An Inclusive Church on East North Street
St. Paul's United Methodist Church has stood at 910 East North Street in Manteca, California, for more than six decades, and the congregation behind it goes back even further. Members of the church describe it with three short phrases: Open Hearts. Open Doors. Open Minds. The motto captures both the theology and the daily practice of a community that calls itself inclusive and works to make that word concrete in worship, in service and in the rooms it opens to outside groups.
Sunday mornings draw neighbors from across Manteca and the surrounding San Joaquin County area to a single in-person service at 10:00 AM in the sanctuary. A sanctuary full of musical offerings, coffee and lemonade afterward, and a deep calendar of weekday programs together make St. Paul's one of the most active United Methodist congregations in the region.
A Hundred and Ten Years of Ministry in Manteca
The congregation's roots reach back to September 1915, when the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Manteca was founded. A year earlier, area Methodists had shared Union Chapel on the southeast corner of North Street and Sycamore Avenue with the Brethren, Congregational and Christian churches, each group using the building one weekend a month. After a remodeled paint store served as a temporary home, a dedicated sanctuary on the southwest corner of Yosemite and Sequoia Avenues was dedicated on April 14, 1918. Ladies Aid, mission study groups, the Women's Society of Christian Service and the church's first Men's Group followed in the 1930s and 1940s.
By 1952 the growing church was looking for a new site, and in March 1953 a three-acre parcel was donated by a member who wished to remain anonymous. That land is the present-day campus. In 1955 a committee chose the name St. Paul's Federated Methodist-Union Baptist Church after the Baptists lost their own building to fire in 1925 and joined in a federated arrangement. The new sanctuary was consecrated on May 27, 1956, the parsonage followed on August 25, 1957, and classrooms, offices, the pastor's study and the choir room were added in 1958. In 2015 the congregation celebrated one hundred years of ministry with a theme of Celebrating the Past, and Embracing the Future.
Members of St. Paul's have shaped Manteca through farming, medicine, small business, teaching, civic leadership and volunteer service. Through the decades the congregation has supported the Hospital Auxiliary, Soroptimist, Rotary, Kiwanis, blood drives, food pantries, after-school programs and the Manteca Hall of Fame. One pastor described the recurring themes of the church's first fifty years as growth, spiritual crisis, renewal, financial crisis and surges of spiritual and moral vigor, a description that still rings true for the present-day community.
Sunday Worship and Holy Communion
Sunday worship at 10:00 AM in the sanctuary is the heart of the week at St. Paul's. The hour-long service is in person and open to all. Holy Communion is observed on the first Sunday of each month, and visitors do not need to be members to receive the sacrament. People of all ages are invited to participate.
Children are a visible part of Sunday morning. Kids' Care opens at 9:30 AM in the Family Ministries Room for infants through kindergarten and runs through 11:30 AM. Around 10:20 AM, the older Kids' Zone children, preschool through fifth grade, leave the sanctuary with trained youth and adult leaders for Bible lessons and activities. On communion Sundays the children return to the sanctuary in time to share the sacrament with their families.
Past services are recorded and posted so that the broader community can watch online. Coffee and fellowship follow the service from 11:00 AM to noon, with coffee, water, lemonade and a light bite to eat, a time members describe as the easiest place to meet someone new.
A Music Ministry Built Around the Choir Room
Music is one of the defining characteristics of St. Paul's. The Music Ministry is led by Anne Talcott, a University of the Pacific graduate in music education who has now served the church for twenty-seven years, following thirty-five years of teaching band and choir in the Manteca Unified School District. She is accompanied by Darin Brown.
The Chancel Choir numbers more than thirty-five teenagers and adults and rehearses on Thursdays from 7:00 to 8:00 PM in the choir room, with an optional early rehearsal at 3:00 PM for singers who need a daytime option. The choir sings classical music, contemporary arrangements, spirituals and other anthems.
The Mission Bells handbell choir, directed by Lisa Traughber, plays in worship most often on the fourth Sunday of the month and participates in the Bells of Blessing concert and Christmas concerts. An Intermediate Handbells group meets Thursdays from 6:15 to 6:55 PM, and a Beginning Handbells class gathers from 5:30 to 6:00 PM for all ages from seven and up. Children ages five through fourteen can join the Music Discovery Choir, which rehearses Thursdays at 5:45 PM and sings in worship about once a month.
For a more contemporary sound, the St. Paul's Praise Team, about twenty-five singers and instrumentalists who play guitars, drums, keyboard, flute and ukuleles, leads worship two Sundays a month, often on the second and third Sundays. Rehearsals happen on the second Saturday in the sanctuary. Anne Talcott also offers free tutoring on piano, guitar, ukulele, band instruments and voice through the church's music rooms and piano lab.
Children, Youth and Family Ministries
Family Ministries at St. Paul's is built around Kristen Frisk, Director of Family Ministries, and Aubrey Hobbs, Family Ministries Coordinator. Their goal is to nurture and support families in their faith journey by offering opportunities to build relationships with other families that strengthen their commitment to the church.
Sunday morning is only the entry point. The children's ministry operates Kids' Care for infants through kindergarten and Kids' Zone for preschool through fifth grade, with weekly Bible lessons, hands-on activities and trained adult and youth leaders. Youth Ministry serves students in fifth grade through high school with Bible study, music, worship, fellowship and mission work. The Mission statement for youth ministries reads: Inspire youth to know Christ, to experience Christ's love, and to share Christ's love with others.
Events like Bingo and Blessings, a Monday-evening dinner and fellowship gathering that asks attendees to bring a sixteen-ounce jar of peanut butter for the food pantry, give families another reason to connect. Storytime Bus, a partnership with the San Joaquin County Public Library, brings a morning of reading, songs and playtime to the campus several times a year. Girl Scout Troop #1696 also calls St. Paul's home, meeting twice a month in the Fellowship Hall.
The Food Pantry at the End of Each Month
St. Paul's Food Pantry is the church's signature community outreach. Food distribution takes place on the last Saturday of every month from 9:00 to 11:00 AM. It is a drive-through event. After a first-time intake, neighbors in need do not need to leave their cars; volunteers carry groceries to them. The Powers Avenue driveway is the entrance to use.
The pantry is the only food pantry in Manteca that makes home deliveries to seniors, shut-ins and clients without transportation. Five volunteer teams currently deliver to twenty-four households. Fifty-one volunteers from twelve area churches keep the pantry running, with support from Pleasant Valley Farms, Raley's, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Manteca Unified School District, Second Harvest Food Bank, United Women in Faith and Federated Women.
In addition to the monthly distribution, St. Paul's hosts periodic Mobile Fresh Food Distribution events with Second Harvest Food Bank of San Joaquin County, setting up food tables in the parking lot and serving a drive-through line.
Recovery, Small Groups and Book Studies
The church's doors are open to recovery communities that need a steady meeting place. Narcotics Anonymous meets in the Fireside Room twice a week, on Wednesday and Sunday evenings from 7:00 to 8:00 PM. Overeaters Anonymous meets in the library on Wednesdays from 5:30 to 6:30 PM.
Several ongoing small groups give members a place to read and learn together. The Tuesday Book Study Group gathers at 10:00 AM in the Fireside Room. A separate book study meets Tuesday afternoons at Manteca Assisted Living at 1130 Empire Avenue. On the first Tuesday of each month, Jay Holmes and Jeanne Pollard lead a short service of Worship, Communion and Song at the same assisted living community from 2:30 to 3:30 PM. A Mystery Book Club meets monthly.
Wider Mission: Family Promise, MICA and UMCOR
St. Paul's partners with three wider networks of mission. Through Family Promise of San Joaquin, the church is one of the host congregations that welcome families experiencing homelessness during rotation weeks. The congregation provides setup and cleanup crews, furniture and a warm environment, with the goal of helping families rebuild resources, find stable housing and stay together.
The Manteca Interfaith Community Appeal (MICA) meets in the Fireside Room on the second Wednesday of each month. MICA brings together people of various faiths, beliefs and traditions around common goals of service, education and peace, working with respect, diversity and solidarity. Through the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), the congregation supports disaster response, humanitarian relief and other connectional ministries of the global United Methodist Church.
An Open Welcome and a United Methodist Identity
St. Paul's understands its identity through the United Methodist Church's historic Social Creed. The congregation affirms God as Creator, Jesus Christ as Redeemer and the Holy Spirit as the giver of gifts to be used faithfully, not for idolatrous ends. It commits itself to the natural world as God's handiwork, to the blessing of community, sexuality, marriage and the family, to the rights of men, women, children, youth, young adults, the aging and people with disabilities, to fair work and economic justice, to peace and the rule of law among nations, and to the present and final triumph of God's Word in human affairs.
The church's vision is to celebrate, grow and live faith in Jesus Christ. Its mission is to find inspiration through worship, study and actively serving God and neighbors by sharing hope. The congregation's favorite summary comes from John Wesley, the founder of Methodism: Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.
For visitors and newcomers, the simplest plan is also the most accurate: come as you are to 10:00 AM on Sunday. There will be music, communion on the first Sunday of the month, coffee after the service and people ready to make space for whoever walks in the door.