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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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Wanted: Prophets

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01.17.21

Wanted: Prophets

Wanted: Prophets

Speaker: The Rev'd Emily Griffin

It’s not easy being a prophet. We have this way of squeezing our prophets into a single frame – of narrowing their relevance to a sound byte or two – whether it’s Samuel from our first reading saying “Speak, for your servant is listening” or Martin Luther King, Jr. saying “I have a dream.” We use them when they suit our arguments and ignore them when they don’t. When we don’t kill our prophets, we turn them into spiritual superheroes – and tell ourselves that it’s our humility that keeps us from following their lead. Or - we use what we know of their flaws to reduce their legitimate claims on us and so shrink them down to a more manageable size. So, how do we know who is worth listening to – who is worth following?

I suspect that most of the folks we call prophets didn’t start out seeing themselves that way. Calling yourself a prophet is kind of like giving yourself a nickname; it’s not a do-it-yourself kind of thing. Take Samuel, for instance. Despite growing up in the temple, Samuel didn’t know at first that it was the LORD calling him. Knowing about God and knowing God for ourselves are two different things. He needed Eli to tell him what a word from the LORD sounded like. And even after encountering the LORD for himself, Samuel didn’t have the courage at first to share what he’d been told; again, he needed Eli to encourage him. 

Samuel’s fear is easy enough to understand. It’s a hard thing to pronounce a word of judgment on people we love. It should be hard. Eli was a good man after all. He was a kind mentor and a faithful priest. But that didn’t exempt him from judgment. You see, in God’s economy, we don’t ultimately get to keep power that we’ve obtained unjustly. Eli was born into a corrupt system that unjustly privileged some, in this case – him and his sons – while systematically denying those privileges to others. The priesthood was passed down from father to son. Heredity and gender dictated who could represent God to the people. Of course, Eli rebuked his sons for their greed and abuses of power; he wasn’t blind to their faults. He simply couldn’t stop them. When evil is embedded like that – beyond the good intentions of individuals within it – there’s something wrong with the whole system. It can’t and shouldn’t last. 

In pronouncing this word to Eli, Samuel had to realize that his own future was in jeopardy. God was dismantling the only power structure Samuel had ever known. He couldn’t have known it at the time, but he was called to be a prophet in a time of unprecedented transition. 

Over the course of his life, the whole political makeup of his country would change – and he’d play a seminal, unrepeatable role. Both his successes and his shortcomings would be magnified and judged through the lens of self-righteous descendants like us. I don’t envy him. Who really wants that kind of scrutiny, to be held to such high standards?

I’d love to ask Dr. King that question. He embodies what we now think of as a prophet – with all its glories and limitations. I suspect he’d resist the singular superhero we’ve turned him into; he’d want us to remember his mentors like Howard Thurman and Benjamin Mays, his colleagues and fellow organizers, women like Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer who shared his courage but were denied his platform. It couldn’t have been easy for him either – to speak hard truths to people he loved, to a church and a country he loved. In confronting our racism, militarism and apathy over poverty head on, he – like Samuel - pronounced God’s word of judgment on unjust power structures that cannot ultimately last. We who follow him do damage to his dream when we refuse to acknowledge what it will cost us to get there – or the roles we can and must play in making it happen. 

Who are we to follow in the footsteps of prophets like Samuel, like Dr. King? Who are we not to? Today’s psalm reminds us what we’re made of. We are each and every one of us marvelously made by a God who knows us completely and who loves us entirely, and we can’t stop in the work of justice and peace until we all can live fully into that reality – no matter our ethnicity or income or skin color. 

But before we anoint ourselves as prophets, before we claim divine sanction for what we say and do, a few words of caution: First, knowing about God and knowing God for ourselves are not the same thing. We can know the stories, use the words, wave a Jesus flag and still get it horribly wrong. Anyone who uses violence and whiteness to shore up their power is antithetical to the person and work of Jesus. We need mentors like Eli, like Howard Thurman, to help us discern what we’re hearing – to help us face our fears honestly and tell the whole truth, no matter how much it might shake the structures we stand on. 

Second, it’s probably best to start small. If we don’t have the courage to speak the truth in love to the people we love, then it might not be the right time to grab the bullhorn. Integrity begins at home. It was in part because Samuel was willing to speak a hard truth to his mentor Eli that he became known and respected as a prophet. And it was, in part, because Dr. King never stopped loving those whom he critiqued that his voice has carried so far and for so long. 

Finally, we dare not forget the communities that have formed us – as fallible and bound up in privilege as they might be. We see what we see and hear what we hear because we stand on their shoulders. We are who we are, in part, because of them – and we’re just as fallible as they were and are. But by the grace of God, we’re also capable of equal greatness. We might not be the seminal, unrepeatable leaders of our time like Samuel and Dr. King were in theirs – but that does not disqualify us from playing our part. In the Name of the One who knows us too well and loves us too much to exempt us – Amen.