennial celebration in February 2027 marking 100 years since the dedication of the sanctuary, has become a focal point of parish life.

Sunday Worship at 8, 10, and Sometimes 1 o'Clock

St. Paul's keeps a steady three-fold Sunday rhythm. At 8 a.m., a spoken Holy Eucharist takes place in the Chapel, with coffee hour in the cloister immediately afterward. The principal liturgy of the week follows at 10 a.m. in the Church, a full choral celebration with the Choir of St. Paul's and congregational singing. Family seating is available in the Chapel during the 10 a.m. service along with the PrayGrounds, and child care is offered for the youngest worshipers. Hospitali-tea, the parish's name for its post-service fellowship hour, follows in Foote Hall.

On selected Sundays during the summer and early fall months, a Tongan-language community worship gathers in the Church at 1 p.m. under the name Sa Paula Tonga. The Rev. Nick W. Roosevelt shares pastoral responsibility for both the English-language and Tongan-language communities alongside the rector, and the Tongan choir continues a ministry that complements the Sunday morning liturgies.

Special services mark the high feasts of the church year. The week before Easter brings the full arc of Holy Week, from a community Maundy Thursday meal with foot washing to the Great Vigil of Easter beginning with fire and candlelight. Pentecost is celebrated with readings and prayers in many languages, and the wearers of red are invited to join in. The Feast of All Saints and the Sunday that follows it bring baptisms at the font. The 10 a.m. service is livestreamed each week on YouTube, and printed bulletins for past Sundays remain available online for those who wish to revisit a particular liturgy.

The 1929 Skinner Organ and the Choir of St. Paul's

The instrument that anchors the Sunday liturgies is a 1929 Skinner organ whose 1,489 pipes were preserved and enlarged through a major restoration completed in 2014 with the Schoenstein Organ Company. A new Tuba stop was added that year, accompanied by a Sesquialtera. Jack Bethards has served as the organ curator since 2012, building on the long stewardship of Edward Millington Stout III, who held the role from 1968 to 2012. The sound of the organ is described as truly heavenly by the parish; the instrument underwrites hymnody, choral accompaniments, voluntaries, and improvisations throughout the week.

The Choir of St. Paul's brings together the volunteer Chancel Choir of adults and the Choir School, a graded program for singers from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Founded in 2007 under the direction of Dr. Susan Jane Matthews, the Choir School has trained more than 130 Bay Area youth on scholarships and currently enrolls nearly 30 singers a year. Since 2005, the Chorister program has been affiliated with the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM), an international organization founded in England in 1927. Choristers work through the four-level VOICE for LIFE training program in light blue, dark blue, red, and yellow ribbons, earning bronze, silver, and gold award examinations along the way.

The full Choir of St. Paul's sings for the 10 a.m. liturgy each Sunday from the Thursday after Labor Day through Trinity Sunday, for the Christmas Eve Choral Eucharist, and for the liturgies of Holy Week and Easter Day. Outside the parish, the choir has undertaken three cathedral residencies abroad, at Gloucester Cathedral in 2017, at Wells Cathedral in 2022, and at Lincoln Cathedral in 2025, with the next international tour scheduled for 2028. The choir has recorded three albums, Sweetly Singing in the Choir (2014), Searching for Stars (2019), and Great Host (2024), with the last of these produced as a limited-edition vinyl on Spotify and other streaming platforms. A showcase of women composers and poets, Great Host includes works by Florence Price, Fanny Hensel, Melissa Dunphy, Patricia Van Ness, and others, and it is the title track of a public database of sacred choral music by women for the church year at greathostcomposers.org.

Sundays at 4: The Evensong and Concert Series

A monthly Sundays at 4 p.m. series anchors the church's choral concert life. Most months bring a Choral Evensong in the Anglican tradition of sung Evening Prayer, a 45-minute candlelit service that draws on the monastic offices of Vespers and Compline. The Advent season opens with the Festival of Lessons and Carols, in which carols for congregation and choir alternate with readings from the prophets in a candlelit procession toward the Gospel of Luke. The Annual Christmas Concert and the Marcia McCowin Concert, which highlights women composers and poets, are also part of this series; the McCowin concerts are underwritten by an estate gift from the late radiologist Marcia McCowin (1952-2020) and have included the cantata Lobgesang by Fanny Hensel with the New Century Chamber Orchestra, among other commissions. In the spring, the Choir School presents an original musical for treble voices, with past productions devoted to the lives of Fanny Hensel and Florence Price. A new mass setting titled A Centennial Mass, commissioned from Cambridge organist Sarah MacDonald in honor of the 2026-2027 centennial, is being introduced movement by movement into the liturgy of the parish over the course of the year.

Children, Youth, and the PrayGrounds

Children are welcome at every liturgy, and during the 10 a.m. service the PrayGrounds in the Chapel offers a spacious place for the youngest among us to sit, play, and pray. A Children's Chapel gathers several times a month, with children beginning in the Church, processing to classrooms to listen to the Gospel and share prayers with one another, and returning during the Offertory. The congregation sings a Song of Hope with the children as a ritual blessing before they go to their classroom. On one Sunday each year, Youth Sunday, the older children and teens take their turn at the pulpit, leading prayers and music across all parts of the service.

Families retreat once a year to the coast for Prayer on the Beach at Half Moon Bay, and a book group for teens and adults meets to discuss texts of the Christian tradition. Confirmation is celebrated each year at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, where the Bishop hosts a diocesan-wide service. Tongan-speaking youth and adults find their own gathering under the Sa Paula Tonga umbrella.

Outreach Across the Peninsula and Across the Border

Outreach is woven directly into the rhythm of the parish. Each Advent, the congregation tags an Advent Giving Tree with food and gift requests for families at Samaritan House, with wrapping, sorting, and deliveries organized in late December. A backpack drive for Samaritan House has run for ten years; the parish raises money and purchases backpacks through the Roonga drive page, then gathers to fill them with school supplies in the summer. A hygiene kit drive for Samaritan House collects travel-sized toiletries during Lent, packed by volunteers of all ages during the Maundy Thursday Agape meal.

Twelve volunteers are needed on the first, second, and fourth Tuesdays of each month to serve dinner cafeteria-style at Samaritan House's Safe Harbor Shelter for young adults, a fifteen- to twenty-minute drive north of the parish. The parish also prepares and delivers a Saturday breakfast to the families at LifeMoves First Step for Families in San Mateo, with shoppers on Friday and food preparers and delivery volunteers on Saturday morning. A long partnership with CALL Primrose rounds out the food-security ministries. Each January the parish joins the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, with past projects focused on restoring the San Bruno Mountain ecosystem.

For more than a decade, the parish has partnered with Corazon to frame, sheath, paint, and roof a new home in Tijuana, Tecate, or another Mexican border town in a single day. Parishioners travel to San Diego the day before, cross to the build site with a Corazon bus, and return home tired and inspired by sundown. A new partnership with Tiny Village Spirit has sent volunteers and financial support to a Richmond emergency-housing project for young adults. The Healing Team organizes hikes for parishioners at Fort Funston and other open spaces. None of this depends on professional staff; the parish's outreach commissions are led by lay volunteers and supported by clergy.

The Circle of St. Paul's and the Rummage Sale Tradition

Some of the parish's most distinctive outreach flows through the Circle of St. Paul's, a women's ministry founded around 1928 by a small sewing circle of friends in Hillsborough. The group has been meeting monthly ever since to plan events, support one another, and raise money for the parish. Twice each year, on the first weekend of May and the first weekend of October, the parish campus and the Occidental Avenue parking lots are transformed for the Circle's Rummage Sale, a massive community event that brings thousands of shoppers from Burlingame and beyond. Past rummage sales have raised more than two million dollars over the decades, with most of the proceeds underwriting St. Paul's operating expenses and facilities improvements, and a portion given each year to other nonprofits selected by the membership. The winter brings the Circle's Christmas Tea, and a December boutique opens in the parish hall.

The Circle is one of the most enduring lay ministries at St. Paul's, providing an entry point for newcomers who want to plug in quickly into the parish's life.

Healing, Prayer, and Pastoral Care

A dedicated Healing Team oversees much of the pastoral care at St. Paul's. Lay visitors bring Communion to homebound parishioners, and the team sends personal notes to everyone on the Parish Prayer Cycle. Some members knit prayer shawls, which are delivered to parishioners in need of comfort. A Grief Ministry keeps in touch with those who have lost a loved one throughout the year. Prayers for healing are offered during Sunday services. The Columbarium and Memorial Garden on the parish grounds is another way the parish accompanies members through the end of life; buried or interred cremated remains rest in niches that are visited by family members for years to come.

Clergy are available for pastoral conversations, baptisms, weddings, and funeral planning. Baptisms are usually scheduled for four Sundays a year: the Sunday after All Saints Day, the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus in January, the Great Vigil of Easter, and the Feast of Pentecost, with a fifth summer date often added. Weddings follow the Book of Common Prayer, and clergy meet couples in five preparation sessions before the day; weddings are not generally scheduled during Lent. Funerals can be arranged in conversation with any of the clergy.

Retreats, T'ai Chi, and a Year of Learning Together

Each spring, a Parish Retreat at Bishop's Ranch in Healdsburg draws families and individuals of all ages for a weekend of rest, hiking, swimming, and intergenerational prayer. The nearby ranch house is reserved for the parish, with cottages a short walk away for families, and homemade meals served in the dining hall. A Lenten Retreat led by the Pastoral Associate offers an introduction to Ignatian discernment practices, including the Examen, imaginative prayer, and journaling. Past Lenten retreats have been led by guest priests and lay contemplatives, including a weekend with Fr. Brendan E. Williams of the Communion of the Mystic Rose. A Young Adult Retreat at St. Dorothy's Rest has been offered in past years for those in their twenties and thirties. Scholarships and financial assistance are available for every retreat.

T'ai Chi has become one of the parish's signature midweek offerings. Beginning and Continuing classes meet on Wednesday afternoons in Foote Hall, with classes capped at manageable sizes so that beginners and more experienced students can be instructed appropriately. The instructor has taught here for years, and his gentle warm-ups draw a steady group from the parish and the wider community.

Throughout the program year, the parish publishes a Preaching Series and a Preacher Series that brings in leaders from across the diocese and the country. Recent series have included the Rt. Rev. William Swing, the seventh Bishop of California and founder of the United Religions Initiative; the Rev. Susanna Singer of Episcopal Community Services; Laura Bent, chief executive of Samaritan House; the Rev. Katie Cadigan, a TikTok priest whose puppets have questioned clergy at St. Paul's; and the Rev. Rebecca Edwards of Braid Mission, who works with foster youth. Adult Education classes meet on Sundays for deeper study of scripture and tradition, and a small-group ministry under the name Monday Journey gathers for weekly reflection. Monthly discussions of the work of Bishop John Shelby Spong, the writings of Amy-Jill Levine, or the characters of The Chosen offer additional entry points for adults of every background.

The Campus: Columbarium, Labyrinth, and Skillings Garden

The parish campus extends along El Camino Real between Chapin Avenue and the parking lots off Occidental Avenue. The principal Church, with its salmon-pink exterior and prominent belltower, anchors the property. The Chapel, used for the early Sunday service and as the home of the PrayGrounds during the 10 a.m. liturgy, opens onto a cloister walkway lined with printed guides to the birds and plants of the campus. Foote Hall, recently renovated to seat up to 150 people with a draped stage, PA system, large commercial kitchen, and ADA-accessible restrooms and classrooms upstairs, is the gathering space for Hospitali-tea, parish dinners, and renters seeking space for spiritual, parishioner, and community programs. The Parish Hall adds additional meeting rooms. The Skillings Garden and Labyrinth were created as a gift in 2021 honoring the nineteen years of pastoral leadership of the Rev. Thomas Skillings, who served as rector from 2002 until his retirement in 2021. The permanent labyrinth follows the classical six-circuit design of the famed floor labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral.

The Columbarium and Memorial Garden, blessed on February 6, 2005, are dedicated to the memory of long-time parishioner Gloria Barton, who led the effort to create them. The columbarium offers personalized niches for the cremated remains of parishioners and their families in a peaceful and sacred space for meditation.

Becoming a Member

Membership at St. Paul's begins with a conversation. Clergy are glad to talk with anyone exploring baptism, confirmation, or reception into the Episcopal Church, and the parish hosts new-member orientation sessions twice a year. Visitors are warmly welcomed at any of the Sunday services; greeters at the 10 a.m. liturgy can answer questions, point first-timers to the PrayGrounds, and help with seating. Printed bulletins are available in the narthex, and the clergy publish weekly notes that explain the parts of the liturgy and the anthems selected each week. Online giving is available through PayPal, by check, by stock transfer, or through the eScrip program, which returns a percentage of grocery and debit-card purchases to the parish. Online giving supports the parish's operating budget and outreach ministries, with a tax identification number available for those who wish to set up online payments through their bank.

St. Paul's has been served by eleven rectors since 1908, with an average tenure of nearly twenty years. The Rev. Sarah C. Stewart, the current rector, took up her work in the parish alongside the Rev. Nick W. Roosevelt, Priest Associate for Congregational Vitality; the Rev. Jocelyn A. Sideco, Pastoral Associate; Dr. Susan Jane Matthews, Director of Music; and a small staff in the parish office. Together with the Wardens, Vestry, and Trustees, they form the leadership of a parish that prays each Sunday: Gracious and loving God, help us this day to understand and celebrate your dream for the world, to be transformed in Jesus' love, and to use our gifts to make a difference for others.