Contact us

St. Paul's United Church
173  Old Sambro Rd. Halifax, Nova Scotia
B3R  2H6  Canada
tel: (902) 477-3937
fax: (902) 477-5206

Email:   stpaulschurch@eastlink.ca

St.  Paul's Family Resource Institute (FRI): (902) 479-1015
Foodbank: (902)  477-5090

The United Church of Canada's
Webpage:  united-church.ca

Worship and Sunday School take place on Sunday morning at 11:00 am. We are wheelchair accessible and have lots of free parking! 

Mission Statement

St. Paul's United Church is a welcoming, caring Christian community of faith and love.  As a congregation we strive to live God-inspired lives through worship, spiritual growth, stewardship, and outreach

       …OF GARDENERS AND GARDEN PARTIES
                              by Carolyn Mont
 
I just had a walk through my garden and saw wonderful growth since we have had a few hot, sunny days.  I take great pleasure in both the flowers and the vegetables I grow in my garden but what pleases me most is the opportunity to chat with my neighbours or unknown passersby.  We seem to be so busy, or at least on a different schedule from the people around us that we don’t have the contact with our neighbours that we used to.  If, however, we are outdoors watering, weeding, planting or just admiring, opportunities to chat are likely to occur.
 
For those who don’t have a garden or a yard in which to garden, there are always community gardens.  At St. Paul’s United Church, we are home to the John Umlah Community Garden and a diverse community it is.  We have a number of gardeners who have been with us for many years but every year, there is a bit of a turnover and this always leads to interesting new techniques in gardening and exposure to different crops.
 
It seems to me that a characteristic of a true gardener is ta willingness to share.  How many times have you heard gardeners say, “As soon as it finishes blooming…”, or “Come back in the spring when I can split this and I will happily give you a piece”?  Well, at our garden, that may also mean an offer of a vegetable that is new, such as mustard greens grown by the immigrants from Bhutan, by way of Nepal.  The rest of the gardeners are amazed at the work these immigrants put into their gardens and are then delighted with the generous offers to sample new things. 
 
For many years, we have had an Annual Garden Tea and Silent Auction at St. Paul’s garden.  We have two reasons for doing this.  Of course, we want to raise money (the Tea costs $10.00 for adults and $5.00 for children and lots of sandwiches and homemade sweets are served).  It is, however, just as important to us to have the community  see our beautiful garden and have a chance to walk through it, led on a tour by one of the gardeners.  
 
I was interested to attend the Annual Garden Party hosted by the Lieutenant Governor at Government House this spring.  Even though it was a very cold day, the event was well attended.  I found myself comparing it with our Garden Tea and found that we came out looking very good.  They had live music, as do we; Marjorie Willison has generously offered to play her lyre at our event.  They have good food as do we; ours is all home made and even served to our guests rather than having them stand in line for it.  They had a few seats; we have seating for almost all of our guests.  Many of their guests chose to wear fancy dress and hats but many chose to dress casually; the same will be true at St. Paul’s.  On top of that, we have  a Silent Auction with some lovely items, many donated by local businesses and also a bake sale.  It is strange but true that we often feel that because something is in our home town, it isn’t as good as something from outside our local area but that certainly is not true of these Garden Tea Parties.  Both are lovely summer events, open to both men and women.
 
If the weather is not in our favour, we will have the event in the church hall.  Please note the date and time;  Tuesday, July 9, 4:00pm to 6:00pm.  Several months ago, I had given a different date so please be sure to check your calendar.  As usual, we would prefer people purchase tickets ahead of time, or at least reserve them so we know how many people to prepare for.  See you in the garden….