Ordained a deacon on June 23, 1893, two months before his father's death in Wytheville, W.A.R. Goodwin was ordained a priest on July 1, 1894, and served St. John's Church in Petersburg for a decade, during which time the building was rebuilt. Goodwin also taught at the nearby Bishop Payne Divinity School, preventing its absorption into Howard University in Washington D.C. and securing acceptance of its curriculum within the Episcopal Church (in the 1960s it was relocated to Virginia Theology Seminary's main campus in Alexandria).