DC Church Planting

More DC Church Planting to be Thankful for

Jeffrey Walton on November 23, 2012

In Early October I wrote about how the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area has experienced a boom of newly-planted churches. As part of our prayer time, the IRD staff has been asking for God to bless a new congregation in our area each day.

Throughout October and November, we’ve continued to pray for new congregations, and we keep learning of new ones (don’t see yours? Send me a note). After originally posting a large number in the Virginia suburbs and the District itself, we’ve set our sights on suburban Maryland, and discovered an abundance of activity there, too.

Here are some of the prayer needs we’ve been hearing: “we want to reflect the beautiful diversity of our town,” “we are launching a new youth ministry,” “our needs are exceeding our current space,” “many of our congregants are overcoming a ‘checklist’ religiosity,” “there is lots of transience in the area,” “we are facing a sizable capital campaign,” “we’re looking to hire a new pastor.” Each of these congregations face significant uncertainty in some form, but God seems to be doing amazing things through all of them. It’s something to be thankful for.

As Saint Matthew records in Chapter 9:35-38:

35 And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

Here are some of the congregations (remember, all of these have been planted in the past decade, and most in the past five years):

Arcola Bible Church, Loudoun County, VA
(A plant of Chantilly Bible Church that will serve the booming Dulles South area)

Christ Community Church, Germantown, MD
(A PCA plant of Shady Grove Presbyterian)

Christ the Saviour Anglican Church, Mount Vernon, VA
(Planted by Truro Anglican Church for the Mount Vernon / Fort Belvoir area)

Corpus Christi Catholic Mission, South Riding, VA
(A massive new mission started by St. Stephen’s Parish in Loudoun County)

DC Metro Church, Alexandria, VA
(A non-denominational church already planning to branch out into Fairfax)

Frontline Prince William, Manassas, VA
(A satellite of McLean Bible Church, serving young adults in the western exurbs)

Iglesia Bautista de Hyattsville, MD
(A Southern Baptist plant – interestingly, part of the Virginia conference)

International Ethiopian Evangelical Church, DC
(An Assemblies of God congregation with new “branch churches” in Gaithersburg, Alexandria, Dulles and Woodbridge).

McLean Bible Church Montgomery County Campus, Bethesda, MD
(A satellite congregation of the Fairfax County, Virginia megachurch)

Mosaic Community Church, Silver Spring, MD
(A brand new Presbyterian Church in America plant)

National Community Church, Ballston, VA
(A Virginia satellite campus of the large Assemblies of God congregation on Capitol Hill)

National Community Church, Barracks Row, DC
(The Eastern Market campus of the large Assemblies of God congregation)

National Community Church, Gala Theater, DC
(A Columbia Heights satellite campus of the large Assemblies of God congregation)

New Leaf Church, Hyattsville, MD
(A Nazarene congregation)

Redemption Hill, DC
(an Evangelical Free Church on Capitol Hill)

Reston Community Church, VA
(Part of the Acts 29 network)

Restore Community Church, Sterling, VA
(Planted by an interesting group called the Virginia Evangelizing Fellowship)

Saint Gregory the Great Orthodox Church, DC
(An Antiochian Orthodox Western Rite congregation)

Saint Katharine Drexel Catholic Mission, Bull Run, VA
(Another large mission begun in northern Prince William County)

  1. Comment by Chayne Caulfield on December 31, 2013 at 5:33 pm

    Thank you for your prayers and highlighting church planting activity in the DC area! Just a note, Arcola Bible Church continues to grow and has a website: http://www.arcolabible.org.

  2. Comment by Jeffrey Walton on January 2, 2014 at 11:31 am

    Thanks for the note, Chayne — I have updated the Arcola link accordingly. God bless your church’s ministry in Loudoun County.

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