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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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Ripped from the Headlines

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03.24.19

Ripped from the Headlines

Ripped from the Headlines

Series: Lent

Speaker: The Rev'd Emily Griffin

Why do we suffer? Both Jesus and Paul take a crack at this in today’s readings and reach different conclusions. This is part of why I love the Bible. What some call maddening I call “realistic complexity.” We almost never hear one side of a story. There are so many voices from different perspectives and ages; within the Bible itself we’re often given ways to wrestle with it – once we allow it a big enough frame and let the voices speak to each other. For me, that’s part of what God-breathed inspiration looks like.

In today’s Gospel from Luke, Jesus’ listeners do what many of us wish we could do. They hand him that day’s headlines and ask why. Why this terrorist attack, why that hurricane – or in this case, why this lethal abuse of power? A group of Jesus’ peers, fellow Galileans, were offering their sacrifices - they were at worship - when they were senselessly slaughtered by Pilate’s death squad. How could a good God allow that to happen?

Jesus knew what they suspected – that it was somehow the Galileans’ fault. A world in which violence can happen to anyone anywhere at any time was too frightening to contemplate. They must be reaping what they’ve sown. It was the only way Jesus’ listeners could make sense of it. Otherwise, the bad guys won. We can’t live in a world like that. If that kind of violence is somehow under our control, then we can prevent it from happening to us and the people we love. Better to blame the victim, they thought, than to accept a world where evil just wins.

            To be fair, his listeners came by this way of thinking honestly. It was part of their faith. One of the louder voices in Scripture is that of the Deuteronomist – where God works by rewarding good and punishing evil. There are times when we need to hear this, when we need to remember that evil won’t stand forever. In this worldview, if you want good things to happen, be good yourself. If not, well, prepare to suffer the consequences. Or to say it more bluntly, grow up. Take responsibility. Stop blaming God for everything. Don’t think your membership in the people of God gives you a blank check for doing whatever you like. If you can’t see how your actions are hurting others, then God might let you hurt until you’re ready to cry “mercy,” repent and start again.

That’s where Paul is coming from in today’s reading from 1st Corinthians. Idolatry and sexual immorality were tearing up this community. The people’s divided loyalties were destroying trust; they were leaving shattered relationships in their wake, so Paul tries here to scare his parishioners straight. In so doing, he oversells his point. In warning them to turn again to God before they do more damage, he ends up portraying God as an insecure, homicidal tyrant. Passages like this are part of why the Old Testament gets a bad rap. According to Paul, those who died in the wilderness so suddenly and unexpectedly were meant to serve as examples for us, to instruct us on how we should or shouldn’t behave.

I don’t know how else to say this. He’s wrong on this one. I don’t care if these stories didn’t actually happen the way the text says they did, whether or not the numbers were exaggerated to make a point. God does not use us as object lessons; God doesn’t use us as objects, period. No human life is disposable in God’s eyes, ever. We might learn something from others’ struggles, sure, but their suffering or death is never simply a means to that end.

That being said, Paul’s not entirely wrong either. He’s right about lots of things. He’s right about God’s faithfulness – and about our ability to endure things as a community that we’d never be able to shoulder alone. That “you” in the last verse – about not letting you be tested beyond your strength – in Greek it’s plural. No individual is meant to carry the weight of that verse by themselves. He’s also right in that we are all characters in the same story of God’s love for us. We can’t assume that we are any wiser or holier than our ancestors in the faith. We are subject to the same flaws and vulnerabilities, and neither we nor they have unlimited time to make things right.

That’s part of Jesus’ point in today’s Gospel. Read carefully. Unlike Paul, Jesus does not give an explanation for why others died so suddenly and unexpectedly. He doesn’t tell us why the Galileans were slaughtered or why the tower fell on some but not others. He certainly doesn’t blame the victims for their deaths. Rather, he turns the focus back on his listeners. Do your own work, he says. Repent. Turn again to God. Realign yourself, reorient – do whatever you need to in order to face the right direction while there’s still time to repair what’s broken, because you’re not doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes. The book has not been closed yet on your life; you’re not limited to who you’ve always been. The clock hasn’t run out yet. He doesn’t answer all our questions, but that part still sounds like pretty good news.

            At the same time, Jesus does not deny the possibility that our own lives could end suddenly and unexpectedly. To pretend otherwise would be naïve. This is hard stuff, I know, but if we can’t tell the truth in Lent under the shadow of the cross – then, when can we? Tomorrow isn’t promised to any of us. But the value of a life is not determined by the way it ends. That’s true in Mozambique; it’s true in Nebraska; it’s true in New Zealand, it’s true in the hospitals and streets of our city, and it’s true here. Every human life is unique and invaluable and irreplaceable in God’s eyes, including our own. We can’t count anyone out. Even a barren fig tree can be given another chance.

I like the way today’s Gospel ends. Here Luke gives us a new way to wrestle with another piece of Scripture that’s beyond the bounds of this text. Some of you might know it. In Matthew and Mark, there’s a moment when Jesus, in an apparent moment of orneriness, looks for figs on a tree that’s not in season. When he sees none, he curses the fig tree and moves on. Matthew and Mark are making a different point with that story, and perhaps it is apples and oranges to compare them. But Luke just can’t let it alone. He doesn’t deny that Jesus might have done that at some point, but rather than focusing on a curse – he finds a blessing instead.

He gives us a parable that can find us wherever we are. Maybe we’re the fig tree today, fearful that our time is running out and we haven’t produced enough to make our lives worthwhile. Or perhaps we’re the owner, frustrated that we’ve invested so much in something that hasn’t yet borne fruit. Or we could be the gardener in the middle, shoveling the manure. That’s who I am most days - hoping for a different outcome that I can’t quite see. Regardless, the good news is the same. God isn’t finished with any of us yet. In the silence that follows, I invite you to think of how you might turn again to God this Lent, how you might realign or reorient yourself so that you can grow again and hear all of the voices speaking in Scripture. In the Name of the One who loves us too much to give us just one answer – Amen.