In Search of Growth
Suffused throughout the life of Christ Church is a fundamental intentionality regarding community and connection.
In a city as transient as Washington, D.C., it can be difficult to forge relationships beyond political tribes. “Washington, D.C., is one of the loneliest cities in the country,” said the Rev. Nathan Huddleston, associate rector of Christ Church, Georgetown. “Every four years there is a massive cultural change, with people departing or arriving on the coattails of the new administration.
“While people today can find ‘inspiration’ anywhere, from politics to sermons on YouTube, what is scarce is community — deep-rooted relationships,” Huddleston said.
“And yet,” said Christ Church’s rector, the Rev. Timothy A.R. Cole, “the number one reason our parishioners say they come to Christ Church is for our vibrant and active community.”
It is not difficult to see why. Suffused throughout the life of Christ Church is a fundamental intentionality regarding community and connection. “It is as simple as this,” Huddleston said. “First we play together, then we pray together, then we serve together.”
This is reflected in the numerous social gatherings on offer for the Christ Church community: happy hour, tailgating, skeet-shooting, bourbon-tasting, flag football, progressive diners, Scottish country dancing, and a ski trip.
“It is all about offering people an on-ramp,” Huddleston said. “It can be a little intimidating to just show up at a church for a first time. Therefore, it is our hope that those initially attracted to our parish, or invited by a parishioner for a social event, will stay, or at least develop an interest in the other things our parish has to offer.”
Christ Church’s outreach work includes multiple robust feeding ministries, refugee resettlement, a food pantry, and over 13 small groups. “It is easy to invite your friend to a happy hour,” Huddleston said. “Our hope is that from there it will be easier to invite them to the Advent Bible study, and then to volunteer at the food pantry.”
The social calendar of Christ Church is not merely a calculated casting of the net. “Each new member of our church represents a one-on-one conversation, call, coffee, or lunch,” Huddleston said. “We do not have a systematized new member playbook. That would be like trying to straitjacket the Holy Spirit.”
Like a fraternity, Christ Church invites newcomers to join a sort of pledge class — replete with camaraderie and steps of initiation drawn from the prayer book’s Baptismal Covenant.
“We are a people of liturgy,” Huddleston said. “Therefore, it makes sense to us there must be a process to join. People need to know how to enter your organization.” Newcomer initiation at Christ Church culminates with a special Induction Sunday service, which celebrates new members before the entire congregation.
And lately, Induction Sunday is seeing more and more inductees. Last fall, 48 people were welcomed into the congregation of Christ Church. The year before, the church welcomed over 60 new members, of whom over 85 percent were in their 20s and 30s.
“Youth have also been an area of growth,” Huddleston said. “We now have over 66 children in our Sunday school program, not to mention a nursery overflowing with babies.” Membership in the parish has increased by 400 — just over a third — in the last four years, and Sunday attendance has grown steadily since the end of the pandemic.
“This sort of growth does take time,” said Cole, who has served as rector since 2016. “But over time the stone begins to roll down the hill much faster.”
This roll is far from aimless, however. “Christ Church has a fundamental understanding of itself,” Huddleston said. “We are not wishy-washy, but rather unapologetically Episcopalian.” Worship at Christ Church is thoroughly grounded in the prayer book. “In an ephemeral, changing world, made most apparent in a city like D.C., the tradition of the liturgy draws people in.”
Like at many other urban parishes, Choral Evensong, held every other week for most of the year at Christ Church, is a missional ministry, often drawing people of differing or no faith through the doors. Once inside, many are comforted by the apolitical balm of the parish in an otherwise murky sea of political division. “We try to leave politics at the door,” Huddleston said. “We are about a mile from the White House. We are going to have worshipers from both sides of the aisle.”
The object at Christ Church is figuring out “how we engage the world without nailing Jesus’ colors to one political mast or the other,” Cole said.
“All churches exist on a spectrum between the transcendent and the immanent, and all churches resolve that tension in one place on the spectrum,” Cole said. “Affirmation and repentance: Christ Church tries to be in the middle of that. We are in need of salvation but abide in a deep sense of God’s affirming love.”
Christ Church, Georgetown, is a Living Church Partner.
Weston Curnow, a recent Kansas University graduate, is a student at Duke Divinity School, preparing for ordination in the Diocese of Kansas.
