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Capital Community Church’s Praise and Worship Team performs.

Dennis Pisani took to the auditorium stage at Stuart-Hobson Middle School on a mid-August Sunday, wearing jeans and an untucked button-up shirt with open cuffs. Pisani’s outfit suggested a man at ease, but he was busy with work.

With a mix of humor and seriousness, Pastor Pisani delivered a message with upbeat music and short video clips to the diverse congregation of the Capital City Church.

The church has come a long way since Pisani and his wife, Donna Pisani, who co-pastors with him, started it in 1992. For years, a small but dedicated congregation attended the church services held across the city in rented space at hotels.

The move to Stuart-Hobson has provided some sense of permanence and a tie to Capitol Hill, allowing the church to grow to more than 250 members.

Staying up on the Hill
In an ideal world, Capital City Church would have a building of its own to call home, Executive Pastor Harrison Wilder said. That goal is not the most important thing to the church, though.

“We really love the relationship with our school,” Wilder said. “We want to be in the area where we already have community. A lot of churches, they start in the city, and then they move out to the suburbs when they get big. We don’t feel like that’s our mission. We’re supposed to be here.”

Renting space in a school requires a bit of extra legwork, as the church needs to set up and tear down its used space each week. However, finding a comparable-sized location to use in the neighborhood would be pretty difficult, Wilder acknowledged.

“And the school is our main point of connection with the community right now,” he said.

Since moving in, Capital City Church members have worked with the school to improve the facility – adding lighting and sound equipment to the auditorium, putting on a fashion show to raise money, and sending volunteers to help tutor and mentor the students.

Something for Everyone
One of Capital City Church’s primary goals is to be a good fit for everyone interested in attending. In that vein, the church offers a wide range of group activities – everything from a softball team to youth group retreats and a separate church service for deaf members – to draw in the largest possible crowd.

Young and old, married and single, the members of Capital City Church say the diversity within the congregation is a major reason why they started attending in the first place.

Dan and Christina Brady have lived in DC off and on for a while and moved back to the city about two years ago. At that time, they found the church and became members.

“It’s a pretty easy place to come into. They’re very good at plugging you into what you want to do,” Dan said.

Christina has a unique perspective on the church. Her father is the pastor at an Italian Pentecostal church in Philadelphia. Until her father took the reins, church services were in Italian.

“I often feel like churches aren’t always that accepting of everyone,” she said, describing what keeps her interested in Capital City.

“This is a church you can be imperfect in, and that’s OK,” Dan added.

Paul Ahn, a realtor and George Washington University graduate student, has attended the church since moving here from Long Island, New York, about eight years ago.

“I think there’s a church that fits your DNA … And I love the music, but I’m kind of biased,” he said, shortly after acknowledging that he plays keyboard in the church band.

Ahn said the church has thrived on the Hill in large part because of its ability to reach everyone in the community.

“I think if we can’t connect with young people or any group, it kind of defeats the purpose of a church. A church should be for everyone.”

‘The most important thing’
The energy and youthfulness of Capital City Church was a main factor in attracting Wilder and his wife Eileen to the church in 2000. Both students at George Washington University at the time, Eileen and Harrison finished up school and worked elsewhere before both ended up with jobs at the church. Eileen is the worship pastor, leading the band during service.

“We both kind of realized that this was the most important thing in our lives. Everything else was secondary,” Harrison Wilder said.

The church’s sense of community has made DC their homes, he said. He is originally from South Carolina, and Eileen grew up on Long Island, New York.