75 Years on St. Marks Way
Saint Mark's United Methodist Church sits on a quiet stretch of St. Marks Way in the Arden-Arcade neighborhood of Sacramento, a few miles east of the State Capitol. It is a community that traces its roots to a fall day in 1951, when seventy-nine charter members, most of them young couples with children under the age of ten, gathered for the first time in an open-air lathe house. The land had been used to herd goats only the year before. By the time the current sanctuary was broken ground in 1959, Saint Mark's had grown to six hundred members and twelve hundred children in Sunday School, and a cornerstone was laid with a list of charter members, a copy of the 1959 annual report, and pictures of the groundbreaking ceremony sealed inside.
Three quarters of a century later, the congregation at 2391 St. Marks Way still centers on the same commitments that shaped those charter days. Members describe Saint Mark's as a place of worship, joy, comfort, learning, engagement, and challenge, and as a gathering place of believers with many different ideas. The pastor, Rev. Quentisha Davis Wiles, who arrived in July 2022 and is affectionately called Pastor Q, has put it this way: "A gathering place, a place full of love, of hope, a house of mercy - which Jesus called it, a place where all of us - whoever can show up and be nurtured, learn to love, agape love - not just the meaning but the action. A place where we do away with ideas like tolerance and we allow each other to become."
Sunday Morning at Ten
Worship is held every Sunday morning at 10:00 AM, in person in the sanctuary and online through a YouTube livestream. The service is described as blended, drawing on the congregation's long tradition of choral and organ music alongside contemporary song. Communion is celebrated on the first Sunday of every month, and everyone is welcome to participate regardless of church membership or affiliation. Baptism is open to infants, children, and adults; the pastor and church office help families prepare for the sacrament.
There is no specific dress code. Visitors are likely to find a sanctuary full of banners sewn by members of the congregation, a three-manual pipe organ anchoring the front, and a music program that mixes choir, handbells, a worship band, and soloists. After worship, the community gathers for coffee hour in Wesley Hall, and a children's Sunday School runs at the same hour for kindergarten through fifth grade. Childcare is provided for infants through preschool. On the second and fourth Sundays, a discussion group called What to Do meets in the Education Building at 11:45 AM to talk through the news of the day from a peace and social justice perspective.
A Sanctuary Where ALL Means ALL
Saint Mark's is a Reconciling Congregation within the United Methodist Church, part of the Reconciling Ministries Network, and that identity is woven through everything the church does. The Rainbow Alliance (LGBTQIA+) is one of the church's longest-running ministries, organizing Sacramento Pride participation, hosting brunches after worship, and partnering with PFLAG, whose Sacramento chapter meets at Saint Mark's on the third Tuesday of every month. The phrase "ALL means ALL" is repeated in worship.
That welcome has a long history at Saint Mark's. The congregation took up the question of becoming a Reconciling Congregation twice, the first time in 1990 and 1991 in a vote that fell short, and a second time in 2006, when a special church conference approved the designation by a vote of 269 to 43. The current pastor's ministry emphasizes love as a daily act of resistance and invites members to commit to one act of loving restoration each month. In 2024, the United Methodist General Conference removed the restrictions on same-sex marriage, and the church's historian, Barbara Eychaner, has noted how that decision closed a chapter that began with a 1999 Holy Union at Saint Mark's that drew sixty-eight active clergy and a police-escorted protest across the street.
The Pipe Organ, the Choir, and the Strathdees
Music is a defining element of Saint Mark's. The sanctuary's pipe organ has 3,080 pipes spread across 52 ranks and is paired with organist Robert Rouch, a combination that gives the congregation access to both thundering and delicate sound across centuries of repertoire. The instrument is described as a parish labor of love and cultural legacy, and concerts and special performances are held throughout the year.
The Music Ministry, under Minister of Music Rick Schlosser, includes the Saint Mark's Choir, a Praise and Worship Team, a handbell choir, and a band. Choir rehearses on Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings; the handbell choir meets on Friday mornings. There is also a Summer Arts Festival that runs from early June through Labor Day weekend, inviting members to share music, dance, poetry, storytelling, theater, and visual art in worship.
Jim and Jean Strathdee have been part of Saint Mark's for most of their ministry together. They served as Music Directors from 1990 to 2006, returned in 2017 as Musicians in Residence, and have been writing, performing, and leading worship music since 1971, including tours across the United States, Canada, India, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Palestine. Their music is published in at least a dozen hymnals across denominations, and songs like I am the light of the world, Water me, What does the Lord require of you, and We are not alone are sung in churches around the world. Rick Schlosser brings a doctorate in liturgical studies and Jungian depth psychology, three music degrees, a Master of Divinity, and twenty-two years of statewide interfaith advocacy; he is also a United States Air Force veteran and a former co-president of the Methodist Federation for Social Action.
Mission to Angola and Sierra Leone
Saint Mark's has a long history of sending and supporting missionaries. The first overseas missionaries, Bill and Esther Finster, served as teachers in what is now Zimbabwe for nearly twenty years beginning in the early 1960s. That relationship helped the church form deep ties with the Bulaya family, including Shimba Bulaya, a pioneering Congolese educator whose son Joel found a spiritual home at Saint Mark's in 1991 and still leads a monthly drum circle in the sanctuary.
Since 2012, Volunteer in Mission (VIM) teams from Saint Mark's, led by Joel Bulaya, have traveled six times to Angola to support community-led efforts at Bom Jesus United Methodist Church. The focus is a women's cooperative working to lift its community out of poverty, in partnership with United Methodist missionary Naná Fatuma Katembo. Most recent journeys have included bridge-building, support for a young man pursuing a nursing credential, and ongoing leadership shared by Joel Bulaya, Jane Henderson, and Jim Eychaner. Saint Mark's supports the work through monthly budgeted contributions, a designated Angola fund, and special fundraisers like the all-church yard sale.
A newer partnership has taken root in Sierra Leone, where Saint Mark's member Nepoh Koker, who also serves as the VIM Lead Ambassador, traveled to the remote village of Mondema in the Eastern Kenema District in 2024. There, the Mondema United Methodist Church Primary School serves children eager to learn in a building with cracked walls, broken furniture, and no desks, while the church itself struggles with a zinc roof and no ceiling. Saint Mark's is partnering to supply backpacks and school supplies and to renovate the church with air conditioning, solar panels, and a proper ceiling, with a combined fundraising goal of $27,400. Monthly giving tiers at Saint Mark's are named Seed Sower, Light Bearer, Kingdom Builder, and Mission Champion.
From the Heifer Project to SacACT and Loaves and Fishes
Saint Mark's was an early supporter of the Heifer Project International, beginning in the 1950s when Dr. Dillon Throckmorton, the church's founding district superintendent, became Heifer's Pacific West Regional Director. Members sponsored chickens, goats, and heifers, and from the late 1970s through the early 2000s, the all-church yard sale, organized by Ray and Dorothy Miller, helped raise more than $272,000 for the cause. Members also helped found the Sierra Service Project in 1975; Saint Mark's remains the annual training site for SSP summer team leaders.
Members were also early supporters of Loaves and Fishes, the Sacramento nonprofit that provides more than a thousand meals a day to unhoused neighbors. On the fourth Wednesday of every month, a team of fourteen to sixteen Saint Mark's volunteers prepares food from 7:00 to 10:00 AM and serves a noon meal from 10:30 AM to 1:30 PM. In 1992, Saint Mark's was one of the founding congregations of Sacramento Area Congregations Together (SacACT), an interfaith organization committed to justice, healing, and community transformation. The Mercy Pedalers, who have made a Wednesday morning route through the Arden-Arcade neighborhood for nearly nine years, hand out coffee, sandwiches, snacks, socks, hygiene kits, and first aid supplies, and have collected and distributed sleeping bags, tents, and tarps to more than forty unhoused neighbors in a single season. The Second Saturday Respite brings unhoused neighbors to the church once a month for a hot breakfast, a hot shower, a change of clothing, and a bag meal to take with them.
Children, Sunday School, and Kids Camp
Children are central to the life of Saint Mark's. Sunday School meets during worship for children in kindergarten through fifth grade, with a Bible lesson, music, and activities. Childcare is provided for infants through preschool. All teachers and assistants are vetted and screened through Safe Gatherings, an abuse prevention program.
Throughout the year, the Children's Ministry offers Trunk or Treat in October, ADVENTure, a Christmas craft-making event in December, Walk with Jesus during the Easter season, and Vacation Bible School, known at Saint Mark's as Kids Camp, in the summer. Kids Camp has run as a garden-themed week of crafts, music, games, storytelling, and hands-on planting in the church's Kids Garden, with an Ice Cream Social and Open House on the closing evening. Older youth can earn community service hours by helping. The Kids Garden itself is a teaching tool: tomatoes, string beans, and other crops are harvested, shared with families, and donated to the wider community.
The church has also been selected as a Worshipping Intergenerationally and Nurturing Kids through Storytelling (WINKS) Fellow by Auburn Theological Seminary, deepening Saint Mark's commitment to creating worship spaces where every age belongs and encounters God.
The Food Closet, the Rainbow Alliance, and the Work of Mercy
The Saint Mark's Food Closet is open every Tuesday and Saturday from 10:00 to 11:00 AM to anyone in the neighborhood experiencing food insecurity. There is no I.D. requirement; bags can also be requested at other times when food is available. The most-needed donations include cereal, canned fruit, peanut butter, jelly, applesauce, soups, pasta, canned vegetables, beans, rice, tuna, and mac and cheese. The Food Closet shares the campus with several long-running recovery meetings, including a women's Al-Anon group that meets on Thursdays at 6:00 PM and several weekly Gamblers Anonymous sessions.
The Rainbow Alliance organizes Sacramento Pride participation, hosts brunches after worship, and partners with the Sacramento chapter of PFLAG, which meets at Saint Mark's on the third Tuesday of every month at 7:00 PM. Guide Dogs for the Blind also meets on the second Tuesday of each month in Wesley Hall at 7:00 PM. The What to Do social justice group gathers every second and fourth Sunday to brainstorm and to support one another in taking action on the issues of the day.
Saint Mark's also hosts an annual United Women in Faith-led advocacy tradition: the Valentine Run/Walk for Justice, which raises money for Legal Services of Northern California, a free legal aid provider for low-income people in twenty-three Northern California counties. A sign-making party and cheering section for runners and walkers gathers at the Saint Mark's parking lot each February.
United Women in Faith
The local United Women in Faith chapter, formerly United Methodist Women, is one of the busiest organizations on the Saint Mark's campus. Circles meet for Bible study, including a course titled Her Faith Still Speaks, which explores the lives of more than fourteen women of the Bible, and gather monthly in MacMurdo Hall for refreshments, a program, and UWF business. The UWF Reading Program encourages members to read, track, and share recommended resources through four reading plans, and offers a free lunch to anyone who completes a year of reading. The chapter also runs the Alliance Stamp Ministry, which collects used postage stamps to provide Spanish-language Sunday School materials for communities around the world, and participates in the annual A Call to Prayer and Self-Denial offering, which in 2026 supports National Mission Institutions serving vulnerable children.
The Building, the Campus, and the Peace Pole
Saint Mark's sits on a campus of four buildings and two parking lots, with a Memorial Garden, a playground, and surrounding grounds cared for by volunteers at seasonal landscaping workdays. Wesley Hall, the fellowship hall completed in 1965, is the busiest indoor space, hosting Karaoke nights, the Second Saturday Respite, and recovery meetings. MacMurdo Hall, named for founding pastor Rev. Dave MacMurdo, holds large gatherings, UWF brunches, and the larger Crab Feed. Grace Cafe, which received a new heating and cooling system in 2025, can be used year-round.
On the east side of the sanctuary stands the Peace Pole, dedicated in July 2008 in honor of Reverend Robert Moon, the congregation's second senior pastor, who served from 1966 to 1974. Bob Moon, an economist by training and a graduate of Boston School of Theology, marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during civil rights protests, served in leadership of the National Council of Churches and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and was brought up on charges in 1954 for his pacifism. The Peace Pole carries the message May Peace Prevail on Earth in the tradition of the World Peace Prayer Society, founded in 1955 by Masahisa Goi. There are more than two hundred thousand Peace Poles in more than 190 countries.
Saint Mark's also makes its facilities available to non-profit and community-based organizations, and to a limited extent to some for-profit groups. Meeting space for groups from ten to two hundred people is available, and the Event Center hosts weddings, receptions, and memorial services, with Pastor Quentisha and other clergy available to officiate. A new portable public address system helps with sound in MacMurdo Hall and Wesley Hall, and a new assistive listening system offers twelve receivers with earphones and three neck loops for those who need hearing support during worship.
A Voice for Creation and Justice
Saint Mark's is a vocal presence in local interfaith advocacy. The Shalom Circle hosted a presentation by the Northern California Director of California Interfaith Power and Light, and the church joined an advocacy day at the State Capitol in support of bills on balcony solar, gas well cleanup, heat pump permitting, energy autonomy, and CEQA safeguards. The Climate Justice Ministries Team shares the United Methodist Creation Justice Movement's monthly tips through the Markings newsletter, with practical ideas on energy use, food choices, plastic avoidance, and tree planting.
Through SacACT, Saint Mark's members have weighed in on Sacramento's homelessness and housing policy, opposing a forced joint powers agency for homeless services and pushing back against federal funding cuts to housing programs. The Rainbow Alliance walks in the Sacramento Pride Parade each June and hosts a booth at the festival. The What to Do group has organized poster-making parties and voter turnout gatherings around major intersections in the neighborhood.
Beliefs, Vision, and Welcome
Saint Mark's vision is "Enriching community and transforming the world through God's love." Its mission is "Growing a thriving, inclusive, and diverse congregation that engages the broader community with compassionate acts." Core values are Advocacy, Cultural Humility, Service, Inclusion, and Spirituality. Guiding principles are Authenticity, Timeliness, and Excellence. Baptism and Communion are the two Holy Sacraments observed by the United Methodist Church, and both are offered openly to anyone seeking them.
Adult Education is offered at varied times and places, with Bible studies, Lenten studies in person and on Zoom, and topical classes during the program year. The Moon Lecture Series, endowed by Bob and Dorrie Moon, brings contemporary, provocative, progressive, and enlightening speakers, authors, and community leaders to the congregation and the wider Sacramento community. The Prayer Partner Project pairs members with friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, or fellow churchgoers for mutual prayer and connection. The Dream Work group, facilitated by trained dream worker Ruth Reynolds, meets monthly for anyone curious about the spiritual wisdom of dreams. New members are welcomed through a quarterly Exploring Saint Mark's seminar, a four-hour introduction to living a life of faith, United Methodist history and tradition, distinctive Methodist spirituality, United Methodist Social Principles, and what it means to be an active participant at Saint Mark's.
The weekly sermon is available as a podcast called Faith Unbound, hosted by Pastor Q, and is released on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The Markings newsletter arrives in print and by email each month, and a weekly email called re:Mark's keeps the congregation current. Text-to-give, online giving, and in-person offerings during worship make financial support possible. The church office is open Tuesday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Saint Mark's looks forward to a future of music, mission, and welcome that builds on seventy-five years of faithful service on St. Marks Way.