This is my search section here
  • Welcome
  • Service Times
  • Directions
  • What to Expect
  • For Your Kids
  • The Episcopal Church
Close X

Welcome

Welcome to St. Alban’s Church! Every Sunday, and most days in between, people gather in this place to worship, to learn, to grow, to share the joys and struggles of our lives, and to seek God’s grace in the midst of our lives. We do not come because we have it all figured out, but because we are seeking light on the way. We come as we are and welcome one another.

On this website, you can find information about our worship, our classes for people of all ages, membership at St. Alban's, and about how we seek to make a difference in this world. We warmly encourage you to join us for a Sunday service or for some of the many other events that happen here. You belong at St. Alban’s.

Please fill out this welcome form to connect with us.

Contact us with any questions. Call (202) 363-8286 or email the church office.

 

Service Times 

Weekly In-person Sunday Service Schedule (Please note: Service times may be changed during the seasons of Christmas and Lent and during the summer. Please refer to our calendar to confirm the times.):

8 a.m. (English) in the Church
9 a.m. (English) in the Church
11:15 a.m. (English) in the Church
11:15 a.m. (Spanish) in Nourse Hall (same building as the Church)

Communion in one kind (i.e. wafers) will be offered at the main altar, although we will happily bring communion to those for whom steps are challenging. 

Weekly Live Sunday Services are live-streamed on our Youtube channel (St. Alban's DC) at 9 a.m. every Sunday, as is our Spanish service at 11:15 a.m. 

Evening Prayer Thursdays, 5:30 p.m. via Zoom, join us for a time of reflection and sharing at the close of your busy day. Contact Paul Brewster for the link. 

 

Directions

St. Alban’s Episcopal Church is located next to the Washington National Cathedral at the corner of Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues in the northwest section of the District of Columbia.

From either direction on the north loop of the Capital Beltway/I-495 follow signs for Route 355/Wisconsin Ave south toward DC. St. Alban’s is located on the left just before the intersection of Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues NW. Make a left onto Lych Gate Rd before you reach Massachusetts Ave. As you enter the drive, the church will be on your left and Satterlee Hall and the Rectory on the right. Stay on Lych Gate until it becomes Pilgrim Rd.

From any Virginia main in-bound thoroughfare (George Washington Memorial Parkway, I-395, Route 50, I-66), follow signs to Rosslyn and take the Key Bridge from Rosslyn north across the Potomac River into Georgetown. Go right on M St, left on Wisconsin Ave. St. Alban’s is located on the right just after the intersection of Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues NW. Make a right onto Lych Gate Rd after passing Massachusetts. As you enter the drive, the church will be on your left and Satterlee Hall and the Rectory on the right. Stay on Lych Gate until it becomes Pilgrim Rd.

Parking is available on Pilgrim Road Monday-Friday after 3:30 pm and all day Saturday and Sunday. Parking is also available in the Cathedral’s underground garage for a fee Monday- Saturday and for free on Sunday.  You may also park on neighborhood streets according to DC parking signs.

What to Expect

Visiting a church for the first time can be a bit daunting. So we have tried to put together the answers to some of the questions you’re likely to have and to ensure that you find a warm welcome here. Click on the questions to learn more.)

How do you worship?

What time are services on Sunday morning?

How long do services last?

Where can I park?

Do you offer programs for children?

What should I wear?

Do you have provisions for the differently-abled?

For Your Kids

Children’s Ministry

At St. Alban’s, we believe that a child’s spiritual growth is just as important as their physical and intellectual growth. Our goal is to help children name and value the presence and love of God in their lives. We do this through a variety of means – by providing stable and consistent adult mentors, encouraging strong peer relationships, and supporting parents in their families’ faith lives at home.

Worship: This Fall, Children's Chapel meets during the first half of the 9:00 a.m. service in Nourse Hall (a spacious parish hall in the same building as the main worship space.) Kids and families join "big church" at the Peace so everyone can receive Communion together. To learn more, contact the Rev’d Emily Griffin.

Education: We've resumed our formation programs for the 2022-2023 period. Here’s everything you need to know:

  • Sunday School and Youth Group Classes are from 10:15 to 11:05 a.m.
  • Nursery, 2s & 3s, PreK to 1st Grade, 2nd to 3rd Grade, and 4th to 6th Grade all meet upstairs in Satterlee Hall. Youth classes meet downstairs in Satterlee Hall.
  • If you haven’t registered your child or teen yet, it’s not too late. Register in person at the start of class or click here

Questions? For children, contact the Rev’d Emily Griffin at . For youth, contact the Rev’d Yoimel González Hernández at .

Learn more about Children's Ministries
Youth Ministry

Four teen groups participate in formation classes at St. Alban’s on Sunday mornings. We use the nationally recognized Episcopal curriculum “Journey to Adulthood," or J2A. J2A has two guiding principles: 1) Manhood and womanhood are gifts of God; and 2) Adulthood must be earned. This is a strong program with over 50 youth participating, many of whom engage in a wide variety of ministries at St. Alban’s. Two or three adults mentor each of the groups for two years, sharing their own faith journeys and forming strong bonds of fellowship with the participants.Learn more about Youth Ministries

The Episcopal Church

As Episcopalians, we follow Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. We believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe God is active in our everyday lives through the power of the Holy Spirit.  

The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and with each other in Christ. The Church pursues its mission as it prays and worships, proclaims the gospel, and promotes justice, peace and love. The Church carries out its mission through the ministry of all of its members.

We uphold the Bible and worship with the Book of Common Prayer. We believe the Holy Scriptures are the revealed Word of God. In worship we unite ourselves with one another to acknowledge the holiness of God, to hear God's Word, to offer prayer and praise, and to celebrate the Sacraments. The Celebration of Holy Eucharist is the central act of worship in accordance with Jesus' command to His disciples. Holy Communion may be received by all baptized Christians, not only members of the Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal Church is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion with 70 million members in 165 countries.  The word "Episcopal" refers to government by bishops. The historic episcopate continues the work of the first apostles in the Church, guarding the faith, unity and discipline of the Church. Both men and women, including those who are married, are eligible for ordination as deacons, priests and bishops. 

We strive to love our neighbors as ourselves and respect the dignity of every person. We welcome all to find a spiritual home in the Episcopal Church.

I'm New
St. Alban's
Header Image

Holy Monday

Filter By:
03.21.16

Holy Monday

    Holy Monday

    Series: Lent

    Speaker: The Rev. Matthew Hanisian

    The Reverend Matthew Hanisian
    Monday in Holy Week
    March 21, 2016
    John 12:1-11 

    This story from John’s gospel tonight also occurs in both Matthew and Luke’s gospels, and we hear this same story every Holy Week on Monday, so I would guess that we are pretty familiar with the story.  Jesus comes to dinner, Martha does what she does—she serves; Lazarus does what he does, he’s still alive; Judas does what he does: reacts like probably most of us would at what the dark horse-star of the show, Mary does.  And Jesus, well, Jesus is always the star and always giving us challenging words and ways to view our lives.  

    Now, Mary does an unthinkable thing. She dumps a pound of this incredibly aromatic perfume on Jesus’ feet.  She does an extravagant and costly and beautiful thing.  And that’s great.  The spotlight shines on her brightly in this passage—and something tells me Mary liked being the center of attention.  

    But ohhhh, we are IN times that are out of character, out of the norm in this story let’s not forget.   The cast of characters alone is enough to let you know this is not normal ho-hum gathering. 

    We’ve got Lazarus—the once-I-was-dead, now-I’m-alive guy—is there.

    AND, we’ve got The Son of God showing up and a dinner party being thrown.  And, crowds of people show up.  AND, Mary makes the whole place stink with the incredible amount of perfume that gets dumped on Jesus’ feet.   

    This is not an average or normal evening in sleepy little Bethany. 

    But, if you take Mary and Jesus out of the picture then who is the one that’s extravagant and hard-to-believe and all the rest?  Lazarus.  Lazarus is, for my money, the MOST out of character of the whole bunch.  

    But, lets stay with Lazarus for a moment. Jesus comes to the dinner party at his house—Lazarus is the host.  And, we learn that he sits at table with Jesus. So he wasn’t bed-ridden from his ordeal of being dead and being raised back to new life, he is alive and able to join them at the party.  And, it seems, he had a bit of a cult following, or at least a bit like a circus freak, was a curiosity to be seen.  And when word gets round that BOTH Jesus AND Lazarus are together in one place, the large crowd comes a-runnin’. 

    Lazarus isn’t just a sideshow, however.  Lazarus is so much of an issue that the powers of the day also plan to put him to death.  They feel their positions of power threatened by him and the only solution they can think of is to execute him.  How very much like the powers of the world.  

    But who could blame them really?  Every time Lazarus came out of his house, every time he spoke, every day his eyes opened and he awoke from sleep, he was a living rebuke to the powers of fear, might, and commerce.   The word commerce should be noted for it’s particularity here:  commerce that says things have a cost, there is a transaction—to get what we want we have to pay.  Notice how much Lazarus had to pay to receive the love of Jesus that brought him back from the dead.  Nothing.  But before you go and say he had to give his life in order to be brought back from the dead, you’ll remember that he was sick and died and would have done so anyway, had not the love and power of Jesus changed what was clearly inevitable anyway.  

    As we come to the second Holy Day of Holy Week I’ll offer a bit of a challenge to us:  notice how you feel and act.  Notice how others around you act and what motivates them to act in the ways they do.   Over the course of this week, try to look more deeply into where the powers of the world act in fear…and where they act in love.  

    Notice how Judas looks at Mary’s actions with judgment and condemnation without trying to understand the “why” behind what she does.  Notice that the powers of the world, and even the powers that are at work in our lives act mostly out of fear.  Notice where people feel threatened and the actions they take, the words they say. 

    I am convinced that in our lives, our actions are motivated more out of fear then out of love.  When we operate from the place of, “what’s in it for me,” rather than the place of “what can I give, what do others need,” we are living into the same mode of operations that says, “yeah…and we should kill Lazarus, too.”  

    However, on the flip side of that same coin, notice where people feel or show love.  Notice when they act out of compassion. Notice their actions, their words.  Notice when you feel your heart tugged, or when you know what the just and right thing to do is…and you do it. 

    When we act in love and we seek first to give rather than to take, we are truly inviting the God who raised Lazarus from the dead into our midst. 

    AMEN.