New York Avenue Presbyterian Church - Ministries in The City

Ministries in The City

The 1960s and 70s saw the creation of several ministries— for Washington, DC’s junior high and high school students as well as the homeless, the mentally ill, and the hungry—that continue still. Some 1,200 people come to the building on a weekly basis for a wide range of purposes—to meet with a tutor in Community Club or a social worker at the McClendon Center, receive a cup of coffee or an article of needed clothing through the Radcliffe Room ministry for the homeless, attend one of a number of AA meetings, sing in the Gay Men’s Chorus, or worship with one of the four congregations the church hosts. New York Avenue’s current pastor and head of staff, the Rev. Roger J. Gench, and members of the congregation also serve directly in the community as active participants in the Washington Interfaith Network (WIN), a broad-based, multi-racial, multi-faith, and non-partisan citizens’ organization of local congregations and associations committed to training and developing neighborhood leaders, addressing community issues, and holding elected and corporate officials accountable.

The church also extends beyond the boundaries of the metro region and the nation in many ways, but particularly through support—financial and otherwise—for a program for orphans sponsored by the Presbyterian Church in Njoro, Kenya, and a partnership with First Presbyterian-Reformed Church of Havana, Cuba. For several years, First Havana and New York Avenue’s congregations have reached out to one another, developing friendships and, more recently as downtown churches in capital cities, intentionally modeling reconciliation for their respective nations.

New York Avenue is a church that continuously strives to discern the role it is called to play in and from its building on this corner of Washington, DC. This is a church that is reformed and always reforming, and this place of worship and service reflects that longstanding tradition. Rev. Gench has served as pastor and head of staff since 2002. He was formerly senior minister of Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Maryland. Rev. Gench's wife, Frances Taylor Gench, is a nationally known Biblical scholar and faculty member at Union Theological Seminary & Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Virginia.

In January 2010, the church inaugurated a new, 3-manual, 63-rank Schlueter pipe organ, with the dedicatory concert performed by virtuoso organist Douglas Major. Coordinates: 38°54′0.13″N 77°1′51.53″W / 38.9000361°N 77.0309806°W / 38.9000361; -77.0309806