Dec. 26th - Christmas Sunday Service
Dec. 24th - 10pm Christmas Eve Service
Dec. 24th - 8pm Christmas Eve Service
Dec. 24th - 6pm Chrismtas Eve Service
Dec. 24th - 4pm Christmas Eve Family Service
Dec. 19th - 11am Lessons & Carols
Dec. 19th - 9am Lessons and Carols
Dec. 12th - The Peaceful Presence of God Soothes the Anxieties of Man
Dec. 5th - The Lord is Coming. Are you Getting Ready?
Dec. 5th - 9am Service (Handel’s Messiah)
Dec. 5th - Messiah Meditation
What are the marks of a disciple of Jesus? This fall we’ll consider ten marks essential to discipleship in our sermon series, The Everyday Disciple: Following Jesus One Step at a Time. By studying Jesus’ first followers, a vision of discipleship emerges that is both alluring and daunting. But our goal isn’t overnight perfection. Rather, we’ll encourage each other to take just one more step each day towards the call of our Lord, “Follow me.”
We’ve designed a guidebook to help us go deeper during the series. It follows the sermon each week and includes questions, guides for prayer, ways to respond, and resources to go deeper. Hardcopies of the guidebook will be available at all of our services beginning on Sunday, 9/12, so be sure to pick one up while supplies last.
You may also download a printable PDF of the guidebook here.
We hope you’ll use the guide alongside a friend, with your family, or in your small group, to grow as a disciple of Jesus this fall—or perhaps to answer His call for the first time!
Three-Part Mini Sermon Series: July 11-25
Our walk through 1 Peter arrives at the topic of men and women in 1 Peter 3:1-7. The Apostle’s teaching there is built upon God’s Word not just about marriage, but also God’s deep and eternal design for sexuality, human fulfillment, and gender. Church leadership feels these topics are so important that we’ll pause our current sermon series for a three part mini-series this July, Mere Sexuality: God’s Design for Marriage, Fulfillment, & Gender, devoting sermons to the biblical view of marriage (7/11), sex and human fulfillment (7/18), and gender (7/25). These messages touch on the sensitive topics of same sex attraction, gay marriage, singleness, transgenderism and gender dysphoria. We want parishioners to be aware of this as some material may be sensitive for younger children or friends you may invite to church. As always, we aim on Sunday mornings to open the Word of God in faithfulness. And we also follow our Lord’s example, desiring not only clarity in truth, but a spirit of compassion in how we love.
CLICK HERE for the audio message “The Glory of Sharing in Christ’s Sufferings.”
CLICK HERE for the audio message “Shepherding God’s Flock.”
CLICK HERE for the audio message “The City of God in Exile.”
CLICK HERE for the audio message “Keeping the End in Mind.”
Reading: John 12:12-15
Pastor: The Rev. Graedon Zorzi
9 a.m. Traditional Service
11 a.m. Contemporary Service
January 24, 2021
Pastor: Steve Cannizzaro
January 17, 2021
Pastor: Skip Ryan
Reading: Luke 9:28-37 and Exodus 3:1-6
January 10, 2021
Pastor: Steve Cannizzaro
Reading: 1 Thess. 1:1-10
January 3, 2021
Pastor: Steve Cannizzaro
Readings: Luke 2:22-38
December 27, 2020
Pastor: Dean Miller
Readings: James 5:7-20
December 24, 2020
Pastor: Sam Ferguson
Readings: Luke 2:8-20
December 20, 2020
Pastor: Skip Ryan
Readings: Luke 1:26-38
December 13, 2020
Pastor: Sam Ferguson
Readings: John 3:22-30 and Isaiah 9:1-7
November 29, 2020
Pastor: Steve Cannizzaro
Readings: 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 and Mark 13:24-37
See also:
The Reign of Christ the King (click here)
November 22, 2020, Christ the King Sunday
Pastor: Skip Ryan
Text: 1 Corinthians 15:20-28
Together in Christ amid Divisive Times
Eph. 4:1–6; John 17:1–23
Here we introduce the tensions and divisiveness of this moment, consider how it impacts the church, and ask what unity looks like and why it is important at a time such as this. Click here to read the sermon.
Part I. The Nature of the Christ-Community
What is Christian community and how is it different from other communities we may be part of?
A Deeper Community
Eph. 1:1–23; Acts 2:36–37
What community finally determines who you are, what you’re here for, and where you are headed? Which web of relationships exacts the greatest influence upon you? Click here to read the sermon.
A Diverse Community
Eph. 2:11–22; Gen. 12:1–9
Our world is desperately trying to create an inclusive community; how does the Christian Community make possible a richer and real diversity?
Part II. The Habits of the Christ Community
How does the Christian community think and engage uniquely? What are its habits of understanding and acting with the world around it?
A Thinking Community
Eph 4:17–24; Prov. 1:1–5; 4:7; 15:22; 18:13; 20:5; 21:2; 23:12; 25:2; 27:27
Our culture does not teach us to think and understand issues well. Christians know that even our “minds are darkened,” so how do we as a community in Christ think and understand important matters with the mind of Christ?
A Doing Community
Eph. 2:1–10; 2 Cor. 5:16–21
As we understand issues around us in the light of Christ, when and how do we engage them?
Part III. The Love of the Christ-Community
How does our community uniquely love, both each other and the world around us?
A Praying Community
Ezek. 3, Zech. 7, Isa. 50, Luke 9 & 19, 1 Sam. 12
We are called to be people of truth and love. How do we live well during polarized times? In what ways do we seek what is ‘easy’ over what God calls us to?
A Loving Community Part 1: A Humble Love
Matt. 11:25-30; Eph. 4:1-7
Our witness loses integrity if we don’t love one another, so what is the unique energy and manner of how the community loves one another?
A Loving Community Part 2: A Building Up Love
Eph. 4:7-16; John 13:31-35
Our witness loses integrity if we don’t love one another, so what is the unique energy and manner of how the community loves one another?
An Outwardly Loving Community
Eph. 5:1–21; Matt. 5:13–16
Our posture toward the world is bittersweet in that we lament and warn, while also laying down our lives in service; what does this Christ-like love of the world look like?
Dear Church Family,
2020 has been a tough year! A pandemic, race and justice issues, upended social norms, protests and riots, and virtual everything, have made the past six months unexpected to say the least. Thrown into the mix will soon be a presidential election. In the Washington Metro region, the mood can feel tense, tired and a bit divisive.
How should Christians understand and engage a moment like this? We must renew our vision and commitment to the church, the heart of God’s mission for us and the world, for two reasons.
First, when a spirit of division moves about in a nation, it tends to sow seeds of division within the church. The vibrancy and witness of the church, however, issues from her members’ unity and bonds of love. The quality of our life together is part of the witness of the Gospel of Hope that we hold out to a weary world. This fall, for the sake of the world, let’s ponder Paul’s admonition to the Ephesians: “be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3).
Second, you and I need the church. We are not ourselves by ourselves. Webs of relationships shape how we see and understand the world and our role in it. As Christians we are called to be shaped and to understand the world through Christ. In God’s economy of salvation, this shaping and transforming happens within a community of believers nourished by the Holy Spirit. Let’s live into, therefore, this truth: “though many, we are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another” (Rom. 12:5).
Our fall sermon series, Together in Christ amid Divisive Times, aims at renewing our vision and commitment to this community created by Christ. Drawing heavily from the Letter to the Ephesians, we will consider these three aspects of the church: its nature, habits, and love. My prayer for us in these months is not only for a deepened unity around our life in Christ (Eph. 4:3), but a fulfillment of Ephesians 3:10, “that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”
In Christ's Love,
Sam Ferguson, Rector
Some associate The Lord’s Prayer with rote religious tradition. How far from its original intent! Jesus taught this prayer as the path into the burning center of God’s Kingdom. Coming in the middle of Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5–7), The Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9–13) is how disciples engage and enjoy their new life in God and live into His missional purposes here on earth. In praying these words, doctrine becomes life, teaching flows into kingdom.
Over the next five weeks, in our series The Lord and His Prayer: Realizing the Kingdom through Prayer, we will study this prayer, what it means, how we pray and live it, and why it matters for us today.
Three goals excite me as we launch this series. The first has to do with experience: I want God and the realities of God’s Kingdom to become more real to our hearts through this prayer. Through Jesus we become God’s children (John 1:12–13), but it is through prayer, by the working of the Holy Spirit, that we experience our sonship.
The second is about reorientation and engagement: I want us to become reoriented to what God is doing in the world, and increasingly to be His instruments in accomplishing it. Praying “Thy will be done” thrust us into the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom here on earth, reorienting us to see events, happenings, and spiritual things from God’s perspective.
The third is all about rest: Jesus words just prior to The Lord’s Prayer are, “your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matt 6:8). And His words soon after read, “Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For … your heavenly Father knows that you need them all” (Matt 6:31–32). Praying this prayer is our rest.
Our Father, Hallowed Be Thy Name (April 26)
Let His Kingdom Come (May 3)
Give Us This Day Our Bread (May 10)
Forgive Us, as We Forgive (May 17)
Deliver Us from Evil (May 24)
FROM THE RECTOR (Jan. 19, 2020)
Like vines climbing a latticework, our lives are supported and shaped by a few deep truths we cling to. It may be the wisdom of our parents, ideas of a beloved teacher, or the values of a popular ideology we hold to. More common today, we may simply believe in ourselves. Whether we realize it or not, we all live by a creed—some assortment of beliefs that shape the quality and direction of our lives.
Christians face squarely this dynamic between belief (faith) and life. From their earliest days they knew following Jesus meant reshaping life around a new creed. One enduring example of this is the ancient Apostles’ Creed, a succinct articulation of the truest truths according to Jesus Christ. Still recited worldwide, the Creed boldly begins, Credo in Deum (I believe in God).
In our sermon series over the next six weeks, Credo: Truths That Shape a Christian Life, we consider some essential doctrines (truths) of the faith as expressed in the Apostles' Creed (and Nicene Creed, CLICK HERE) by looking at how they arise from Scripture. Whether hearing these truths for the first or thousandth time, please join me these next weeks in asking two questions: What creed am I currently living by? What might life look like if I wholeheartedly believed the truest truths of Christianity?
I Believe in…
FROM THE RECTOR (Feb. 2, 2020)
What is man that you are mindful of him?" -Ps. 8:4
Inscribed across the ancient Greek portico of Apollo’s Temple at Delphi, a timeless maxim reads, "Know thyself." Long before the insights of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, we humans knew we were a knot in need of untangling. And for good reason! Answering who we are is important not only for meeting the woman or man in the mirror, it’s essential for knowing how we should act, interact, hope, love and ultimately find fulfillment.
As we continue our sermon series, Credo: Truths That Shape a Christian Life, we take up the Doctrine of Humanity, asking with Psalm 8, “What is man…?” Christianity requires a biblical view of being human. Scripture opens with God making humanity in His image (Gen 1:26–27) and for our redemption, as the Creed attests, our Lord “came down from heaven … and was made man” (Nicene Creed). Christianity sets forth a story that begins with man’s grandeur, plunges into his misery, then points to his future glory—all under the watchful eye of our Creator. Careful reflection upon the biblical view of humanity has never been more important in this age of confusion.
The modern Western self finds herself stripped of a creator, dislocated from any story with eternal purpose and meaning, and burdened with an unbearable weight of self-actualization. “Know thyself” has morphed into “create thyself.” Issues as far-ranging as justice, sexuality, gender, fulfillment, and hope are now held, not in the wise hands of God, but feeble fingers of man. The Church invites wandering Homo sapiens back home, where the question is not "Who am I?" but "Whose am I?" May The Falls Church Anglican be a place where the Doctrine of Humanity is reclaimed, rearticulated, and esteemed as the good news it is.
Feb. 23, 2020
Feb. 16, 2020
Feb. 9, 2020
Feb. 2, 2020
Jan. 26, 2020
Jan. 19, 2020
Jan. 12, 2020
Jan. 5, 2020
Dec. 29, 2019
Dec. 24, 2019
Dec. 15, 2019
Dec. 8, 2019
Dec. 1, 2019
Introduction
Nov. 24, 2019
Nov. 17, 2019
Nov. 10, 2019
Nov. 3, 2019
Oct. 27, 2019
Oct. 20, 2019
Oct. 13, 2019
Oct. 6, 2019
Sept. 29, 2019
Sept. 22, 2019
Sept. 15, 2019
Introduction video
St. Mark’s Church in Jerusalem, where some believe is on the site of the Upper Room.
John’s sermon from May 19, addressing the reliability and inerrancy of Scripture.
John’s sermon from May 26, his last service as rector.
