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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.

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Recognizing Grace

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03.01.17

Recognizing Grace

Recognizing Grace

Series: Lent

Speaker: The Rev'd Geoffrey M. St J. Hoare

            Jesus said: “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them.” In a few minutes, Jim/Emily will call us to the observance of a holy Lent by renewing our spiritual practices of self-examination and repentance; prayer, fasting and almsgiving; reading and meditating on Scripture. 

            In the early 1980s an Episcopal order of monks called the Society of St. John the Evangelist opened a satellite house in Durham, North Carolina from their Boston monastery. One of them, Paul Wessinger consented to serve as my spiritual director. One day he gave me a life-changing gift. I was whining about how boring I was finding my prayer times. He listened for a while and then said, “Geoffrey, you are looking for the effects of your prayer in your prayer time. You need to look for the effects of your prayer in your life.” His diagnosis was completely correct.  I was praying mostly in hopes of some kind of powerful or intimate experience of God. But of course, such experiences are by definition gifts of grace. They cannot be conjured or manipulated. Certainly, we can hope for them and recognize how wonderful they are when they are granted, but they are not the point or goal of our prayer or indeed any of our spiritual practices.

            In weeks and months to come we will talk of the core practices of Christian community. These include daily acts of service by which we develop the heart of a servant,  --one who knows the truth that in service we are freed; the practice generosity, an antidote to anxiety as we learn anew that it is  in giving that we receive; and pre-eminently worship by which we are turned to that which is of ultimate worth (--worth-ship--) as we tell and enact the story of what really matters around the table. In and through the regular practice of joining in worship we will find ourselves living with more resilience, more lovingly, more courageously, more generously, more hopefully than we imagined possible. We will learn over time that it is in dying that we know and receive abundant life. 

            In our worship this day, a solemn fast in our tradition, we focus on that part of the story that addresses our own sinfulness, which at root means addressing our own mortality. This is not so much about an accounting of our moral wrongdoings, --although that is not a bad thing—but much more about how much we have come to accept things in ourselves or in the world, actions, states of being that are soul destroying and deathly rather than life-giving for us and for all whom God hath made. Today we recall how the renewing of our practices has been the response of the faithful to sin down the centuries. Those who desire the imposition of ashes will come forward for a strong and visceral reminder of our mortality, a reminder of the consequence of all that is deathly in life, a reminder that we are not the Immortal One. We will beg forgiveness in litany and psalmody and then, once again, as the forgiven community, the first fruits of God’s new creation, we will stand being raised to the new life of grace, just as we were at our baptisms and just as we are each time we make a general confession. In this community of the forgiven we remember the presence of God in our midst marked by the peace which passeth understanding. We remember the old, old story once more and then return to the altar rail, this time for sustenance, --life-giving bread for the journey. This time we do not come to be reminded of our mortality, but to be reminded of the grace that makes for all life; to remember the truth that all life is a gift of the Love that made us for Love. 

            In weeks to come we will begin our worship with contrition and confession, not in order to be gloomy or to feel bad, but rather in order to remember that all that we are and all that we have, --life itself—is dependent on grace, a profound gift of Love. 

            What effect of our practice, done not to be seen by others but as part of our response to that grace we celebrate, --what effect of our practice might we know in days and weeks and years to come. That is for us to discover rather than predict but I expect that in many and varied ways we will find ourselves slowly becoming more the people we were created to be. 

            Max Beerbohm told a story of the happy hypocrite. It involved a low-life ruffian deciding to woo a saintly young woman. In order to do so he started to wear the mask of a saint. She fell in love with him and they married. Some years later his friends from the old days came across him and decided to unmask him and show him to be the fraud that they knew. However, when they tore off his mask they discovered that his face had conformed itself into that of a saint. 

            We might or might not be granted powerful experiences along the way, but we will usually recognize grace with hindsight, perceiving how we have grown as the effect of our spiritual practice, part of our response to the gospel. 

            I offer this in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.