For every organization, be it a business, a charity or a church, planning is essential to success.
As mentioned at St. Alban’s Annual Meeting this spring, your vestry is working on three-year strategic plan that will serve as both an audit of current activities and a roadmap to prioritize future endeavors. With the overarching goals of expanding our parish membership, enhancing their spiritual growth and development, and impacting the community, the plan embraces five main pillars of focus to coordinate our activities within:
- Expand Spiritual Growth and Renewal
- Support Discipleship/Christianity
- Embody Service and Community
- Remain Vibrant and Relevant
- Enhance Christian Education and Learning
When auditing current activities, we looked at a number of factors, including implementation resources (both human and financial) and current parishioner engagement. We took the time to evaluate what we believe St. Albans does well. Which is considerable! We also looked at where we struggle to provide services due to lack of human or financial resources, what our church should keep doing and areas where we believe resources could be redeployed to help us better serve our parishioners and the community.
When looking at future initiatives/ideas, we used a similar lens, focusing on what we believe would deepen our worship, and enhance our spirituality, provide a strong return on investment to strengthen the church financially, increase our engagement in the community and continue to grow in number.
In addition to our Vestry members, we offer special thanks to a working group of St. Alban’s parishioners who have been helpful in providing input on the strategic plan. Members include Vestry members Monique Clark, Debra Becker, and Alison Dilworth, and parishioners Pam Mathes, Mark Deal, and Chuck Blanchard.
Please click here to review the proposed 2023-2025 Strategic Plan. We welcome your feedback as we continue our work of being a vibrant source of faith, hope, renewal to all who engage with us.
Bob Ensinger and Chris Murphy Peck
Co-Chairs, St. Albans Strategic Planning Task Force
On Sunday, May 14 at 4 PM, prominent performer and pedagogue Dr. Kimberly Marshall will present an organ recital program at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Annandale, entitled “Songs and Dances at the Organ.” Part of the 
her words, how to read the Bible from perspectives that are often ignored; for example, from the perspective of the victims of discrimination. The author shows how “standard” readings of the Bible, and interpretation by the dominant culture, are not always acceptable to people on the “margins” of that dominant culture.
We are excited to offer an exploratory journey on the road of awakening our sense of calling as God’s people in our community. Explore the possibilities offered by Verna Dozier through her adept storytelling and study in her empowering book, “The Dream of God.” Verna Dozier was a Washington, DC laywoman who through her books and lectures speaks with love and excitement about “The Dream of God” and what role we have in keeping that dream alive and meaningful. She is known all over the country and throughout the world for her incisive work with lay groups in the church to strengthen their sense of “calling.” In this particular book, Verna Dozier takes a fresh and challenging look at the people of God, their church and our collective journey in asking questions and seeking answers through our faith.