St. Paul's - Oakland

Two days ago was a great day.  In one day I got to do two things I really liked, checking out a new church and go to my first regular season football game.  After many weeks of talking about it I finally made it into Oakland to begin my whirlwind tour of the Episcopal parishes in the city.  First stop, St. Paul's.  Since Lauren did not have to work this past Sunday we thought it would be cool to not only go to an Oakland parish but to also catch a game together.  Fortunately for us the Raiders were in town this week playing the Chicago Bears and we were able to grab some pretty sweet tickets, but I will get to that later.  But first things first.

Lauren and I decided that to take BART into the city since both St. Paul's and the Oakland Coliseum were easily accessible by train and that parking would be an expensive nightmare.  the ride was much shorter than I had thought and we were at the 19th Street stop in no time.  The station was less than a mile away from the church so we took our time walking through the quiet streets of Oakland.  It was cool to be walking down there because not only was this usually a busy area and was quiet at that hour, but I had not been down in that area yet.  In fact my only experience of Oakland to that point was driving to and from the airport.  As we turned the corner from one of the main streets I saw a random lake.  I didn't see any rivers leading to or from the lake but it just seemed odd to me that there would be this lake situated in the middle of the city.  It is Lake Merritt and I have no idea whether it was natural or man made but I do know that there was a real scary looking "storybook amusement park" on one side of the lake.  It apparently was built before Disney and it looked it.  The church was less than a block from the lake and we arrived in less than an hour from leaving Berkeley.  Not a bad commute at all.

Lake Merritt

St. Paul's in the distance

Front entrance of St. Paul's

When we walked into the church I was struck by both how beautiful it was, yet also rather rundown and old.  The stained glass was beautiful but it looked as if a lot of the windows were not complete.  While there were high walls and beautiful architecture structure inside, the walls were made of the red brick and conflicted with the feel of the rest of the building.  The floors were some red marble like stone but it was cracked and uneven in many different places.  The building was unique and definitely had character.  As we first walked in the baptismal font was directly on our right with a painting behind it.

 Looking into the church, just inside the entrance

The baptismal font

What was most impressive was the sanctuary up front.  There was a beautiful rail of while marble and off to the left a raised pulpit made of wood.  To the right, just behind the rail was an ornate lectern made in the shape of an eagle.  The alter was set a few feet behind the rail and was also made of beautiful white marble.  On the altar were huge silver candlesticks, also ornately made.  Finally behind the altar were the bishop's chair and the rest of the seating for the clergy and other participants in the service.  The choir was off to the right and left and they were not really large in size, maybe 10 or so people, but well rehearsed and they performed well.  We were lucky because since it was First Advent the parish was doing an Advent Lessons and Carols with Holy Eucharist.  At first I thought this service was going to be long but they pulled it off in an hour and a half, of course there was no sermon.  Interwoven with the traditional scriptures for a lessons and carols service for this season were a mixture of hymns and choral anthems sung by the choir.  As I found in most of my previous experiences I once again was familiar with the choral anthems.  The service then followed the traditional Rite II form and like I said before we were done by 11:30.

I really like the make up of the congregation.  There were people both young and old.  The congregation is multicultural and there is certainly a variety of income.  The music program was great and the church not only operates a school in a separate building off to the left of the church but they own and operate an elderly housing building across the street from the church that was easily thirty floors high.  They have many different outreach programs and offer many different services each day.  It seems like a vibrant community seeking to live out their baptismal covenant in their section of Oakland and the wider Bay Area.  I briefly talked with the rector, Father Mauricio, a middle aged African American who is large is stature and in personality.  This place satisfies almost all of my own personal field ed parish criteria.  It is a large parish in an urban setting, with strong outreach and music programs, a multicultural and multi-generational congregation, and finally a young rector.  I will come here again to hear him preach and I think that this would be a great place to do my field ed.  We shall see.

And then came football!