What To Expect at a Service

People sitting in pews with light streaming in over stained glass windows.

Welcome to the beloved community at All Saints

We hope to see you on Sunday morning for our 10am Holy Eucharist at 555 Waverley Avenue in Palo Alto, California. We are also live-streaming our services to Facebook and live streaming/archiving our recordings on YouTube. After service we gather together joyfully for coffee hour on our Labyrinth courtyard or in the parish hall during cooler weather.

Service Bulletins: For the upcoming services and past Sundays; like a program for a play, these list the readings, music, prayers, and announcements.

Here’s what to expect if you visit us in-person:


Worship In the Sanctuary

At All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto we enjoy welcoming visitors and newcomers: whether you’re just passing through or looking for a church home, we are honored by your presence. Everyone who desires to draw near to Christ is welcome to receive Communion at All Saints Episcopal Church Palo Alto.

Our Sunday liturgy comprises both Scripture and Eucharist, or Holy Communion. We follow the liturgical framework of the Book of Common Prayer, while often drawing on treasures from the wider Anglican world. We find ourselves refreshed and enriched by seasonal variation. Our congregation is comprised of members from different church backgrounds and religious traditions, and we seek to embrace and celebrate our common life in ways that speak to all.

Our service booklets are designed to make it easy for everyone to follow and fully participate in the service as each is comfortable. Take a look here.

If you are feeling ill, please plan to watch our online streamed service to help keep everyone safe. Masks are optional.

A massive stained glass window in the roof.

A large group of singers in choir robes.

Glorious Music

We love to sing! We sing hymns and service music, accompanied by a piano, our wonderful organ, and sometimes guitar. Our services are enhanced by our adult choir and, occasionally, by our children’s choir and instrumentalists from among our congregation.


An Ancient & Inclusive Service

Episcopal worship is “liturgical.” This is an ancient pattern of worship that goes back to the earliest centuries of the church and that we share with other Anglican churches in the world and indeed with similarities to other churches worldwide that are in the liturgical tradition. Our presiding bishop, Michael Curry, likes to say that we are “… the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement.”

Our clergy vest in traditional vestments, our choir in cassock and surplice, though we wear that formality lightly. We create a place for children in our worship and intersperse contemporary music accompanied on the guitar with the highest and grandest music played on our magnificent pipe organ by our music director, Cyril Deaconoff. As Episcopalian Robin Williams described us: “all of the pageantry, none of the guilt.”

All are welcome at God’s table.

Bishop Mary Reaves kneeling while wearing red for Pentecost and putting her hand on a young person being confirmed in the church.

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry is the elected head of the Episcopal Church. Bishop Lucinda Ashby is the elected bishop of our diocese, the Diocese of El Camino Real. More on how the Episcopal Church governs itself democratically.