2024-2025 Preaching Series
September 15, 2024
ONE SERVICE 10AM
11:15AM Faithful Forum
Nuclear Disarmament & Our Call to Peace
The Rev. William E. Swing
William E. Swing is the Founder and President Emeritus of the United Religions Initiative. Bishop Swing, along with 50 others, shaped the URI purpose (to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence and to create cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth and all living beings). URI is currently the largest interfaith grassroots organization.
Bishop Swing Bishop Swing served as the 7th Episcopal Bishop of California from 1980 until his retirement in 2006. As a national and international leader responding to the AIDS crisis, he co-founded Episcopal Community Services to address San Francisco’s homeless problem, and co-founded Community Bank of the Bay to support local businesses and the economy.
Check out his book, God and Nuclear Weapons.
September 22, 2024
8AM & 10AM Services
11:15AM Training Session
Resourcing God’s People to be a Whole & Healthy Church
Ms. Caren Miles
Ms. Miles has enjoyed more than twenty years of life lessons through helping children and youth find their identities as beloved children of God. She loves that her job ranges from sitting on the floor to read Bible stories with preschoolers to dancing with teenagers through a sea of Bishops at last summer’s Episcopal Youth Event.
In her diocesan work, Ms. Miles equips leaders, assists youth ministers, trains children’s staff, and tackles “other duties as assigned” by Bishop Austin. She has served Jesus and the church in Texas, New York, and, most recently, in the Diocese of California for the last 8 years.
October 20, 2024
8AM & 10AM Services
11:15AM Faithful Forum
Journey to the Margins: Reflections on a life transformed by people experiencing poverty
Audrey & Perry Sakai
Audrey and Perry Sakai are the grandparents of Anna and Alice Malhotra. They have been involved in the Mien and Cambodian communities for decades, both locally and abroad. From 1990 to 2003, they lived in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Thailand with their children, Mia and Paul. During their years overseas, Audrey worked as an ESL teacher, and Perry was the Country Manager of World Concern, a Christian relief and development agency.
Currently, the Sakais live in Oakland and work with Harbor House Ministries, a Christian non-profit that serves Oakland’s San Antonio District. Perry is an ordained minister with the Evangelical Covenant Church.
November 3, 2024
ONE SERVICE 10AM
All Saints’ Sunday
The Rt. Rev. Austin Rios
The Rt. Rev. Austin Keith Rios was ordained and consecrated Bishop Coadjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of California on May 4, 2024. He is the first Latino to be elected as a bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California.
Before joining the Diocese of California, Bishop Rios served for 12 years as the rector of St. Paul’s Within the Walls Episcopal Church in Rome, Italy, a multilingual and multicultural community that houses and offers The Joel Nafuma Refugee Center as its primary outreach.
Bishop Rios has served the wider Episcopal Church in various capacities, including multiple terms as a deputy to the General Convention. In 2018, he was elected to a six-year term as a trustee of the Church Pension Fund and served as Vice Chair of its Investment Committee. In 2024, he was elected Vice Chair of the Church Pension Fund and re-elected as a trustee.
January 26, 2025
8AM & 10AM Services
11:15AM Faithful Forum
San Quentin and Saint Paul
Mr. John D. Nibbelin
John’s journey from young army recruit to corporate lawyer to public servant highlights the impact of a lively faith. As San Mateo County’s chief legal officer, John is proud of San Mateo County’s stance on the leading edge of important social issues like financial privacy rights, access to healthcare, and affordable housing. John leads local planning commissions, strengthens burlpres church’s personnel and governing practices, and organizes retreat weekends for men “on the inside” at San Quentin through his volunteer efforts with Kairos Prison Ministry.
John has more than 30 years of military experience, on active duty and in the Reserves, and attended law school in the Bay Area.
February 23, 2025
8AM & 10AM Services
11:15AM Faithful Forum
Becoming Beloved Community After Genocide
Ms. Jocelyn A. Sideco
Jocelyn's ministry engages a felt reality of the Beloved Community. Ms. Sideco has a background in training leaders in deepening their cultural competency, educating to enhance diversity and multicultural awareness, and building a skill set of social justice practices that promote the dignity of each person and the common good. She ministers predominantly to discerning young adults and fractured organizational structures.
In addition to her role as Pastoral Associate focusing on Children, Families, and Youth ministries at St. Paul's, Ms. Sideco is one of 18 religious leaders chosen by Auburn Theological Seminary to participate in a program centered around the Aegis Trust values-based peacebuilding curriculum and a three-day conference. The conference was entitled "Listening and Leading: The Art and Science of Peace, Resilience and Transformational Justice," a conversation commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsi's in July 2024.
March 9, 2024
8AM & 10AM Services
9AM Faithful Forum
Exploring This Expansive Faith
Ms. Debie Thomas
Debie Thomas is a second-year M.Div student at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and a postulant for Holy Orders in the Diocese of California. From 2012 to 2024, she served as a lay minister for formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Palo Alto. Debie is also the author of two books (Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories, and A Faith of Many Rooms), and she serves as a staff writer and contributing editor for The Christian Century.
Debie and her husband, Alex live in Scotts Valley, with their very friendly labradoodle, Ruby, and the comings and goings of their two young adult children.
June 22, 2025
8AM & 10am Services
Pride in One Another
Ms. Anne Casscells
Anne Casscells is an investment professional who worked at Stanford University’s endowment. She and her wife have been members of St. Paul’s for 20 years; they were married here in 2008.
Anne is a longtime member of the St. Paul’s Chancel Choir and is the first adult at St. Paul’s to earn a gold medal in the Royal School of Church Music curriculum. She chairs St. Paul’s Finance Commission and serves as diocesan delegate, representing St. Paul’s in the Peninsula Deanery and the Diocese of California. Anne also is a trustee of Grace Cathedral.
She and her wife have long been active in the work of diversity and LGBTQ civil rights, and she sits on the advisory board of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research.