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AT THE CENTER OF OUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEY TOGETHER AT ST. THOMAS' PARISH is our experience of worship. Through joyful singing, engaging preaching, prayer and silence, we come together to share in the love and inclusiveness of the Body of Christ. Wherever you may be along your own faith journey, there is always room at the table for you.
We have active Worship and Music Committees to assist the clergy and choirmaster in planning and leading Sunday worship. We constantly are trying new things, singing new music, exploring other styles of worshiping God in community. Currently
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The 9:00 a.m. Eucharist is a spoken service with Eucharist from the Book of Common Prayer.
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The 11:00 a.m. service of Holy Eucharist includes a sermon and music, usually with a choir.
We enjoy singing together many parts of our worship, rather than only having them performed for us, including psalms and hymns.
On the third Sunday of the month, a simple optional healing service is provided during Holy Communion; at a side altar Pastoral Care Team members are available to say prayers with and for you for the places in your own life, or the lives of friends and loved ones, needing healing.
A Taize prayer service with Eucharist is held every Sunday at 5 p.m. and offers a contemplative liturgy, often accompanied by recorder, cello, flute, double-bass, oboe or other instruments played by our parishioners. Inclusive language is used.
Episcopal worship is shaped by the language of The Book of Common Prayer. We value thoughtful and reverent times of prayer, teaching, and reflection, along with times of playful informality and rather boisterous singing!
MUSIC PLAYS AN ESSENTIAL ROLE IN OUR LIFE IN COMMUNITY TOGETHER, BEGINNING WITH WORSHIP.
Our choir includes both professional and volunteer members who perform a wide variety of works drawn from the output of composers of all periods. Tallis and Taverner motets are sung alongside African-American spirituals, Taize chants, and original compositions by our choirmaster.
Covenanting of Same-Sex Unions and Marriages
Beginning n the fall of 1995 the Vestry of St. Thomas' initiated a process of study and discernment on marriage and the covenanting of same-sex unions that produced a "Report on the Covenanting of Same-Sex Unions. This led in March 1998 to the adoption of a groundbreaking liturgy for the blessing of same-sex unions,one of the first in the Episcopal Church.
That liturgy was the basis for over a decade for the numerous blessings of same-sex unions our clergy performed, as well as a model for covenant liturgies developed in other parts of the Episcopal Church.
The legalization of same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia and other parts of the country brought about the need for more consistent practice in our diocese, leading to diocesan-wide guidelines now followed in the regular marriages and holy unions celebrated at St. Thomas' Parish.
>> Read the Report on the Convenanting of Same-Sex Unions
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